This Week So Far

We began our highly eventful (hah!) week on Saturday with a trip to a mall about 50 minutes away in order to... wait for it... go to H&M. Because the mall in question is one of only two malls in the Houston area to actually have an H&M. I know. It's practically a crime! Born a European, and being half-Spanish and all, I almost feel like it's in my blood.

On our last trip to Europe, which only ended a couple of weeks ago, I really began my obsession with this seemingly ordinary clothing store. I suppose it's because I consider to be a more well-organized, more European-style-oriented (obviously) store than our American version, Forever 21. Going into that store is like... a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gon' get. (because it's just that messy and if you find a shirt you like that's too big/small, good luck trying to find your size) Anyway, we went to this mall, and I went glided into my dream store, and I bought some beautiful shirts, and then... we abruptly left, ending my dream... And proceeded into Aldo, where they have some ridiculously amazing sales going on! I bought a pair of boat-type sneakerish shoes for just $14.

My mother and I wandered around a bit until finding my dad in the Apple store engrossed in discussion with one of their employees about the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Sounds amazing right? Until we found out that it has no CD drive (but you can buy it separately for a mere $79! eh-heh.) and you can't add extra storage space since that's custom-built into the computer, etc etc. I believe it would take a bit (understatement) more convincing for me and my parents to switch over to Apple or something. It's just not the same as good 'ol Dell/Microsoft/Windows (which one was it again?). 

Our eventful week continued on Sunday, when we went out to the more local social/shopping center! We watched The Amazing Spider-Man, which was quite amazing, if I do say so myself. If Andrew Garfield isn't the ultimate piece of eye candy, show me who is! Anyway, just go see it for yourself, you will not regret it! After this, we went to my favorite restaurant of all time: Thai Cottage. We've probably been going here for about 12 years, basically since we came to the US, and it has stayed great all that time! My favorite dish is the Cashew Chicken Delight; I get it number 4 spicy (out of 5). Yummy! If you're in Houston, I definitely recommend checking it out. The restaurant has 7 different locations in the Houston/south Texas area. The food is delicious and the price is extremely reasonable! More info can be found at their website here.

Thai Cottage's newly redesigned menus!

Cashew Chicken Delight: My regular order.

You're offered either soup or salad with vinegar or peanut dressing as an appetizer when you order their lunch special. Each comes with one of their crispy vegetable rolls. Here's the salad with peanut dressing - yummy!

Instead of soup or salad, I always ask for two "crispy rolls" as an appetizer, which come with extra sweet and sour sauce! Another great thing about Thai Cottage: they accommodate to your requests.

My #4 spicy Cashew Chicken delight lunch special! Delicious.

One of mom's regular orders: Pad Thai Lunch Special with #1 spice and only tofu.

Mom and papa :)

Since the weekend, my week has been highly uneventful, unfortunately. For three days, I've been attending a prep course for an exam, and the class is both highly boring and highly unhelpful. The teachers seem underqualified for this particular summer course, and I'm pretty sure I could teach the class better than they could! But, it was given to me for free, so I figured I might as well take it, in the hopes that it could actually help to improve my performance on the exam. Tonight I also attended a college talk from Brown, MIT, and Yale about admissions and college life at their campuses. However, with such a high price tag and the promise of "absolutely no merit-based scholarships", it's unlikely that I'll be attending the Ivy Leagues anytime soon! No need to worry about college too much yet though, if I do enough research, something good is bound to come my way :) (or I'll just have to make it come my way)

Elena