happiness, continued

first off: i give dark knight a big W for “WHATEVER!”. i guess i can see why some people were into it, but for me it was too long, too monotonous, and had a way-too-high violence:character development ratio. i will say that heath ledger’s acting was excellent, and it is very sad that he is gone. but this does not change my overall ‘meh’ feeling for the film.

now back to the vacation rundown . . .

after this underwhelming cinematic experience, we went in search of food. but alas — at 9 pm, most of asheville was already shutting down! i ended up falling back on a vacation classic: ICE CREAM FOR DINNER! my waffle cone of cookies ‘n’ cream made me very happy, and then we crashed at the hotel bar where i drank some wine and josh ate some ‘real’ dinner, because ice cream did not cut it in his eyes. even in a waffle cone.

today we are just chilling, pretty much. we ate room service breakfast (why is cereal so much better when they bring it to you??) and worked out at the grove park inn gym. i did a tempo run which felt surprisingly awful. poorly calibrated treadmill? altitude? ice-cream dinner? residual soreness from tuesday’s mountain climb? whatever the reason, i survived the run but only barely.

we finally made it to the laughing seed for lunch. despite the fact that i am far from vegan, i definitely enjoyed it! we got indian pakoras as appetizers: they were not healthy (yes, you can get rich food at a vegan restaurant!) but they were delicious — crispy and full of curried flavors. i ate one that was sweet potato and i think there were some squash ones as well.

for an entree, i ordered the caribbean empanda — it is hard for me to resist anything that has butternut squash in the description! it had vegan ‘sour cream’ on top and was filled with veggie goodness. the hot pink things on the side are pickled onions — a nice accompaniment!

we also shared a vegan chocolate-peanut butter dessert but i was too lazy to take a picture. clearly i am not meant to be a real food-blogger! although despite josh making fun of me the whole time, i actually think it’s kind of fun to do these kinds of pictures sometimes, as i am a foodie, i like writing about my culinary adventures, and reading written descriptions of these kinds of dishes without showing them seems pointless to me.

anyway. we finsihed up our afternoon with some shoe shopping — success for josh, but none for me! — and now we are relaxing in preparation for a night out to see she and him, which is code for m. ward and zooey deschanel. i don’t know all of their music well, but have heard a few songs and they happen to be playing in asheville, so we are going to go!

only 1.5 more days left of living in luxury . . . time to get off-line to make the most of them.