I survived!

Well, I survived through finals and made it back across the country to LA. It was pretty hard at times, but eventually it didn't seem to be that important to me. I mean, after I finished my massive GIS project, I felt a lot better even though I had two more finals to take. To celebrate, Nick and I did some Christmas shopping and then stopped at Pop's for dinner. If you remember, in one of my previous posts I mentioned it was on the list of places I wanted to try.

I loved the atmosphere and the butternut squash soup I had as an appetizer. My entree, the special, left something to be desired. It was seared sea scallops on a bed of sauteed vegetables, braised cabbage, and thin strips of cured beef. The scallops were overly salted, the vegetables were swimming in butter, and the beef was very salty. It was a very rich dish which had potential, but it needed something acidic and fresh to cut down the richness of the dish.

Nick had the pan-fried grouper with parmigiano-reggiano and stewed tomatoes and he loved it. I'm going to chalk this up to the special not being quite fully developed and stick to the pasta next time. The bread they served us was excellent too. I really like the feel of the place. It felt like a place you would meet good friends after a long day or to celebrate something.

On Saturday Nick dropped me off on Ninth Street to do some shopping while he went to his ultimate frisbee game. I felt bad about not going, but I really needed to get this shopping done. I like shopping locally and the stores on Ninth are very eclectic and cute. I think I found some great things there. Afterward, Emily and I dropped Lisanne off at the airport and made our way over to the mall for some more marathon shopping. I pretty much finished my list and scored a few things for myself, too. =) All in a day's work!

Now I'm home and I've been enjoying the nieces quite a bit. I hope I get adjusted to the time change soon and eat some more great food. Happy holidays, everyone!