My IKEA furniture

So I came to Texas with books, clothes, and technology, but no furniture..so IKEA became my solution!  Perfect for the single person, the person with 638 square feet of house all to herself, the person who likes that Mod look, etc etc

That means..

Another road trip! To get furnishings for the freshly signed-for apt.!!

Arrived at the store in Round Rock, outside TX

Coffee and cookies to celebrate the end of a 6 hr  shopping spree!

Eric helped me assemble my bed when it came at 10pm 3 days later

My supa cool bed!  Complete w/ memory foam matress

Finished table w/ cute mod folding chairs.  I did it myself in 1.5 hrs!

I still have like 5 things to assemble, but for now the bed and table are doing me very well!!

First sights in TX

My modes of transportation.  Gotta love em!

The open road.  Lots of puffy clouds and hills on day 2 through Arkansas and TX

 Finally!!  36 hours after leaving Blacksburg, I arrived in College Station, TX at a super nice mod hotel I got for cheap using Hotwire.  You choose a hotel room based on location and user approval ratings (but blindly in the sense that you don't know what the name of the hotel is).  It def worked for me!   After a hot shower, I came down to the lobby for some refreshment b/c I had zero desire to go anywhere/get lost after the long drive.
I had white zinfandel with my advisor (he hadn't realized I wasn't yet 21 at the time) the first time I came to Texas in March.  I enjoyed a glass of it with a salad.  After 2 days on the road I was craving some fresh veggies like cuh-razy!

Refreshing eats for a totally beat road warrior

 The next day, I went apartment hunting and went to my lab!!  When I pulled up to my building on my bicycle, I found a lovely sticker.  UNCW ECO did some great demonstrations related to the wack Koch Brothers, and I'm glad some students at Texas A&M are aware of them and doing something, too!!

So happy to see this on a pole outside my building!!

I was jazzed to start something new!

 I went right on up to the 9th floor of the Eller Oceanography & Meteorology building, where my new lab is!  The Kessler Lab!  There I found John and my other Kessler lab student friends, Eric and Carrie.  They gave me the warmest of welcomes and a nice mug of tea.

I did a candid camera thing with my advisor, John

 Things I saw on campus within 2 mins of being there:

Shorts and cowboy boots.   I feel like I'm def not in NC anymore

2 kids on Fixys!!  I don't feel like such an alien after all!

Jessica's wedding

Who are these crazy kids?  Jessica, Charlotte, and I, in Central Park last August

I clearly remember where I was when I got a call from Jessica last summer, telling me that Chris, her boyfriend, had proposed.  And she'd accepted.  I was thrilled to hear that the big moment had caught Jess romantically by surprise and also in Bond Park, where I ran with Jess and our other cross country mates throughout high school.

Jess was a stunning bride.  Her wonderful mom is also a very talented dressmaker!

I was so happy to see her!!!

 

The Love Nest was so happy to catch up with each other

I love Jess's family so much!  Daniel's head was cut off the pic b/c he's gotten so tall!

Very fancy dinner!  Weddings are so fun.

Happy table!!

Jess couldn't decide on just 1 cake flavor--so she chose several types!

Her dad drove the cakes all the way from Blue Moon Bakery in Cary!

 My table was served slices of chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream and chocolate icing. MmmmM
I didn't stay at a hotel in Blacksburg..I got to stay with a lovely friend, Dorothy!  She lives way up on a mountain, with cows and a fantastic view!

Can't believe I took this picture!  Or that I was here for 2 nights!!

 The mountain air was so fresh, I could hardly stand it!

Lovely lovey cows!!

 Dorothy and I spent the morning of the wedding watching the Kvitova v. Sharapova Wimbledon match and working on a sewing project.  Dorothy has an iPad too, and she had recently made a little shoulder bag for it.  She said we should make one for me, and we did!  I love it!  Cutting fabric straight is difficult, even with fancy sewing tools.  I'm also very clumsy with needle and thread, but I got a teeny bit better!  Dorothy did all the hard stuff.

Dorothy and I and our sewing project.

 After a lovely breakfast of oatmeal, tea, mango and just-picked blueberries, I was refreshed and as ready as I'd ever be to head out for my 20 hr drive to Texas via Memphis!

My twenty-first birthday

I have moved in to my new place in College Station, TX!  It's been a very productive week and a half for me since my birthday, June the 30th.  I packed up my car and went to Jessica's wedding up in Blacksburg, VA and then drove 20 hrs (in 2 days) to Texas.  I found a nice apartment, moved in, went to IKEA to buy suh-weet Swedish furniture, started in the lab at school, had the furniture delivered, assembled half of it, and began my new social life!  Wow, recounting all that makes me a bit motion-sick.  Good thing I was in the thick of it and didn't realize what was happening!

First:  My birthday.  And what birthday is complete w/o cake.  I still remember being so stoked to pick out an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins for my pool party when I was little.  I almost always had a pool party, it is the perfect time of year for it.  This year was the first time I'd been at home for my birthday and in a nice kitchen with proximity to good ingredients since going away to college. So..
       I decided to try to make my first cheesecake!  I had all the ingredients already plus I knew my mom had a hard-to-come-by spring form pan since I remembered  neighbor friends borrowing it growing up.  Plus cheesecake is so good.  I used silken tofu and Veggie Gourmet "cream" cheese as the base, blended up all smooth, and made a crust with Wasa crackers and GrapeNuts.  

I made a plain vegan cheesecake and garnished it w/ mint and blueberries

Rachel is a cheesecake connoisseur so I had to impress her.

Dad was a fan.  Had to impress him too--he makes renowned desserts.

I liked the cake a lot.  And there were presents to open!

 Mom got a ton--maybe 5 dozen?--of peaches from the farmer's market, many of which she was taking on her and my dad's trip to Illinois.  But there were several ripe ones and I ate several and shared them with the Dressels.  They weren't organic (peaches rarely are b/c they are a pest-ridden crop) but if you smelled 60 of these suckers in your kitchen you wouldn't have cared either. 

Dozens of peaches to eat and share.

 For lunch, Rachel, Sarah, and Amelia took me out to a groovy place in Raleigh--

 It's a really fun place--Murals covering the walls, stuff like little biscuits with wings and groves of sunflowers.. And our waiter was a lovely person.

The 4 Dressel sisters.  What? Only 3?  Nah

It was cool to order a beer w/ lunch!  This was a Guinness w/ a shot of espresso

All smiles.  All the time.

Comp. biscuits w/ a good fruity apple butter.

Peach eating.  Great colors.

 After lunch we went to the NC Museum of Art to see the current Exhibitions.  We perused all of them, including the main one, 30 Americans, which was about defining/undefining african-american artists.

 In the evening after I had put more belongings into my car, we played Scattergories, and drank some Honey Basil (Bison) beer I had purchased at Whole Foods.

The Dressel sisters and I.  Last hurrah!

 My drive would have been totally wretched without this present from the Dressels!!  The 7th Harry Potter book was a little over 20 hours in audio and was so captivating!!!  I hadn't read it since 2007 and had forgotten a lot of the good details.  It made me laugh and cry, and most importantly, distracted me from distancing myself from everyone I know and love. 

Crucial gift!!  Totally homemade.  (Professionally recorded though) :D

:D

      A mid-afternoon thunderstorm is rolling in again, just like yesterday.  I love it..I'm sitting by the bay window in my house and with each rumble it kinda shakes the window and reverberates.  I like the feeling that something outside is happening (besides lots of people popsicles melting in the mid 90F heat).

      I've been back to Cup A Joe in pursuit of more beautiful cup&saucer lattes..gotta love that foam.

Cup A Joe (Hillsborough St, Raleigh) latte

 I went to Cup A on Friday night with Amelia and Rachel before we went to see a movie outside at the NC Museum of Art, part of their Movies on the Lawn series.  They were showing Morning Glories, which we all liked..it had Rachel McAdams (who I saw in the Phoenix airport), Diane Keaton (she's still at it!), and Harrison Ford (him too!).  And because I hadn't had enough of the whole viewing-a-movie-outside-on-a-huge-screen Dad and I went back the next night to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 1.  Part 2 comes out in a few weeks, will prob be the first movie I go to see in College Station w/ my new oceanography dept. pals!

Still reading Wild Sheep Chase

 I got to see my bff Stephen at Carrburritos last night before he went to a show @ the Cats Cradle.  I had the sweet potato burrito b/c A) its awesome and B). because when I was in California Allison told me I had to have one there in her honor before I left NC.   It was super good--and I really enjoyed their salsa verde and salsa fruta.  Hadn't been here in months.

Carrburritos papas burrito w/ their awesome flour chips

Grapefruit mexican soda, delish

      Sooo good to see Stephen (terrible to have to say goodbye again though!) and catch up a bit!!  But that's not all that was great about last night!  I just found out a few days ago that my friend Alex, who I started Yoga Club w/ and grooved to Enya w/ at UNCW, is working in Pittsboro this summer at a summer camp for kids w/ autism.  And he told me he had a surprise..and it turned out that my loooooong time childhood friend, Kendal, works there too--woah woah!  I was stoked to see her b/c we hadn't seen much of eachother at all since high school.  We met at church when we were tiny and were great friends all through high school.  She was my inspiration for joining the high school cross country team, which was the greatest thing eva.

Alex!

Alex, me, and Kendal @ carrburritos

We had great food @ carrburritos then went to Open Eye cafe for coffee and more talk talk talk. :D 

Cave of Forgotten Dreams Thursday

 

  I lounged around at Crema this morning, drinking a latte, having a snack, and reading..just a lovely time..

 

Brought the chocolate chunk banana bread!  And a banana for good measure.  What's that sandwiched in between the banana bread??  No, not peanut butter.  Not a nut butter.  No sunflower seeds either..

It's Biscoff Spread!! Its a spread made out of cookies! What could be better.  It's very popular in parts of Europe apparently.  I'd never really heard of it or tried it; love it.

 I got it at whole foods and have tried it on apples also and it was great, like a caramel apple from the fair.  Except better.  It doesn't have any hydrogenated oils either (b/c Europeans are smart like that).

I made it to The Galaxy this afternoon for a matinee showing of Werner Herzog's latest film, a documentary called Cave of Forgotten Dreams.  Check out the trailer (below)..it is about the discovery of the Chauvet Caves in southern France that contain the oldest paintings ever found b/c the art was uniquely preserved when the cave system was sealed off by rocks.  We're talking old:  Homo sapiens were in here painting perhaps as early as 40,000 B.C.  Craaazy stuff!  There were tons and tons of animals..panthers, mammoths, lions, horses, bison...and neanderthals were still around too!!  It was really moving--I cried towards the end when the footage was scrolling over the walls slowly with choir music in the background and there was a bison that was looking out of the wall (instead of just being a profile flat against the rock face) and it was just such a piercing, intense gaze I couldn't help myself.

And  I finished after the quake (a short story collection) today..you know its a good story when you get shivers at the end.  Murakami can definitely write short stories.  Maybe he was even originally a short story writer.  It is cool to notice common themes, recurring dialogue and word choice in his 3 works I've read now.  I am loving him more and more!  Ready to start getting into A Wild Sheep Chase now..I have 1 week until I have to return it b/c I'm moving to TX!  Yikes

Self portrait @ Crema Coffee