And That's the Tea

Happy 100th post guys, and congratulations to Rachel for making it the longest without any demerits !!

This week has been really rough for me personally and I'm kind of at a low point for the semester, so I was really grateful to get to spend some time with good friends this weekend - Anna, Caitlin, Emma, and Julianne came down from Smith to visit for a couple days over the long weekend!

I don't think I realized how much I really missed them, and my other Smith friends, until I saw them all again. We met up at the train station on Friday and headed over to our Airbnb in Bowie, Maryland. The place was a very nice section of a house owned by a woman named Ayuk!

This was her first time hosting through Airbnb and she was a really gracious and kind host! She left us lots of bottled water, sodas, fruit, and even a half-jug of sangria ;-) (we didn't have any though hehe) She came by every day we spent there just to chat and see how we were doing and even though I didn't talk to her as much as Anna and the others who had checked in to the Airbnb did, it was really interesting to learn more about her life.

On the last day she asked to take a selfie with us, since we were her first guests, and gave us two bottles of wine. I know this is a bold statement, but I think she was an even more iconic host than Alex from Montreal - if you're ever in the DC area, you should definitely stay at Ayuk's place!

Ayuk is also very well-dressed as you can tell from this image

On Saturday, we visited the Postal Museum and had a really good time! Unfortunately we didn't end up getting to buy Stamps from the Stamp Store, but we spent a long time going around the museum and looking at everything. Then we hit up the National Mall and walked around for a bit, eating some food truck food.

Mr. Zip's less-than-virtuous mail fraud-committing counterpart: Mr. Zap

On Sunday, we cooked a hearty breakfast and hung out for a little before Anna, Caitlin, and Emma had to hit the road. I felt a little bad that I didn't get to show them more of the places in DC that I wanted to, but the weekend was more about the people I was with than the places we went or the things we did, and I'm so grateful that I got to spend these past few days with some of the best people I know.

Today, me and Julianne hit up a few of the museums in DC that I haven't seen much of yet - the Botanic Garden and the National Gallery of Art. They were both really cool, especially the Botanic Garden which was so beautiful!

This is the walkway that connects the East and West buildings of the National Gallery of Art!

This is a painting in the National Gallery of Art called "The Clown." I love it

The Botanic Garden

Tomorrow I gotta go back to work. When Anna, Caitlin, and Emma were leaving we were talking, not so seriously, about me coming back to Smith with them. The thing is, I know I'm impulsive to the point that I honestly would have done it, but I did the responsible thing and decided to stay put.

I'm awful homesick this week, but more than anything I think I miss Smith a lot more than I've been expecting. Being here, I really feel like I'm learning a lot, but I definitely don't have the same support system that I have at Smith, so it gets really hard. I wonder if I'm doing a good job, if I'm being a good enough person, and if I will ever be capable of doing anything. It's hard here. I'm grateful that I have people who went so far out of their ways just to hang out for a couple days, though.

But I don't want to end this post on a downer, so I'm going to give you all some super exclusive tea. I've been starting to drink more tea than I ever have before, and I'm always trying to find a good store-bought green iced tea. Here are my ratings from what I've tried before:

Arizona Green Tea (w/ ginseng and honey): Doesn't really taste like green tea in my opinion and probably really bad for you, but I drank so many of these juice boxes in middle and high school that my mom started buying a gallon at least once a week for our house - and I usually finish it well before the week is over 9/10

Honest T Green Tea with Honey: So bad, the honey does not make the tea even a little sleep so it just tastes like tea where something has gone real bad. I don't even know how to describe it, but it's very nasty 0/10

Oi Ocha Japanese Green Tea: The best!!! All the other green teas on this list are sweetened because honestly it's hard to find unsweetened green tea here, but this tea is not sweetened at all. I really love the bitter flavor and even though it's hard to find in the US, whenever I can get it I jump at the opportunity. 10/10

Gold Peak Green Tea (w/ sugar and "other natural flavors"): I drank this the first week I was in DC, disappointed that I couldn't find an unsweetened green tea option, but I honestly love this brand so much. It's exactly the right kind of sweet and it's so good. The only downside of this tea is that it is by far the rarest tea on this list. Even the Japanese green tea is easier to find - actually I've only found the Gold Peak Tea at Safeway and only some Safeway locations at that. 9/10 I wish you were in every supermarket.

Turkey Hill Green Tea (w/ ginseng and honey): Pretty good! Definitely not my favorite sweet green tea, the sugar is a little overpowering, but if I can't find the Gold Peak then this is a fine alternative. They usually have this at Giant and some sandwich shops (but sometimes I can only find the diet green tea which is a major L) 6.5/10

Anyway folks have a nice week - we must be almost at the halfway point for this semester right? Let's keep going!