Astoria and New London

Speaking of seeing old friends, I visited a greta high school friend of mine on Friday evening in Astoria!  For those of you who don't know, Astoria is an area in New York City.  It is cheaper to live there, but still a nice area to live, so a lot of people choose to live there and work in Manhattan.  My cousin lived there before and I had visited his apartment, but I was younger and didn't really explore the area.  When I visited D, my friend, we went out for dinner to a Venezuelan place that specialized in Arepas!

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Arepas are made from a fine corn flour like Masa and are cooked and cut in half.  They are then filled with all sorts of yummy things!

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So they're kind of like a sandwich, but so much better!  I got one with black beans, avocado, and plantains!  Then D's roomy and I shared one with delicious mushrooms!  I'm determined to find a spot like this in Chicago!  I'm sure there is one.  If you know of one, do let me know!

I still don't know how I feel about living in New York City again.  Part of me likes the idea of giving it another go, but another, more insistent part, wants to go somewhere a bit greener and more mountainous with fewer stressed out people.  I hope to explore more of the city again with my friend, though.

I spent the night in her incredibly snuggly bed and enjoyed some tea and breakfast and wonderful catch-up conversation!  I love seeing my old high school friends.  They are still my closest friends after all these years.

My mom wanted to meet me for coffee before my next social engagement, so I drove back to Connecticut and we caught up and chatted about the men in our lives!  It was fun as always.  My mom and I have a wonderfully close relationship.

Then, off to meet an old friend Andrew in New London, CT.  He lives up in New Hampshire, and my mom didn't want me driving that far, for arguable reasons this 24 year old isn't going to get into.  So After many discussions we compromised and sort of met halfway.  He came down and I came up.

New London is a cute town.  An ocean-side spot with lots of stuff near the water and a great natural foods co-op that just made my weekend!  We met there and proceeded to look for food at 4:00PM.  Not too many options.  Everything was either closed, to reopen in an hour, or it was closed for the day! Shops and bakeries and cafes closed at 2PM!?  I'm guessing it is seasonal hours, but who knows.  It was kind of creepy empty too for a Saturday night.  We found an open restaurant, Thai, and just hung out there for a couple of hours and chatted about everything.  It was so nice!  The food was very mild tasting without much flavor, but in small town connecticut you wouldn't necessarily be enjoying the traditional tastes of far away cultures.

Dessert, after much walking around, brought us back to one of the only open places, Fiddleheads, the Co-op.

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They had vegan thumbprint cookies and amazing dark chocolate covered cashews with sea salt! They rocked my socks!  We ended our reunion here over chocolate.  I met Andrew in Switzerland when I was studying there.  We have stayed friends ever since, though we don't have the opportunity to see each other very often.  We share many a silly memory from that time!

Any fun plans to go to new places and see old friends?