The Friday Five, 9/10/21: 5 things I've been up to this week

Today basically feels like Tuesday—yesterday was super busy at work, as I thought it would be, and I whittled my 60 unread emails down to like 15 emails for me to deal with today (and that was with a lot of deleting during vacation too). I have to go get bloodwork today which I'm not super happy about but UM requires me to get bloodwork done every 3-6 months now, I think. 

Blue corn tortilla carne asada tacos at Diego's, Newport
Blue corn tortilla carne asada tacos at Diego's, Newport

What I've been up to this week:

  1. More traveling. From Friday through Sunday, I was at my friend Heather's house in Sharon, MA, the city where my aunt and uncle on my mom's side live. On Friday, we went into Boston, to the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), where Heather's husband Sean works, and had a fun day at the museum; there is also a water taxi to take you across the bay to East Boston, which is where the ICA Watershed is (an additional exhibit). We had dinner at a delicious Italian place called Pastoral that night in Boston too. On Saturday, I went to a BBQ with my relatives, and it was nice to see them, especially the littlest one, whom is only 6 weeks old. On Sunday, Heather and Sean and I went to Newport for the day, where I ate the tacos pictured above; we also took a boat tour, with narration, which was a lot of fun. Sunday night I switched to RI and "moved in" to the Best Western in Warwick, which was a decent hotel; on Monday, my aunt and I got together with that side of the family at my cousin's house in South Kingston, RI, which is stunning; on Tuesday, my aunt and I watched Clickbait on Netflix together and went to get apple cider donuts; and on Wednesday, it was time for me to come back to Michigan. 
  2. Eating out. All of my eats on the trip were pretty tasty. On Saturday, Heather and I got Chinese food takeout from a local place in Sharon. I didn't get to make it to Crescent Ridge this time (my fave ice cream place in Sharon; it's comparable to Guernsey's in this area) but my stomach probably was happy about that. The best meal was probably the margherita pizza I got at Pastoral (with fresh basil and buffalo mozzarella); we also ordered these HUGE garlic knots, which had caramelized garlic inside, which was interesting. My aunt and I also had some Indian food at Chaska, in Cranston, RI, on Tuesday night—we weren't super hungry so we got two appetizers instead. The chaat we had was delicious and the stuffed naan with chicken tikka masala, and mango chutney, was okay; it needed a larger portion of chutney. 
    Non-trip-related, yesterday my boyfriend and I ventured over to the Catrina Mia food truck, which is in the parking lot of the Zazz gas station in Sterling Heights. @thedetroitdiet had posted about it on Instagram and their birria tacos looked amazing; they were pretty delicious. They also give you a cup of the birria (soup? consomme?) to dip the tacos in. 
  3. Watching TV shows and movies. My aunt and I binged Clickbait and it was really good, although the ending was kinda crazy. I've still been watching The Other Two, on HBO Max, and I have a few episodes left of that. I rewatched She's All That, since I had recently seen the new Netflix version (He's All That), and I have to say that She's All That is far superior to the new version; I gave the new version 3/5 stars and I'd give SAT 4/5 stars. I also watched more of Only Murders in the Building, on Hulu, which I'm really liking, and Nine Perfect Strangers, also Hulu, which is getting weirder by the week. 
  4. Exploring ICA. Like I mentioned before, on Friday we spent the day at ICA, including the ICA Watershed in East Boston. I'm not a big museum person but contemporary art is interesting because it's very subjective; for example, one piece of art was actually a screenshot, entitled Screen Shot, mounted on some sort of board. There were also some sneakers, and a lot of other crazy exhibits. ICA Watershed was beautiful but if you go, don't plan on spending a lot of time there, as it's basically just one exhibit; I think we waited longer for the water taxi than the time we spent at the exhibit. 
  5. Seeing family. I don't get to see my family very often, since most of them live in MA and RI, so it was nice to see everyone this week. On Monday, my RI side met up at my cousins' house, which is gorgeous—it's on a pond and also has an infinity pool, which I was able to swim in. Almost everyone except maybe 5 of the younger cousins were there, which is really unusual—it's hard to get everyone in one place at the same time—so we took a group picture as well. My aunt is 9 years older than my dad, and her kids are in their 50s and their kids are in their 20s, so I have quite a large family on that side of the family (by contrast, my mom's brother is only 3 or 4 years older than her, so my cousins on that side of the family are all in their 30s, with their kids being 4 years old and younger).
ICA water taxi, on the East Boston side
ICA water taxi, on the East Boston side

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