End of the School Year + Travel

The end of the school year is always chaotic, but the past few weeks were even more so since I went out of town for an entire week.  When you're a teacher, that means the entire week before is spent doing your regular day plus preparing a week's worth of sub plans for while you are gone. That's the reason for no blog posts for nearly three weeks. Now I'm in the still recovering from being gone mode, AND it's final exams right now. More chaos. 

Teachers don't travel much. It's a pretty foreign concept for us to be away for work!  After the chaotic week of preparing to leave, it was nice to have some relaxing meals out with colleagues.  We were working in a town called Cumming, Georgia, about 50 minutes north of Atlanta. We discovered a chain we really liked, called Ted's Montana Grill.  The food was fantastic.  They had no problem modifying their chopped salad by leaving off the salami--often places already have the stuff made up and won't accommodate.  I had a great veggie burger one night, and crab cakes the next.  Delicious roasted asparagus too.  My favorite thing was their environmentally aware approach--no plastic straws, recycled menus, biodegradable to go containers.

We also ate at a Mexican place called Cheeky. Their shtick was beer taps right at the tables!  This was featured in the bar area and looked pretty cool and fun. The vegetarian food wasn't too great, but we had awesome little ahi tuna tacos with avocado for an appetizer.

The last night we drove down to Decatur and ate at The Brick Store Pub.  This place was really lively.  I was driving, so it killed me to see all the local craft beer available.  But the food was just as good--English pub style. We had chips with malt vinegar and salads featuring local greens and cheeses. Totally creamy delicious goat cheese on one, and blue on the other.  Then we even had vegetarian curry of sweet potatoes and chick peas. Really awesome.

What was the most fun about the dining out experience in Georgia was the service.  Every waitperson was really nice, and not in a cheesy fake way.  They seemed to really want you to have a good, relaxed time.  They never complained about my fussy special orders.  It was totally different than dining out in the northeast!

Most of the nights we stopped at Barnes & Noble on the way back to the hotel so my colleague could get a decaf coffee. She even bought a book I'm looking forward to borrowing from her!

I've hardly cooked since I've been back, so I'll post more once I can get back into the groove!