The end of law school touring

So finally the absurdly long law school trip comes to an end. The rest of my time in New York was split between gallivanting and law school visiting. I woke my ass up absurdly early on Friday to make it to the 8 a.m. criminal law class at Columbia (I was determined to see more of the school than that spinster witch librarian) in order to make it back down town for the 11 a.m. evidence class at NYU. The class at Columbia was great. A judge taught it. (And he knew a little something about criminal law. He'd had just a smidge of experience in that arena.) So it was great hearing him back up all these theoretical lessons with stories of "When I was in court last week..." Plus I sat next to this very friendly kid who told me lots about the school, but even with all of that, I still didn't like it as much as NYU. I mean the NYU facilities are beautiful, the students were also so nice I would have thought they were creepy if they weren't equally cool as shit, and... AND....


IT IS RIGHT NEXT TO THE ONLY PEANUT BUTTER & CO. STORE IN THE WORLD! Have you tried their peanut butter? No? Well your life is incomplete then. I don't care if you've found your soul mate and cured cancer and composed a tear jerking symphony. You have not lived until you've tried their awesome flavors of peanut butter!!! O the dark chocolate flavor! So obviously after attending 2 classes before noon on a Friday (which is, for the record, more than any other law school student in the country attends), I needed a little fluffernutter to keep me going. Mmmm. So yummy!


For $5 and change, I got this piece of heaven wrapped in tin foil like mom used to do with Peanut Butter & Co. brand carrot sticks and potato chips. I felt like I was right back in middle school. Needless to say, this revelation elevated NYU to a level unobtainable by any other school in my mind. (Plus it didn't hurt that I sat next to a kid in class who wore a fedora and totally pulled it off. I just thought to myself: "Self, these are the kind of people you want to be eating fluffernutter sandwiches with for the next 3 years.")

So to celebrate my last official stop on the law school tour de force, I decided to celebrate these few remaining moments of vacation by continuing my eating tour de force. So I met up with Jamie again and it was off to Magnolia's for cupcakes!



Magnolia Bakery (of Sex and the City fame) is supposed to have the best cupcakes in Manhattan, which to people living in Manhattan, this means the best cupcakes in the world. I'm not actually a huge fan of cupcakes so I went for the mini key lime cheese cake instead (which was freaking awesome), but I did appreciate how undeniably adorable all the cupcakes were. I picked one up for my friend Brittany. She was another friend I was visiting in NYC, and it just so happened to be her birthday. She and Jamie swore up and down that the icing is to die for. Best in the city they said. I took their word for it. Then I took a bunch of pictures of Jamie scooping it right off the top of the cupcakes in the middle of the street. (She's classy like that.)



After all that sugar, that is when I finally decided enough food was enough.



Sike! I still had a whole day left in vacation. I wasn't done yet, and its a good thing (aka bad thing) because my most interesting (aka absurd) meal was yet to come!

On Saturday, I did what many New Yorkers never do: I ventured out into Queens. Brittany, the birthday girl, lives in Astoria so I crashed with her that night we went out to celebrate. Before the heavy drinking ensued, though, we went out for some Greek food which is about all you can get in Astoria since Brittany is 1 of 5 non-Greeks living in the neighborhood. I was thinking that this would be the most authentic Greek food this side of the Atlantic. I was so excited I even branched out from my usually gyro and flaming cheese. Turned out trying new things on the menu was actually pretty risky at this place. Of all the interesting things that actually came out of the kitchen, the poor birthday girl got the biggest surprise. Chicken with vegetables and potatoes turned out to be grilled chicken and sauteed veggies in a salad of store bought french fries with lemon garnishes.


That face just says it all, but of course I still had to try it! The moment after trying this, dear readers, is when I actually did end my eating tour de force. I figured nothing could top a Greek French Fry Salad (aka at this point I was so disgusted with food, I thought I'd never eat again). In the morning I packed up my bags, let skipped on any traditional Greek brakfast, and headed back to DC. Now I'm back to searching for J street in my home base.