Feeling Fine in Philly: Rain, Running and Rear endings

Hello faithful readers, commenters, and stalkers:

Here's a quick recap of life in Philly most recently. My lovely-ex-patriot-because-she-up-and-moved-to-France cousin Sarah came to visit Philadelphia on part of a spring trip to the US several weeks ago. We had a great time treating her to unhealthy American food and showing off our adopted city. It seemed everywhere we went we bumped in to French people. It was as if the country had followed her here.

Easter weekend was spent buying a new-to-us-but-used car after discovering that getting rear ended the weekend before had left our precious Mazda Protege in worse shape than it was worth according to Progressive. After visiting 7 used car dealerships within a 24 hour period the following day we were able to find a new car that we like very much (a Mazda 3). Not, however, without extended and bitter mourning for our Protege.

While Saturday was spent car shopping, on Easter itself we went to NYC again with my friend Rachel on a pilgrimage to the Bonnard show at the Met before it was over. New York was still not as warm as I preferred it be but we had a nice time walking through central park, perusing amusing stores and discovering a little window shop that sold nothing but extravagant tiny cupcakes.

An enjoyable activity Gregg and I have added into our weeks is joining a recreational volleyball team in our neighborhood. We have games once a week in the area and have met some cool people on the team.

I began work as a barista at Saxby's coffee shop in Manayunk last week. After adjusting to the overwhelming concept of learning to make all of the 80 million variations available with milk, espresso and 50 flavored syrups I'm starting to feel less awkward and as though I could actually make a customer the drink they ordered. Maybe. Prior to getting this job I was turned down from a patisserie after telling them I was not able to wake up at 4:30am at least 3 days a week in order to open the store downtown by 6:00am. I was crushed to say the least.

And yesterday Gregg ran 10 mile road race called the Broad Street run. The race started at 8:30am along with buckets of rain. Fortunately he likes running in the rain and finished the race in excellent time. Once you can run 10 miles 26 should be no problem, right?

I'm finished with school and have graduation on Friday. I'll try to have some more artwork up with the next post. Hope everyone is having a nice spring.

-Libby