Playing Hooky

I know I know, I'm so rebellious...
...Everytime I say that, I just have to think about the fact that my school mascot is the Rebels, so it's only fitting ;).

Anyways, I technically didn't skip school. My mom had a doctor's appointment in Baltimore and didn't want to go alone, since her pupils were getting dilated and she wasn't sure how well her vision would be afterwards. Since I'm such a wonderful daughter, I made the extremely difficult decision to miss school Thursday to see that she got home safely. As much as I just love going to school every day, family has to look out for each other right? I mean we only had two snow days that week, and God forbid I have to go to school three days in a row. The horror! P.S. We're expecting even more snow next week, so stay tuned for Winter Break Part 6!

Anyways, we woke up at 4:45 in the morning and made our way to the train station. Let me tell you, there are some very interesting people getting off the train in the middle of the night! Anyways, we quickly took our seats in the quiet car for some sleep...only for me to discover that it's impossible for me to sleep in a train. Same with planes, cars, it's a wonder I managed to sleep on our cruise last spring break! Actually, I don't know if it's that I can't sleep in moving transport, or just the fact that once I'm up, I'm up. Even if that's before 5am.

We got to John's Hopkins and my mom's appointment was finished at noon, so we checked our backpacks at some hotel and wandered around Baltimore for a little bit. At some point, the smell of baking bread completely overwhelmed us (and I really do mean overwhelmed-baking bread has to be the best smell in the world!) and we found ourselves across the street from the H&S bakery. Unfortunately the bakery is purely for production, so we couldn't go inside. Instead, we went across the street to the bakery outlet, where I came across none other than Berger cookies.

I had heard about Bergers from Pinterest, the blogger claiming that these cookies (which you can only find in Baltimore) are the best she'd ever had. Eager to see what all the hype was about, my mom and I bought 2 boxes. Oh. My. God. Boy did these babies live up to my expectations! A thin shortbread/sugar cookie, literally drowning in a dense chocolate icing. Actually, it's more like a cross between icing and rich chocolate fudge. Needless to say, these truly are my favorite cookies now! I only wish we'd gotten more boxes...

Anyways, after stopping by Whole Foods to get some goat cheese apparently only sold in Maryland (we're big on exclusive foods in my family), our stomachs started rumbling so we went over to my mom's favorite restaurant in Baltimore-Bertha's.

Bertha's is very...whimsical. It's made up of a few 19th century houses that had been remodeled into a restaurant. You wind through several different rooms and hallways-it's incredibly easy to get lost! The decor is so fun to look at-it seems like they could find somewhere to place anything, no matter how random.

Even if that means turning a tuba into a chandelier. Somehow, though, all these random odds and end work together perfectly! Not to mention the fact that they have a delicious menu...

They're famous for their mussels, imported from Canada, so we each got an order.

They offer all sorts of different dipping sauces, ranging from capers to basil to garlic. However, I've always liked my seafood as plain as possible-I just love the true flavor of the seafood itself, and don't like anything to mask it. So I opted for plain butter, barely using any of it. I guess I'm just boring!

After our delicious late lunch, we tried to wander around the city for a little longer, but the fact that we were running on hardly any sleep soon kicked in, and we stopped in Barnes & Noble to relax a little. 

The Baltimore Barnes & Noble is actually pretty cool! It's built from an old power plant, so massive rusted columns climb up the center of the bookstore.

 

The columns have been hollowed out, and on the inside they've put in some murals of the city's history. 

My favorite photo-the Preakness Stakes!

After flipping through books for a while, I came across this one, which I would have bought if it didn't weigh more than I did!

1001 Ways to Cook Southern...the things I could make with this book! I probably spent upwards of 30 minutes imagining the recipes I could whip up. 

I also came across this quote, and found it very relatable :)

That evening, though, it was time to catch our train and head home after a very eventful day. Still unable to sleep, I resorted to eating Berger cookies and excessively Snapchatting my friends

Get it? From Catching Fire? I was on a train...I had to take advantage of it.

And finally...the answer to the riddle from my last blog post. Just as a refresher, this was the hint:

We're five little items of an everyday sort, you'll find us all in a tennis court.

And the answer is...drumroll...

The vowels! A, E, I, O, and U...all of them are in the phrase "A Tennis Court!" I thought that was pretty clever ;)

Dinner & a Sleepover

This year, I've started to notice somewhat of a pattern. I've made lots of friends and love spending time with them, but every so often there will be a lull and we'll go weeks without doing anything together outside of school. Then, something clicks and we realize just how long we've spent apart, and that brings on a string of constant sleepovers, movies, dinners, and everything else! I go from days of endlessly watching Netflix alone to desperately trying to squeeze in just one more friend into my already packed house. As a girl who loves spending time with friends but also needs her alone time, finding the balance can be pretty hard.

Anyways, lately I've found myself right in the middle of one of these strings of sleepovers, so per usual after school on Friday I piled into a car with 3 friends and headed out!

Our first stop was for frozen yogurt-we all have A-block lunch at 11:34 and school doesn't let out until 3:55, so we were all absolutely starving! No pictures here, since everyone downed theirs in a matter of minutes. We got to my friend Elena's house and did our fair share of small-talk and gossip before playing a few rounds of Just Dance-because what else are you going to do with a bunch of girls on a sugar rush?

Eventually our stomachs started rumbling again, so we opted to go to a local hibachi restaurant for dinner.

If you've never eaten hibachi, you're missing out on a very unique, very fun experience!

Basically, everyone sits around a massive table in a sort of semi-circle shape.

A very funny and friendly chef stands in the middle. He whips up each order individually on the hibachi grill, stopping occasionally to do some tricks with his spatula, flip bites of food into your mouth, and all sorts of other shenanigans! Meanwhile, you get to chow down on some traditional Japanese soup and salad.

Having a cute waiter is always a bonus ;). He kept us entertained with riddles while we waited for our food-kinda dorky, but very fun. We ended up giving him one to solve at the end of the meal...

"We're five little items of an everyday sort, you'll find us all in a tennis court"

I'll put the answer in the next blog post!

Anyways, we quickly gobbled up our food, giggling like little schoolgirls whenever our waiter came by (then again, we are schoolgirls, so we have an excuse).

At the end of the meal he gave each of us these little origami birds! I'd like to think he made them himself-he is in art school after all. After dinner, we posed in front of the restaurant for some obligatory girls-night-out group photos.

We then headed home to watch Mean Girls for the 5,000,000th time. That movie really never gets old. Of course, once we changed into our PJs we just had to take some more obligatory selfies (be warned-there's a lot)

                    

Super sexy...and they all taken within a matter of 30 seconds, which is real talent. We're just that photogenic!

The next week was going to be foreign language week, so the rest of the weekend was dedicated to making my dish for the banquet on Monday. I'm taking French, and I get extra credit if I bring in food native to a French-speaking country, and the same goes to anyone who takes a foreign language. Then we all get to come to school Monday evening and have a proper feast! Foods from German, Spanish, Latin, Chinese, and French speaking countries, I cant wait! 

I have a passion for cooking (I cook dinner every night!) so I wanted to challenge myself for this one. I chose to make Haitian patties. They are a sort of puff-pastry native to Haiti (if you couldn't tell ;)). They are filled with a meat/tomato mixture and are absolutely delicious! They took 2 days to make since I made the puff pastry by hand, and that required a lot of rolling, folding, and chilling the dough! But Sunday afternoon, they were finally pulled out of the oven and man-oh-man were they good!

Don't those look yummy?? I'll be sure to post the recipe soon!

The Point, President's Day

I know I'm just a little late uploading this one, since President's Day was last weekend, but better late than never, right?
...Anyways, usually my county gives us President's Day off. But on account of Snow-mageddon blasting through the east coast (we've only had 7 full days of school in 2014 so far), they decided to take away our beloved 3-day weekend. Then again, we had Thursday and Friday off for snow that week, so technically they just changed our 5-day weekend down to a 4-day. Such a shame.
The thing is that we'd already made plans. We were going to have a family reunion down in North Carolina, and couldn't just cancel it. Therefore I got to miss school Monday regardless, and had a lovely 6-day weekend.

Friday afternoon we picked up my cousin and began our 4-hour drive to Emerald Isle. Usually I can't stand car rides, but for some reason this one wasn't so bad! The sun had finally come out after 2+ weeks of straight clouds, making everyone just a little giddy.

Friday also happened to be Valentine's Day. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be able celebrate much. Usually my mom, sister, and I load up on chocolate, decorate the house with hearts-do something to bring some color to this god-awful winter. But after stopping at Bojangles for a quick snack, we were all incredibly excited to unwrap our food and see this:

In honor of Valentine's Day, Bojangles made these deliciously heart-shaped biscuits! They were delicious, too! After arriving in Emerald Isle we were all a little tired from all that driving (I'm not sure why sitting in a car all day makes you so groggy), so we were treated to some delicious spaghetti before heading to bed.

The next day, some storms hit the island pretty early in the morning, but luckily we were all so tired that we slept straight through them. Something about laying in bed listening to thunder rumbling, waves crashing, and rain hitting the window screens makes you never want to get up! Eventually the rain cleared, and we decided to take a walk just as the last of the rain clouds passed overhead. As we were walking down the beach a small break in the clouds formed, and all of a sudden our little section of sand was illuminated in blinding sunlight, all while surrounded by dark storms. It was surreal-something about it was so mystical that I felt like we were on another planet entirely! I raced back to the cottage to get the camera, but by the time I came back the clouds has closed again. I did manage snap this picture a little later though:

Pretty cool, huh? 

We spent the rest of the morning lounging around watching Netflix and eating mega-stuffed Oreos, until we decided to take a trip down to the Point. The Point is at the northernmost tip of the island, where the beach rounds off at a little...point (hence the name;)). The entrance is nothing special....

But once you get over the hill you're in for an incredible sight 

Nothing but sand for miles-no houses, no people, and the wind was blowing steadily towards the sea. It was amazing, as always!

After a little wandering around, we decided to head back and get ready for dinner at one of the greatest restaurants I've ever been to- Tsunami's. I hope I can go back soon and dedicate an entire post to it, it's that good! Tsunami's is an all-you-can-eat Asian buffet. It's sketchy, it's run-down, the food is questionable, but man oh man is it heavenly. It's essentially a massive room filled with buffet tables piled high with every Chinese or Japanese food you can dream of. They have at least 10 different varieties of sushi, 15 varieties of chicken, there's egg rolls, dumplings, sashimi, and everything in between. They also have a massive salad bar and stir-fry station, where you pile your plate high and hand it to a hibachi chef behind the counter, where they cook it right in front of you! And to top it off, it's only $10 a person! If you're looking for high-end, fine dining from world-renowned chefs, don't go here. But if you want a all new experience of two-star buffet with 5-star food, take a risk and go for it! I haven't gotten food poisoning yet...;)

Everyone loaded up-and by that, I mean someone getting 4 plates was considered eating light. As for me, I lost count after 6. I wish I had pictures, but the food was just too good to photograph, we ate it so fast!

The next day we drove down to Wilmington for a family reunion. I would write more, but honestly that was probably the least-exciting part of the whole vacation, even if it was the whole point for taking it! 

A Birthday Celebration

**Notice: I'm not sure why, but this never got published!!! Keep in mind this took place during November, so no I'm not seeing Catching Fire in January. I saw it opening weekend, like every other teenage girl ;)**

So this week was my 15th birthday...
I love birthdays. Seeing how many people truly care about you, seeing how many people are willing to do something nice for you, it's so incredibly heartwarming! It makes me want to do the same thing for other people, seeing them smile because of you is so great!
My birthday was during the schoolweek, so obviously I wasn't planning on doing anything fun. I mean, now that winter track has started I rarely make it home before 6:30 anyways. Nevertheless, my friends just had to take advantage of an opportunity to bake!

A brownie cake with marshmallow frosting. Um, yes. 

This is just one of the many delicacies I received that day-white chocolate chip and chocolate chip cookies, Oreo and Mexican brownies, all eaten before the day was over! 

But the end of the week, I faced a whole new celebration of calories. 

Carytown Burgers and Fries have by far the best hamburgers I've ever eaten. They're a household name in Richmond- everyone has stopped by once or twice! Carytown is the cute, vintage, hipster district of Richmond. Their businesses are small, local, and packed with personality! This restaurant is no exception. Nestled tightly between two nondescript shops, you'd walk right by it if it weren't for the bright, neon sign and ever-present line of people out the door. 

Since it was 7pm on a Saturday night, of course there was going to be a crowd, so we were fully prepared when we were warned of the 45 minute wait. We'd come all the way out here, there was no turning back! Luckily there was a large collection of coloring pages right by us, which we took full advantage of. Also, we decided to sample the various condiments sitting on our table. 

If you're not a fan of spicy foods, I would recommend staying far, far away from this one! The harmless-looking green tint is entirely too deceptive...

Aside from the condiments, the menu is an enormous list of mouthwatering combinations. My burger of choice is usually the Greek Geek- Tzatziki sauce, feta cheese, roasted red peppers and crushed garlic. But, since this was my birthday dinner, I tried to go for the wildest thing I could find. 

This folks, is the Flying Squirrel. Cheddar cheese, bacon, and peanut butter on Texas Toast. Of course I had to order it. 

I was extremely excited to taste such an unusual combination. It was delicious, but I found that the peanut butter overpowered the other flavors, and I barely tasted the cheddar. Nevertheless, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it! I can't wait to come back to try their other burgers-my next choice will definitely be the "Poncho Villa." Check out their menu if you're interested! 

After we had our fill, it was time to pick up my best friend in the whole world. She'd been off at boarding school for the past few months, but was finally home for Thanksgiving break! So we stopped by her house to steal her away before returning home. 

And then, it was time for cake.

I made it clear that I didn't want a big, elaborate cake for my birthday. There were only 4 people eating it, and the leftovers would just sit on our counter and go stale. So we stopped by the grocery store and picked up this beauty-a triple-chocolate tiger cake, just big enough for 4 people to split! Needless to say, it was delicious. 

And then, because we apparently hadn't had enough fun, it was time for...

Catching Fire!

I've been a huge Hunger Games fan since the 5th grade. I'd read it months before it was "cool," so I had to wait even longer than most for the movies! With the exception of the Hunger Games, all of the other movies come out within 3 days of my birthday every year for the forseable future. We managed to snag two tickets for the 10pm showing. We were both so excited that we showed up at 9:30. Thank goodness we did, because we ended up getting amazing seats! You know the seats that are right in front of that metal bar, so you can put your feet up? Yeah, those were ours. It totally beats last year's seats, which were the very. front. row. 

Anyways, the movie finished up around 12:30, which was perfect for two girls having a sleepover! 

Thanks to everyone for making this birthday so wonderful, see you in 6 months when I get my learners! 

Welcome to the Ice Age

I'm serious, I'm calling BS on global warming.

I've been spending the day catching up on all that's been happening in southern cities such as Atlanta during this freak blizzard. For those of you that don't know, there are people that have been stuck in the worst traffic jam in American history for over sixteen hours. Some people are walking 5+ miles through the snow to get home, others are spending the night on the floor of grocery stores, kids are having to spend the night on buses/at school. There's one woman who delivered a baby in the traffic for goodness sake! I can't even begin to process how completely traumatic this is for so many people. If you want more details on this as well as some pretty surreal pictures, click here to read the article I did.

One of the pictures from the Article-people sleeping on the floor of CVS!

I do have a feeling that people up north are, when you get past how dire this situation is, laughing hysterically right now. I mean this all happened because of 2 inches of snow. It's not like people are getting buried in snowdrifts. But this is the South, and we don't get snow that often. Our cities aren't equipped for weather that happens every once in a blue moon. So when it does, the results can be disastrous. 

A couple years ago a 5.9 magnitude Earthquake hit Richmond, and people lost their minds. I mean seriously, this thing made national headlines. I swear I still have PTSD from it-but in my defense I was 12 years old at my best friend's house and her parents weren't home. We panicked and ran half a mile barefoot to an apartment complex to get help. But regardless, while everyone in Richmond was screaming "The Apocalypse! It's upon us!" I'm sure everyone over on the west coast was sitting there, laughing and going "5.9? You sure it wasn't just a helicopter flying too low?"

But in all seriousness, if there's one good thing that came out of this it's that it showed the true compassion and kindness people have for each other in disasters like this. Opening up their homes and stores for people in need, driving complete strangers to safety, it warms my heart to know how much people look out for one another-and it makes me wish that we could reach out to people like this all the time.

Oh, also, there's another good thing that came out of this (for my city at least). Living in Richmond, we seemed to get the best bargain of all. If we lived any farther north, our city would be so used to winter weather that we wouldn't have been affected at all. If we lived farther south, well, you know by now what would have happened, and my school definitely doesn't seem like a fun place to spend the night. So for us, all we got is 2 weeks worth of snow days (with one day of school that hardly counted), oh and also our MIDTERMS WERE CANCELLED. What are the odds that this happens on the exact week that we were scheduled to take the hardest tests of the semester that also counted for 20% of our grade? Honestly I think it's safe to say that we're some of the luckiest people in the country right now.

This whole experience has been a bunch of mixed emotions, but I hope it teaches us to stick together even when there isn't a natural disaster. Generally be a good person all year round, and hopefully you'll be able to make a difference in people's lives. 

At the Orchard

Two posts in two days...say what?! I know, I know, you can thank me later ;).

Anyways, this was the last football game of the season, so of course everyone had to go. However, we were playing another inner-city school that no one had heard of, it was cold, and it was senior recognition night. That means literally every.single.senior. in the marching band, chorus, and color guard, as well as every player on the football team would get individually introduced and congratulated. If you're a senior, and you know who all of these people are, I'm guessing you would enjoy it since this is your last high school football game ever. But when you're a freshman, all that talking gets pretty boring, so we ended up leaving during the third quarter, in favor of a much more enjoyable venue.

I also discovered that Krispy Kreme donuts, as delicious as they are, somehow taste even better at 11pm after you've been standing on freezing bleachers for 3 hours. Also, if you haven't tried the Pumpkin Spice donuts yet, do.it.now. If you like the old-fashioned donuts from Starbucks, and you like pumpkin, you'll be very happy with these. 

The next day I got up extra-early (not intentionally, but it Daylight Savings Time started and threw me off), and went with two of my friends to Carter Mountain to go apple picking! It's about an hour's drive nearly straight up the side of the mountain. 

In this picture there are guardrails along the edge, but believe me when I say that in about 30 seconds those rails disappeared and the road starting rising straight up. The fact that we essentially risked our lives for some apples says a lot about how delicious they are. Well, we also went for the apple cider and Carter Mountain's world-famous apple cider donuts (I don't have a picture-the four of us gobbled up an entire dozen of them before I could get my camera out!). We sat down at the picnic tables and struggled to keep our hair down in the freezing wind as we sipped our apple cider and ate our donuts. Sitting at the top of that mountain, the view of the valley beneath us nearly took our breath away. 

After we'd had our fill of the view (and the food), we hiked up to the orchards. We headed straight for my favorite apples, fuji! Luckily this section of the orchard had just been opened up for the season, so we practically got first pick. 

After we'd picked more apples than we could carry, I bought another half-dozen donuts to take home for my family (I ended up eating most of them ;)), and we headed on home. There's just nothing better than apple picking in the fall!