worldmegan

Ah ha, he thinks I forgot. No, Matt, bubble tea gets its own post. How about that?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is bubble tea. (Marty apparently already knew what it was. Am I the only person previously unintroduced to bubble tea? Have I been living under a rock, or what?)

While at Easton (...Or perhaps Polaris is not part of Easton?), Matt was kind enough to show me the wonders of bubble tea. I had a pineapple green tea with black tapioca pearls. Man, those tapiocas are something. I have always been a fan of tapioca pudding (at least, the vanilla or rum variations my mother makes), but this was pretty different. I suspect I’m hooked, though, and this is a bad thing because I don’t know of any Youngstown bubble tea installations. Ideas, anyone? (Don’t tell me to move to Columbus, either!)

Let’s see if I can’t squeeze out a basic rundown of my weekend in Columbus, with or without meaningless details.

Serendipity Trek

I hitched a ride with Marty to Columbus early Saturday morning. By some ridiculous coincidence, he had plans in town that almost entirely coincided with mine, which was such a bizarre stroke of luck that I could hardly turn down a ride when I realized neither of my cars would make the three hour drive. I crashed at his place Friday night and we left around 8:15ish – we plugged in my iPod and turned three hours into… something less than three hours. We done good, man.

I sat and read while Marty went into his hotel to check in and find his folks, and Nikki and LJ (her cutie from whom LiveJournal’s nickname was clearly stolen) picked me up shortly thereafter. I locked Marty’s car and we vamoosed. Vamoosen? Hm.

Columbus Couture

We ate at Mongolian Barbeque for lunch. This is the point at which I began forgetting my camera in my bag, or in the car, or at the house. I did this all weekend, so I have, pretty much, nothing to show for the trip. But this particular Columbus Mongolian BBQ was da bomb. It was beautiful. I had some sort of wildly cool shiitake mushroom soy chicken with veggies. Gurgle.

We went home (er, Nikki’s mom’s house in Columbus) for a bit, then headed out to Easton to meet a bunch of very cool dudes and walk all over the mall. Malls. (I’m still not quite sure how Easton works, but wow is it cool.) We ended up ultimately at a rockin’ neo-Chinese (is this right, this ‘neo-Chinese’?) restaurant called Molly Woo’s. My god, the coolness. I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time or money in this restaurant. Besides which, I don’t generally like spicy tuna rolls – but Molly Woo’s spicy ahi was to die for. It was that yummy. Worship this restaurant.

After Molly Woo’s we spent some time at Matt and Alex’s place, then went home to sleep. It was very good. (I stayed in Nikki’s sister’s room, and I slept so very well.)

The next day there was showering and a little bit of working to make sure all was well with the world. Then there was the North Market. I really wish I had pictures of the North Market. Let’s see. Eureka! This place was amazing. I wish I could go there for lunch every day – could it possibly ever get old? I don’t know…

I had some nifty Mediterranean food, a soy yogurt raspberry smoothie, a creme brulee truffle and a buckeye. Oh, and a cup of pear riesling sorbet. Whew. I cannot properly convey the yumminess. You see, I’m not used to gourmet lunches in Youngstown. I eat a lot of brown rice here. Pear riesling sorbet is just… more than I can handle. It tastes… like… pears.

Texas Hold ‘Em, American Football, & Columbus Exodus

After that it was back to Matt’s place for the Superbowl. First they taught me Texas hold ‘em, which is fine, but makes me feel a little bit like an evil person because of the copious amounts of Texas hold ‘em spam that come through any given blog in less than a day. (“Texas hold ‘em” is generally a catch word in my spam filter. Sigh.) And then the game started.

Now, this is me being honest. I have never legitimately watched a football game. I attended high school games socially, but rarely, and I’d never seen a game on television without changing the channel (at least, as long as it was my television). But last night not only did I sit through the game – I got them to explain it to me! It rocked, and now I sort of kind of understand football (in a basic fashion). Er, American football (oops). I also drank at least four cans of cherry Coke (I wasn’t really keeping track). This turned out to be really, really good for the drive home, because Marty had gotten far less sleep than I had. Which was way cool, because Marty’s car is a breeze to drive. It is a great car. And it has a great stereo.

We finally made it back to Marty’s at about four in the AM and promptly passed out. I was back in the office at 9 this morning, but I admit I’ve been something of a zombie. Please call me on it if you notice – it’s worth it to me to know how obvious it is to the rest of the world!

So that’s my weekend, folks. I had an amazing time. I adore meeting new people. Thank you for being so nice, new people whom I met!

Okay, lunch over. Back to work. ;}