Almost three weeks ago, Aubreya (our friend and former roommate) visited us for Labor Day weekend. It worked out really well because she gets every other Friday off from work because she her company has a 9-80 work schedule. Additionally, she had Labor Day off, so it was a really long weekend. She flew in late Thursday evening and we got a full 3 and a half days of visiting in.
Friday morning was laid back and we had brunch with Pnina, an acquaintance from PASSCAL. Pnina and Aubreya had met in Africa while she was doing a seismological study, and it had been years since they had seen each other. Pnina and our other friend, Mouse, both work together. We met at Mannie’s for a HUGE breakfast/lunch. Bea and I both got the same thing, the “Pileup at Central and Girard”. It consists of eggs, hash browns, beans, cheese, and chili all piled up together on a plate. It is delicious and filling, which fits my criteria for a good brunch meal. I don’t have it often, it’s a little rich for every-day consumption.
After brunch, I gave Aubreya the 30 minute tour of campus before I had to run off to the only class I have on Friday’s, BioBLOG. I introduced her to a couple of my friends, and showed off my office and some of the pretty architecture on campus. While I was at class, she and Matt went to Nob Hill to check out some of the stores. When I was finished I took the Rapid Ride down to the Co-Op to meet up with them again. We wandered some more, found the most adorable kitty for adoption in a store front, and got some gelato at Ecco.
One of the places I always bring people when they visit is Old Town. It’s kind of touristy and I don’t usually eat or shop there, but there’s a lot of art and pretty things to look at. It’s also the oldest part of town (as the name implies) and there’s a neat looking church and town center. It’s also kind of fun to poke in and out of stores, and we did find a fairly new art gallery belonging to an artist we recognized. We had seen some of his bird paintings at the New Mexico Tea Co., and I got a pair of earrings that had miniature versions of some of those paintings.
Our next stop was dinner at Sadie’s. The three of us planned on getting our fill of New Mexican food that weekend, which naturally includes sopapillas. In my opinion, Sadie’s has some of the best sopapillas in town. Sometimes Matt and I just go there to get margaritas and sopapillas. Then we headed home for the evening to hang out and play games. I invited Fred over, and we had kind of a late night playing Dixit and Flux. Dixit was new, and Fred brought it over. It very much reminded me of Balderdash, only in Dixit you make up stories that go along with weird pictures.
On Saturday we had breakfast at our apartment. Matt and Bea had bought some tasty lemon and lavender at the Co-Op the day before, which were delicious with tea. Mouse and Dave drove up from Socorro to spend the afternoon with us. We got some sandwiches to-go from Which Wich?, because we were going to be riding the tram up to the top of the Sandia Mountains. The tram is really fun, you get a great view and it’s the fastest way to the top of the mountain. It’s only about a 15 minute ride in either direction. We had lunch at the top and wandered around some. Bea found the tiniest baby horned lizard, and we observed the fattest rock squirrel I had ever seen.
Later in the afternoon we went to the Bernalillo wine festival. New Mexico isn’t exactly known for its wine, but there were a large number of wineries there. My favorite variety that I tried was Casa Abril’s dry red zinfandel. It had a spicy, peppery quality that was really nice and Matt and I both liked it, I would probably buy it to have at home. We did try some red and green chili wine. It was kind of gimmicky, and I probably wouldn’t ever buy it, but it wasn’t bad either. I was told before by someone that it was terrible, which turned out to be a major exaggeration.
After we got back from the wine festival we had some dinner at Il Vicino, which is a local chain that does micro brews and brick over pizza. I decided that I had enough to drink, alcohol wise, and decided instead to have some of their homebrewed root beer. Root beer is always better when it’s made in the traditional way and you can get it on tap. I also love the pizza at Il Vicino, as far as thin crust pizza goes, it’s the best in Albuquerque. Dinner was followed by more gelato, I’m pretty much always in the mood for it.
That evening, Bea went back with Mouse and Dave to fabulous Socorro. We would be heading down ourselves for brunch and a cookout the following day.
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