I like tea

Recently we have become obsessed with tea. Maybe not obsessed, exactly, but we are far bigger fans of it than we were before. I am a drinker - I like to drink things. I like to drink alcohol in pretty much all of its forms, and I like to be buzzed, but I don't like being drunk. I wish I could drink more alcohol before I got to the uncomfortable and unsafe stage. I like coffee too, and I appreciate the stimulating effects of the caffeine, but, as with alcohol, if I drink too much of it I start to feel... unsafe. My heartbeat speeds up and becomes irregular, I get jittery and paranoid and am more susceptible to wild moodswings.

So tea is the perfect drink for me. I can drink far more of it before I start to feel the effects of the caffeine, and when it does hit me, it is far smoother than coffee can provide. The problem is that tea isn't very good unless it's really good. So I can't drink just any old Celestial Seasonings or Liptons tea. In fact, I really prefer loose-leaf tea (we've tried as much high-end bagged tea as I feel is necessary). So here is another thing that we've lost before we knew what we had when we moved to North Carolina. By comparison, Orlando was crawling with tea shops. Our favorite was Infusion Tea on Edgewater. We went occasionally, but now, as tea-drinking vegetarians, we realize what a fantastic restaurant we can no longer visit. Honestly, all we have been able to find here is Teavana, which is okay, but not fantastic. I appreciate their apparent intention to bring loose-leaf tea to a mass audience, but the store feels like a Best Buy version of a tea shop. The salespeople have to hustle you for commissions and I feel like I'm being grifted.

If you live in a place with a local tea shop, I recommend that you go soon. Go and order a cup of oolong tea and a bowl of vegan chili. It's the perfect day for it.

Libraries

I love public libraries. To me they are bizarre holdouts from a different era. When you think about it, they do not fit in to the mold of our modern American, Capitalist lifestyle at all. Publicly funded collections of books, free to the public (if you don't consider the taxes used to pay for everything) and conveniently located around the country. There are no membership fees, no stringent requirements need to be met, just residence. The amazing thing about them is that they serve no particular obvious need. Public schools make sense - without them our society would collapse in less than a single generation. The same could be said for public sanitation. But libraries are practically superfluous. Schools often have their own libraries, so public libraries are not specifically for education. They just provide free public access to information. They are not hallmarks of capitalism. Not everyone benefits from them (many people never use them) and no one profits from them - in fact, some establishments lose money. I would prefer, in most cases, to read a book from the library than to buy it from a bookstore. When I buy it, not only am I paying money for the book, but I also have to store it and carry it around with me wherever I go. Believe me - I own a lot of books.

I understand the historical necessity of libraries. As little as twenty years ago, not everything was available at every time. But now, thanks to the internet, information is free and everpresent. Books that were lost, out of print and buried in basements have resurfaced and can be bought. But still there are public libraries and I love them. The first thing I did after obtaining a North Carolina driver license was to get a library card. I literally got a driver license and that evening I picked up a library card. I feel something special when I go to a library. I feel a crazy sense of community, and books have an extra layer of energy. Books that I own have been read by me only, but books in libraries have been read over and over. I like to know that what I have just learned has been learned before and will be learned again.

So now it is time to pick up my borrowed book and read those words that have been read so many times before.

NC Museum of Natural History

I love a good museum, and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is a great museum. It may not be quite the Smithsonian, but was still very impressive. There were many skeletons and fossils, including four whale skeletons, an Acrocanthosaurus fossil, a giant sloth fossil and the world's only dinosaur with a fossilized heart. The coolest thing is that these are all local. I have a hard time imagining dinosaurs tramping around in these forests, but there you are.

There were also a few meteorites, one that you are encouraged to touch - who knows what kinds of diseases I caught from that little stunt. It really was something to touch an actual meteorite and to think that it used to be hurtling through space and now here it is. What can I say? I'm easily amazed.

There was also a fantastic butterfly room, where it is all but impossible to avoid touching the butterflies that swirl and flutter through the air. There is a sloth (predictably immobile and hidden) and hummingbirds which we also did not see.

Across the street is the museum of history, but we are saving that for another day.

Lilly's Pizza: It's good!

Oh how we love Lilly's Pizza! It is our favorite restaurant in Raleigh and, I think, my favorite restaurant ever. I can't recall having a favorite restaurant in Orlando. There were certainly places that I liked to go for one reason or another, but none of them ever stood out as what I would call a 'favorite restaurant.' In each place there was something I liked but plenty that I did not. And, as further proof, I do not miss any of them. I miss some things, and some specific restaurants even: I miss Junior's Diner, but only because there isn't anything like that here. I miss the whole neighborhood of Vietnamese restaurants, but I'm sure that if we found a good Vietnamese restaurant here we would be okay. I miss the various tea shops and vegetarian restaurants in Orlando, but I miss them less and less as we find suitable replacements here in Raleigh.

But Lilly's... I don't think it is replaceable. If we moved, I know we would never find a place quite like it. We have eaten there at least five times since we have lived here and we have yet to wear out the menu. In fact, nearly everything on the menu is vegetarian-friendly (if not meatless, substitutions can easily be made) and nearly everything looks delicious. Their salads look amazing, calzones and strombolis look intimidating, and the pizzas... well, I don't want to go on for too long about it. I'll look like a fool.