Coffee Culture

Those who know me tend to think I am somewhat of a coffee snob - although in my head I usually disagree. I think that I know far less about good coffee than an actual 'snob' would - I just happen to like it a lot. Yesterday, however, I truly felt like a snob. Mark and I decided to go check out the new coffee shop in St. Catharines, Coffee culture, because it is in a beautiful building, the premise sounded good, and I needed a place for caffeinated studying (my living room doesn't cut it sometimes).

WOW does that place ever suck. I was so impressed walking in (it is a beautiful looking place) - and then had to wait 10 minutes for my turn to order, not because they were busy, but because the two employees had to both ring in the orders, make the food/drinks, bring them out to tables rather than have one person on cash and the other making the food. Perhaps I am too used to other coffee shops? The set up was just really, really illogical. And yes, I know that sometimes in life you have to wait, especially for deliciousness - so I was hoping that my eventual coffee would be delicious!

... And it wasn't! After seeing an automatic espresso machine (=push a button, get a latte), Mark and I both decided to just get the organic, fair trade drip coffee. This turned out to be a pretty bad idea. Does anyone remember when fair trade coffee first entered the market? It was terrible. People who felt too guilty to drink regular coffee were the only ones drinking it, because if taste buds entered the equation at all, there was no way a coffee drinker would touch that stuff. Since then, fair trade coffees have come a long way and are as good, and usually better than most coffees, thanks to a big fancy coffee/know your farmer movement. I think coffee culture has managed to find the last remaining bags of the old, hideous stuff. Our coffees tasted like they had been sitting out in a dirty pot for about 6 hours.

If someone in St. Catharines starts up a good coffee shop, I swear that I will keep it afloat.

PS - my living room is looking better - Mark just made me a brownie latte!

Hi

Cars:
I. HATE. CARS. I was stuck in traffic for two hours yesterday, on what should have been a 35 minute trip. I basically missed my tutorial as a result. That sucks! Also, last week I got a flat! It was really scary because it sounded like it was my engine (I obviously know nothing about cars), but after waiting nearly two hours on the side of the highway, I was helped by some of the world's nicest tow truck people, and super-awesome people at the Wal-Mart mechanic shop. YEP I actually like Wal-Mart (well, the employees at least) for something.

Life:
I am getting lazy. I have not exercised more than walking for quite a while. This is not good. Hopefully when school stuff gets switched to St. Catharines, I'll be able to use at least some of the current 10 commuting hours/week to keep my body healthy.

Friends:
-Nothing! I didn't even get to talk to P on her birthday, although messages were left :) I have not seen friends in a really long time! Well, except for school friends, and Gina who happened to be in town last weekend! Next weekend might contain a Jaime!

Wedding(!):
-My dress is in! And it fits! It may need some minor, minor alterations but it seems like all is well on that front!
-Basia is confirmed! This is beyond exciting and I'm so happy that she will be at the wedding. Mark and I are so lucky to have such talented friends. It is helping turn what could be a pretty stereotypical wedding into something very true to us.
-We have a few more big items on our list (like catering/invites/cake/dj) but hopefully, they will have nice little check marks next to them by this time next week. OK - that is a lie. There is no actual physical list, because Mark and I are not organized people. There is a cloud of stuff that gets remembered every once in a while by my head, so that cloud will have more little lines through it?