So Sunday was Morris’s 21st birthday and it was a blast! Unfortunately, we are back to school, so the for the first part of the day we did homework! No better way to celebrate : )

But of course we take the celebration of birthdays seriously here at Temple so it wasn’t just birthday, but birthweekend. It started on Friday when Morris and I went to his fraternity’s house to see everyone. I didn’t take any pictures there because I forget my SD card in my computer : (

But then Saturday, not really a celebration, but we went looking for houses for next year. We drove around and found a whole bunch of places that are renting, however none that are exactly what we need. So sadly enough, the large house with all my friends for next year isn’t going to happen. But in better news, I found all these houses in South Philly that are SUPER cheap and they allow pets! I’m really pumped! Like right now I pay $375 and utilities but the places I’m finding are about $200 a person. And we have another friend that is thinking about moving in with us and that will make it even cheaper! All the houses are 3 or 4 blocks from the subway (just like I am now) and offer a new environment so that’s really exciting : ) Plus I’ll be saving a lot of money!!

I found this cute little thing driving around:

I have more some pictures of the area I’m moving to but they come later…

And then Sunday night we had a dinner for Morris’s birthday with just really close friends. We had planned to go to Monk’s cafe because of their diverse menu (Mussel’s for the boys, vegan burger for me!). Well, we waited 45 minutes but walking around and finding an ATM. Here we are at a store (with an ATM) which I was at freshman year!

(this has nothing to do with the birthday) So one day my friend Josh and I decided to go to the city to walk around. I’m not really sure why. I’m sure it had something to do with our Sociology class that we didn’t want to do work for. So I got a crazy craving for chocolate covered pretzled, we walked alllll over, and finally found some.

Me, Freshman year, with my pretzels and Jolt. We had about 3 that night. They need to bring that back. It was good : )

haha this was on the facebook and josh captioned it “amanda…u do not need sugar and jolt”

Here’s most of us in that store again, waiting for Sean at the ATM.

So back to the birthday.

We got back to Monk’s and then our over enthusiastic hostess informed us we all needed to be 21 if we weren’t with a parent.

So…we headed to Olive Garden (yeah, it’s our go to place!) and waited there for 30 minutes but it was well worth it!

And I saw this in a window somewhere and I think it’s so pretty!

So, at Olive Garden we had an awesome waiter. He was very good at what he did. First, he tells us we get 3 wine samples so that made me happy! And basically we ate, and ate, talked about old tv shows from our time, ate, and it was pretty awesome.

This picture is really funny.  Alex and Kim both work for HX magazine and they were trying to make “HX” with their hands.  Well, Alex forgot he was the “X”…

But then they got it 

Morris when he got his cake (with our awesome waiter in the back).

and Me and Morris:

Sean looks super creepy in this picture.

That other guy is Nikita.  He normally doesn’t look like a young version of Sandman from Spiderman 3.  Funny story about him:  Morris and I met him in the pool room at the SC sometime last year and then we kept seeing him around campus.  Then as we were driving looking for a spot (which i never recommend in the city) we saw him and he ended up joining us for dinner.  And Sean knows him too.  What was the funniest though was we saw him walking, Sean was like, “STOP THE CAR, ROLL DOWN THE WINDOW!  NIKITA!”  and then I got honked at for blocking traffic.

So back to the night.   We went back to the car and thankfully I didn’t have a ticket. I’m always paranoid about that wherever I park.  Anyone see Parking Wars?  It’s about Philadelphia Parking Authority.  My mom watches in hopes of seeing me.   Then when we got home some of Morris’s fraternity brothers came over with cake and we played Rock Band for a while.  Then everyone left and Morris and I gave Sean a ride home (he lives in Kensington, on Hazzard street…kind of funny) and then Morris and I decided to drive to South Philly to check out that area as a possible place to live.  Notable places:

Pat’s King of Steaks:

and Gino’s (so bad for the environment with wasting electricity):

Not like I really care because I’m vegan…but for tourists it is a big attraction.  They’re also open at 2:00 a.m. on a Monday.  And just down the street is the Italian Market and South Street so it’s a really great area  : )

And then I started a wonderful week of classes!  And I’m gonna do some homework and update about what happened during the week in a little.