Trip to North Carolina Part Three

Part The Third

Dreary weather in the mountains Monday Morning

Monday dawned dark, damp, and dreary. I was able to drag myself out of bed after almost ten hours of sleep (I was super tired... the mountain air always makes me sleep hard) and ate some lovely orzo for breakfast. I had been hoping to hike, but the on again- off again rain storms mixed with ice was a definite deterrent to my hiking plans. Instead I spent the day listening to my "Unheard" playlist on ITunes and reading up on some info for future blog posts.

Tuesday was exciting and stressful all at once. I woke up at the crack of dawn to drive to Spartanburg, South Carolina to see my friends. It had either iced/ snowed the night before or the dew froze. It was beautiful.

The Garden in Winter

The drive down the mountain was uneventful. I visited my friend Wendi, the music librarian and we had a really nice chat to catch up. I then went to my friend Katie's voice lesson. She is working on her pieces for the NATS competition later this month and it was wonderful to hear her sing. She has improved a lot in the year or so since I heard her sing last and it is always fun to hear how someone's voice develops as they hone their technique.

Katie at Lime Leaf in Spartanburg, SC

We then went to lunch at Lime Leaf and had a lovely time chatting over our food. I had the Basil with Eggplant (vegetables) with white rice and Katie had the Chicken with Cashews (minus the chicken plus the vegetables) with white rice and fried rice. They came with spring rolls and dipping sauce. We split the Mango Sticky Rice for desert (one of my favorite deserts ever). The waiters were super nice and chatted with us for a bit (Katie is a regular customer) and had great suggestions on how to vegan-ize the menu items.

Basil Eggplant with Vegetables and White Rice from Lime Leaf

Cashew Vegetables and White Rice

After lunch, I tagged along in Opera Workshop class (one of my favorite classes ever) where they were learning about writing up resumes and bios. It was fun to get a little refresher course. After class, Katie and I ran back to the library to pick out some new music for her to sing. Then I went to my voice studio's seminar/ studio class and listened to people sing. I spoke briefly with my voice teacher afterwards and set up a time to see her on Friday. I then proceeded to get lost on my way to Katie's apartment, find my way there, and briefly visit with her and her roommate.



We look like sisters! Besties that match?

Our hair even matches!

I then drove to Greenville, where I met my awesome former roommate Lauren. We ate dinner at Kanpai of Tokyo, a really awesome Japanese restaurant with lots of atmosphere. As in, they have a giant taxidermied turtle just hanging out in the anti-room on the restrooms. It is huge. The sushi bar area is separate from the hibachi bars, so the volume of noise is muffled and quiet. The room is dark and very night-club-sushi-esque instead of day-at-the-spa-sushi-esque. It was happy hour for sushi so I got the salad roll, cucumber roll, and shitake roll as well as a seaweed salad. It was all fantastic. The shitake roll was drizzled in a slightly sweet brown sauce of unknown origin that really brought out the earthiness of the mushrooms. The salad roll was lettuce, tomato, and carrot in rice and seaweed. I had never had a roll like it and I absolutely adored it. The cucumber roll and seaweed salad were pretty basic and just like any other sushi place, but still good.

Lauren took me back to her apartment where we watched part of a documentary called The Corporation about the evils of big business. I'm not sure I agree with some of the sentiments of the movie, but it was interesting to watch. We ended up staying up a little late, but had a great time catching up.

Wednesday I went back to school and sat in on a freshman music history class that was learning about instrumental music in Italy in the early renaissance. The teacher is one of my favorites, and I greatly enjoyed her lecture. I went to church after that (early of course, because I never go places late and I tend to get the time wrong) and had a brief chat with my former choir director.

Episcopal Church of the Advent, Spartanburg, SC

Stained Glass at Church of the Advent, Spartanburg, SC

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, and is therefore one of the Fast Days of the church. I inadvertently fasted until almost 2:00 just because I didn't have time to eat, but many people fast on purpose on that day. Church was really great. The sermon was about our relationships with others and our relationship with God. The human relationships run on a flat horizontal plain, and our relationship with God is vertical. What we have to do is get them to intersect. Fr. Stephen made the point that they do intersect in the form of the cross (like the ashes that were imposed upon our foreheads). It was a really nice sermon and I was glad to be there to hear it.



This is what the ashes look like, FYI

After church, I went back to school and had some tea and a nice chat with one of my other music history teachers. It was really great to catch up with him while I could.


Stained Glass at Church of the Advent, Spartanburg, SC

Then, Katie and I went to lunch (well, it was 2:15 pm, so it was lunch for me and afternoon tea for Katie) at this great new restaurant called Willy Taco. It was really just what I needed. Katie and I both got the Crispy Avocado Taco (without the crèma sauce) and the Naked Burrito Bowl with roasted vegetables. The inside of the place is a cross between a Dia de los Muertos festival and a recycled items only/ hipster place. It is bright and open and full of yellows, greens, and exposed ceilings. It was pretty busy for an off hour, so I can imagine that it is super packed during regular hours.



Naked Burrito Bowl with Veggies from Willy Taco, Spartanburg, SC

After racing Katie back to school, I filled up my gas tank and drove back to Hendersonville, NC in the sun, singing like a maniac. It was such a beautiful, sunny, glorious, fantastic, bright winter afternoon that I couldn't help myself. I then relaxed and scavenged the pantry and refrigerator for dinner. What a wild day!

The King Cake my parents were eating on Mardi Gras while I was in South Carolina