Start-of-school retreat

It's only been three weeks into school, and dc and I are already bored to tears with our classes. On one hand, I finally have the final-examless semester I've been wanting since freshman year (this also means that we can troop down to Hopkins to watch our dear friends graduate in May!); on the other hand, there is way too much writing this semester and the classes elicit little or no motivation.

Frustrated by lab work and the disappointing classes, dc suggested we take a weekend getaway last week. It was the most impromptu trip I've taken - at 10am, dc said to me that my job was to find the perfect retreat spot with a nice hotel. Less than 6 hours later, we had hoppped onto our trusty ZipCar and were on our way to Auburn, MA, not knowing much about what we can do there.

View of the frozen lake outside our hotel window, though the temperature in Boston had been consistently above freezing. The next morning, we saw two people sledding on the lake - definitely looked like a dangerous thing to do.

We also checked out a huge bowling alley (dc loves to bowl!), but there was a league going on, plus dc hardly slept the previous night, we called the bowling off. The rest of the evening was spent hunting Macy's, Sears and even TJMaxx for swim wear because we wanted to make use of the heated indoor pool at the hotel. dc always wanted me to go swimming with him in school, but I've always been squeemish about it due to the crowd (I can't swim!) and using public facilities. Now a private pool is different..

Dinner at Applebee's - Appetizer Sampler and Portebello steak. We've never tried Applebee's despite the fierce advertizing, so we thought we'll give it a shot (since there's nothing much at Auburn anyway). Love the spinach-artichoke dip (plate in the center of appetizer) with nachos!

Hooray for jacuzzi at the pool the next morning - to save me from having to learn how to swim :)

Believe it or not, that's about all we did at Auburn during our one-night stay there. It was nice to be away from books and research, and the comfy king-sized bed definitely helped dc catch up on his lost sleep the past few days. Besides, it's not about what we do, but the company that we have, right? *wink*

To top things off, we had retail therapy at the outlet mall nearby, adding another $200 bucks to our expenditure that weekend. Seriously, we are accumulating too many things in our one-bedroom apartment, such as this

My present to the guy who loves plants, the guy who will always be my Valentine.