A Hindu parade, Benny Franks and iced coffee

This weekend was fantastic! There was tons going on and wonderful adventures that were had.

On Saturday my friends and I went down to Ben Franklin Parkway near the Philadelphia Museum of Art to attend College Day.  College Day is basically where businesses and people give college kids free stuff and all of the museums in the area are open for free to students.

Before we arrived at the event we literally ran into a colorful floats and hundreds of Indians throughout the streets! It was incredible. A man explained to us that this was the Festival of Chariots which is an Indian festival that takes place in cities all across the world.

They had huge floats like above which housed their god (I think) and between the floats people were dancing and chanting, it was beautiful! Even children were in the parade, they built smaller versions of the floats and pulled them with jump ropes.

There were also stands all set up in this park that sold Indian saris and scarves, there was a psychic and a lady who did eyebrow threading which my friend, Lily got done. There was also a huge feast (which I wish we would have attended) which was all vegetarian and vegan food (Hindus are generally vegetarians). Also a few of us received small booklets about their religion and beliefs which I plan on reading.

The first museum we visited was the Rodin (pronounced row-dan) which was a bunch of his sculptures. They had a replica of his famous, The Thinker and I believe the actual The Gates of Hell at the entrance. Many of the sculptures were linked back to the Gates piece.

The one above is called The Secret which is two hands almost completely touching. I really liked that piece! Certainly one of my favorites.

Then we went to the Franklin Institute which was fantastic! We went inside this heart, saw a show at their planetarium and learned about what doctors do when people have heart attacks. They had a exposition on espionage but it cost extra sadly.

After that long day my roommate, Mandy (in the picture with me at the top of this post) and Lilly went to get dinner. I ate vegan food at a place called HipCityVeg, 127 S 18th St, where I had a fabulous jerk "chicken" salad with dried plantains (I love plantains).

Today was National Coffee Day therefore I had to go and have coffee to celebrate! So a few of us went down to Old City to have pizza at Soho Pizza, 218 Market St, visited The Book Trader so that I could pick up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and get coffee at Old City Coffee, 221 Church St. I had a great cup of iced coffee! I highly recommend that place. Great atmosphere and the employees are quite nice. They also have great chocolate chip cookies!

With so much that happened this weekend there is no stopping the momentum! This week I am going vegan for the week which should be a challenging but rewarding experience. I will be living off salad, soy milk and apples. Wait, that's what I already eat!

Also this week I am going to go to see the movie Salinger which is about my favorite author J.D. Salinger. I read so many bad reviews but I am determined to still view it! I am obligated since he is my favorite and will do my best to enjoy it even if it is mediocre. Salinger would probably hate it anyway so it will be alright if him and I hate it together.

I will post again once I know more about England stuff and if anything exciting occurs in my life.

Accepted

This morning has declared the beginning of the rest of my life. I received an email that told me that I have been ACCEPTED TO STUDY IN CHELTENHAM FOR SPRING 2014!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't be more excited! I have never been so ecstatic about something in all of my days. I know that this is where I need to be therefore I am going to make the very best out of this experience. It is going to be incredible.

From here I have to fill out Visa stuff, health history crap that says I don't have any diseases and pay more money (of course). It looks like a long but worthy process.

To prepare myself for the trip I am going to construct a list of goals that I want to accomplish while abroad in the UK. I know that I want to visit my friends who will be abroad in Ireland which will be such a wonderful experience!

God save the Queen!

Visiting Friends and the Joys of Fall

It has been ages since I have posted on here and I feel that it is time that I let the world know about what little has been going on in my life.

This past weekend I went back to Messiah College to visit all of my wonderful friends.  They threw me a party complete with vegetable lasagna, carmel corn and pumpkin cookies! I got to spend time with the people that I care for most (besides family) which was exactly what I needed in my life.  We also went to some of our favorite places to eat like Neato Burrito and Baker's Diner, these were the two best meals that I've had in ages. Distance certainly makes the heart grow fonder in regards to people and food.

Visiting made me happy to see all of my friends and made me value the short time that I was with them.  I hope to go back again before the fall semester ends.  Hopefully some of them will come and see me in Philly as well.

Today my mom and stepdad came to visit me which was a great time.  It was good to see them both and eat some quality food.  We went to a place called Fuel on Walnut St. and also to get ice cream on Locust St. at a place called Not Just Ice Cream.  Their ice cream was awesome, I highly recommend it!

I think almost all of my posts include something about food. I don't know what that says about me.

Other than that nothing has been going on for the most part. Just projects and papers, dumb things like that. Doing school work is my least favorite part about school. That and 8 a.m. classes.

This week I have to take photos for my class using an external flash, write a paper about my family's ecological footprint and go to the Puerto Rican Day festival, which should be way more fun than the other two.

Update on England: I still don't know if I got accepted or not. This is lame.

So long, my friend

After reading back through my posts I realized I never wrote about the best thing to happen to Messiah's Philadelphia Campus, MUFFIN! Muffin is the lovely cat above.

A week or two ago some girls and I were coming back from dinner and outside our house was a calico kitty walking around meowing.  We instantly fell in love with her, picked her up and threw her into our backyard.  She has been living outside in our garden area, she is basically living in a modern day version of the Garden of Eden.

Instantly everybody fell in love with her! Kids would go outside and pet her while they did their homework or chatted with other students. I think that Muffin really brought us together as a community because it was something most of us could bond over and talk about.

She stayed with us for about 2 weeks, digging in the dirt, eating cheese and sleeping in a box.

Today she left to go and live with my friend, Corinne and her family until they can find a home for her with a family friend. I know that Muffin will have a wonderful life outside of North Philly! I am so glad that I could help her get to a good place. I have no idea what would have happened if we didn't take her off the street.

She was such a blessing to me and I'm sure for everybody else who fell in love with her.

This Past Weekend

This past weekend was a pretty good one for sure! School wise I finished 98% of a project and other boring things but the fun parts certainly out do the dull ones.

A group of us from Messiah went on this mural tour which is lead by some art society in the city.  They take you around Center City and talk about the different murals that have been painted.  Some of them were really fun like the one above of these silly monsters.

This is a group picture taken by our tour guide, Donna in front of a mural dedicated to women. This one was all about women throughout the ages and how far we have come in society.  This one was certainly one of my favorites because it was relatable in my life.  It spoke about women being able to make an impact on the world and that they are awesome.

I also got to eat my first falafel (that's chickpeas and ground up and cooked type thing) at Reading Terminal Market and it was pretty good. The only down side to eating at the Market is that it's super duper expensive! It's like at least $8 for one person to eat. That's a lot for a college kid.

On Sunday a few kids from Messiah and I went to see Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco at the Liacouras Center, which is Temple's huge auditorium place. They have basketball games and big stadium concerts there. BUT ANYWAY, the show was great! I went in honor of my middle school self who absolutely loved both those bands. I would listen to them all the time on my iPod Shuffle. Good times.  It was great to sing along to songs that I had been listening to years ago from albums like "Take This to Your Grave" and "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out".

Panic! was great, I absolutely loved Brennan Urie (their frontman), he is a great performer! With FOB they were also super good for guys who are getting up in years. My only complaint about them was that Patrick Stump (frontman) had trouble with the higher notes. Most of their newer songs have a lot of high notes and I'm really not sure why he put them in if he can't hit them. Patrick's got me stumped.

This week coming up is nothing excited. Just school and projects and hoping for money to appear in my bank account.

Photo Class

Photo class is possibly my favorite class other than my Magazine Editing one. With photography I get to do something that I really enjoy with a whole bunch of other kids who are also into taking pictures.

Above is one from Tuesday, this kid brought in a skull with a cigarette and we lit it and got some really cool shots. I dig the smoke and all that jazz. The lighting and all looks sweet too!

This is Elle. She rules and is a beautiful woman!

Other than taking a bunch of photos and getting eaten alive by bugs things have been pretty average. Tomorrow is First Friday and also the opening day of this new documentary "Salinger" which I could not be more excited for! The movie is about my favorite author, J.D. Salinger and the legacy that he has left on the world. He was a genius, I absolutely love him.

Also check out the new Arctic Monkeys album AM. It's awesome.

So yeah that's about it. I'll be posting more pictures and stuff throughout the weeks to come and talking about food, coffee and other random stuff.

WAIT, speaking of coffee I had the best frappaccino from Starbucks I've ever had in my life. It was in Old City somewhere and it was heaven in a plastic cup! The barista must have been God sent.