dual personalities

We made it home after our weekend away! I took a long nap on Sunday afternoon and couldn’t help but laugh that I really need to relax after my 3.5 days of relaxing. But of course, sleeping in other beds and gallivanting about always wears one out. We kept things very low key, but I had mis-assessed just how low-key museum-going and antique shopping would feel. All that standing and walking is really actually medium-key at least.

Museum District BnB — we recommend!

We stayed in a BnB right across from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, because the VMFA was really our main attraction. We caught the last days of an Edward Hopper exhibit and spent the whole day there on Friday. I’ll write more about Hopper on Thursday, but overall we had a lovely day. We took a long lunch break in the café to hang out with an old professor of mine, and it was just a wonderful way to break up wandering through the galleries.

We ate two really delicious dinners out at restaurants around town — DN always plans ahead and makes reservations. Sometimes (lately) I have a hard time with meals because I really need big snacks every 1-2 hours, so a big heavy dinner is a lot, and then I’m still liable to get hungry a couple hours later. Well, I did my best on Friday night — a lighter entree of scallops followed by dessert. Have you ever had an affogato? It is ice cream in espresso. When it melts, it basically becomes a coffee milkshake. I was very happy.

Fondue was another story. Delicious, but filling… I had to hobble to the car after this!

As I mentioned, we went to Fredericksburg on Saturday. I went to 5 antique stores (with a lunch break in between) and only bought something at the very last one! But it was still fun to poke around and take it easy in a small town that I love. We continued our routine of taking an afternoon siesta from 3-5 p.m. or so. What a life!

An inspiring selection of vintage Pyrex

Back to the salt mines this week. I will be very, very busy at work for the rest of Spring, as we are in the midst of recruitment season for the next class of freshmen, as well as hiring season for our next cohort of faculty. Whew. I’ll survive one day at a time… and maybe have an affogato when I need one.