Food, Vacations, and Good Nights Out

Day 221 (3/24/2017)
Oh. My. Lanta. I've had so much happen in the past few weeks I'm not ever sure where to begin! Let's start with food: breakfast quesadillas, doughnut ice cream, doughnuts, cake, and cookie dough. Since moving to New York I have become so much more adventurous with my food choices and so much more open to trying foods I used to not like. My breakfast quesadilla had thick slices of tomato which would have sent me running in the past -- boy howdy was I sure glad I didn't run. The tortillas were thick and flaky, the tomatoes tasted like tomato jam (ask mama to send you a jar if you've never heard of it). All in all 10/10, thanks Emily for knowing the perfect Mexican Restaurant!
The cake. Oh the cake, darn you Justine for knowing all the delicious bakeries to go to. At 2:00 in the afternoon right after having my amazing quesadilla I had an enormous piece of red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Not only was the cake dense but so was the frosting. Personally the frosting is my favorite part of every cake, so being that there were copious amounts of it, I was happy. Justine and Emily got red velvet and matcha croissants which looked divine.You know me: ice cream, ice cream, ice cream. The best ice cream I've had in a while was from SoftSwerve. I got black sesame ice cream with Reese's Puffs in a chocolate cone. The texture was amazing and the aesthetic was even better.
As many of you have probably heard, edible cookie dough is all the rage right now. DO is an ice cream style cookie dough parlor that serves edible cookie dough by the scoop in a cone, a dish, ice cream sandwich, or even a milkshake. There are a lot of different dough flavors: fluffer nutter, birthday cake, s'mores, etc. I got three scoops and regretted it because I forgot how heavy cookie dough is! I have been strangely obsessed with peanut butter since I moved here so of course I got peanut butter with Reese's Pieces, s'more, and birthday cake. Each dough has a different texture and taste and flavor combo, it was well worth the two hour wait.
In between eating my weight in sugar I finished my second term of college! This term was really hard for me. It started right after I came back fro a trip home and was feeling really down about missing everyone. During this term I also had trouble deciding whether or not to stay in New York or where to go in general. I have decided that Bend is still right for me and I am extremely excited to dedicate my life to health, wellness, and the great outdoors. I have been making time for the gym again which feels great and spring break couldn't have come at a better time -- I've been needing some rest. I love, love, love my life here and the friends I've made and the places I've gotten used to and everything... but I'm very ready to go back to Oregon. I'm going to miss everyone terribly, but life isn't about focusing on what you're missing it's about focusing on where you're going. I'll be very excited to have grass outside my door, the coast an hour away, and my car parked right outside.
Although I'll be excited to return to Oregon in a few months, I've got a big stop along the way -- Costa Rica!! Emily, her friend, and I decided to take a trip to Costa Rica the last weekend in May. I'm beyond excited to travel outside of the country and have my first time be with my best friend. I don't know what Costa Rica will bring, I don't know what we'll do, but once we do it I'll let you know. Two days after we get back from Costa Rica, Emily and I will be going to Gov Ball which in a music festival in NY with an amazinggg lineup from Lorde, to YG, and Schoolboy Q, Flume, A$AP Ferg... Needless to say it'll be a great way to end my time here. I'm sad, apprehensive, and excited for the changes to come.

Birthday Weekend

Day 200 (3/3/2017)
19 seemed so old to me, yet, now that I'm 19 I know I'm still a youngin'. This weekend was amazing and I owe it 100% to my amazing roommate and the friends I've acquired here!
Friday night we went to the frat house as per usual, but I had a ton of fun. Even though the majority of the people I see on Fridays, I only see on Friday's, I strongly consider them close friends. Once a week we're all guaranteed to have a reunion and I look forward to it every day. Fortunately we stay out until roughly 6am every Friday so I was technically able to spend my birthday with like 40 people.
Justine and Emily kept screaming "10 MORE MINUTES" "5 MORE MINUTES" "IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!" Everyone drunkenly sang to me and it seemed like a scene from a low budget movie. I got home around 6 in the morning that day and woke up feeling...... the same as 18.
Emily and I got up and didn't stroll out of the house until around 2:00. It was a beautiful day -- 65 and sunny. Although I loved not spending my birthday in the rain or snow, global warming is real. Any who. We headed down to China Town and got dim sum! It was kind of crazy! It's a ballroom style room with a bunch of 8-seat circle table and these Chinese ladies come around with carts of food calling out what they have. You ask what they have, tell them what you want and they make a mark on this little golf card looking paper. I don't even know what we had, it was a whole lot of different types of dumplings, but they were delicious. Shrimp, pork, veggie, all sorts of dumplings. Also rice balls. Emily loves them, but the regular sized ones are too much for me, the mini ones were perfect.
After our (late) lunch, of course I needed a dessert. If you've ever heard of the show "DC Cupcakes" on TLC, they're a cupcake shop, Georgetown Cupcakes, that have a shop in NYC! They were delicious! I got the cookies and cream -- vanilla cake with Oreo in it with cookies and cream cheese frosting. Emily got birthday vanilla which was vanilla cake with vanilla frosting and sprinkles. I thought "how good can a cupcake get" but man were they good. The cake was semi crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and the frosting was perfectly creamy.
Being the pseudo hippy that I am, I wanted to go see a psychic and get my palms read. All in all the lady told me my future is bright, I love the water, I'll die of old age not sickness, and the next change in my life will be successful.
After the psychic we went and saw "A Cure For Wellness" which in my opinion was a good movie, it just took too long to get to the point. The first two hours are almost completely unrelated to the last 30 minutes, of which has the bulk of the substantial content. Emily will disagree and tell you it was a terrible movie. Tonight we'll be getting doughnuts and seeing Moonlight.
All in all I had a great birthday and now I'm less than two yeas away from 21! God, I'm young. But that's okay, because all anyone else wants is time, but for me, that's all I have.
I've spent the majority of my life planning out each year with finite possibilities. When I was younger I "knew" I was going to move to New York, sell real estate, invest, acquire more money, move upstate, have a big house, etc. -- I had it planned step by step. Then when I moved to New York and wasn't thrilled with it I planned "I'm going to go back to Oregon, go to Bend for school for 3 years, then move to SoCal, get a job in ecotourism or personal fitness, hike a lot, live in a small home, eventually settle into a country home" etc. -- I had it planned out once again step by step. But now, I think I want to stay in New York a while longer. I don't feel like I'm done here and I don't feel like I'm quite ready to give up being Emily's roommate. I don't know what I'll do for a living because I don't want to have this job, I'm not exactly sure where I'll live, what I'll major in, what I'll do after our next lease is up, or even if I'll stay past this June. But. I have options. So many options -- that's the good part.