Downtown

After working from home for the past days, Fro finally took the day off from work. No need to look for coffee shops where he can work while we're out...yey! We had a pretty full day ahead which started at Downtown Minneapolis - literally my home when I was working here.

There's just something with Downtown that I love so much. Nostalgia swept over me as we drove nearer and as I saw downtown's skyline, it really felt like going back home. When Chuck heard that I'll be in town, he sent me a message to meet up for lunch and that's exactly why we're here.

We picked him up at the office and headed to Sawatdee at Washington for lunch. I love Thai food so I was really looking forward to this. Chuck and Fro pretty much knew what to order without even looking at the menu so I trusted them and just requested not to make it too spicy. There was just so much food between the 3 of us! I personally loved the fresh spring rolls and that pork dish with the potatoes and curry thing. Yum! There were plenty of leftovers and we had Chuck take them - based on experience, we never get to eat the leftovers we bring back home.

We headed back to the Oracle office afterwards and Chuck brought me around to meet the QA and DEV teams while Fro went to find a parking spot. It felt really good to be back and this time, I'm no longer just a contractor but one of them already! Most of the DEV people were out for the day but I did see Alyssa, Chad and Ravi (and we eventually ran into Adam and Eric later on). I met a lot of QA folks and it was nice to finally associate faces to the names I've been emailing for months. Seeing all of them and being at the office made me miss those days that I was working here!

Since it was a Thursday, the weekly farmer's market was on and we just had to go check it out. The weather was really nice and it was perfect for a stroll along Nicollet. There are two things I always get whenever the farmer's market is around...roasted cinnamon almonds:

and cheese curds!

I remember how Ros and I would always go down after lunch and buy our fix of nuts and cheese...we'd be happily munching on those in our cubes for the entire afternoon and would seldom have enough left to be brought home. This just brings back so many memories.

We took the Skyway going back to the office and everything was just familiar...nothing really changed except that the Jamba Juice stalls are all closed already! :( We used to get our daily dose of orange dream machine and breakfast yogurt with granola from the one near Macy's. The sushi place was still there, as well as Dunn's and Bruegger's where Ros and I love the bagel with honey walnut cream cheese. Seeing everything again made me miss downtown so much!

Chuck returned to the office at around 2pm while Fro and I headed to the strip mall near his place to catch a movie at the Icon. There were some shops and boutiques in the area but they didn't really interest me - they were more of specialty boutiques whose brands I wasn't aware of. While waiting for the movie to start, we just killed time at the bar and got some afternoon cocktails.

I got a Cosmopolitan and it was just the perfect sweet drink for a lazy afternoon.

Fro had me try something new - Bacon Popcorn. Not bacon-flavored popcorn but literally popcorn WITH bacon!

Talk about sinful! But in fairness, the bacon bits added a pretty good flavor to it. An interesting twist.

The movie we watched was Real Steel. I was quite skeptical at first...robots ain't my thing but since Hugh Jackman was there, there might be a redeeming factor after all. The start was pretty slow and I kinda fell asleep (sowee!) but it picked up eventually and surprisingly, the rest of the movie was really good and I ended up liking it! Not bad!

We headed back home to rest for a bit and watch more Game of Thrones before meeting up with Ila and Ryan for dinner (that deserves a separate post). So far, today has been really good and would still get better... :)