El Tapatio

We stopped at one of my favorite Stillwater restaurants for dinner: El Tapatio. I almost never come here for dinner. After all, if you are going for cheap Tex-Mex, you go at the cheapest time. So usually I come here for a 4.69 lunch of tacos, beans, rice, chips, and salsa. And El Tap is the perfect place for a quick lunch. You can get in, get seated with a "Hey amigos. Follow me.", order the Speedy Gonzalez, get your food, eat, and pay the bill in under 20 minutes. The atmosphere is upbeat and energetic which brightens the day up a bit around lunchtime when I am contemplating the evening of homework stretching before me. The booths and tables and even the walls are brightly painted with calla lilies and parrots and donkeys and the green plants that sparsely decorated El Tap a few years ago now nearly cover the ceiling. The waiters work fast and efficiently, if not always particularly graciously. If you ask for a straw it appears in seconds, but don't expect the waiter to bother standing around chatting with you. The most incredible example of El Tap's efficiency is how your food is brought to you. If there's only two of you you won't see it, so try going with a group. One waiter will bring out something like a dozen plates at one time with no tray. He'll have his arms covered in an oven mitt and the plates just lined up from his hands to his shoulders.

Anyway, I enjoy all this excitement at lunchtime and usually prefer a more mellow pace in the evening. But what's life without a little variety so I branched out today with a shrimp chimichanga at El Tap for dinner. It did solve my hunger issue, but I think I will save El Tap for lunch next time. While there I saw a flyer for a Latin Dance this Friday. The flyer was in Spanish so I'm guessing it is a really Latin dance. The details are in the calendar on the right.

Casino Night

I went to Casino Night with Shelley Heath. In the future, I will always go to Casino Night with Shelley Heath. She's hilarious. I lost all my chips but had fun anyway because she was hilarious. Shelley has a lot of attitude but does it so sweetly and matter-of-factly that I think she disarms people. Anyway, I may have won a bit on blackjack, but she was raking in the chips on poker. One hand of Texas Hold 'Em saw 3 9's on the flop. Two people had pairs and thought their full house was in for some winnings. But Shelley had the fourth nine and took their money. The dealer even took a picture of the hand.

I mentioned I lost all my chips. Lest anyone think I lost actual money, let me explain Casino Night. You show up. They take your name and give you chips. If you lose everything, they'll give you more, but only once. You play roulette, poker, blackjack, craps, and eat food for a couple hours. Then you hand your chips back in and they get added to your semester-long balance. At the end of the semester, you use your chips to bid on stuff at an auction. This is my first semester to do Casino Night, but I think I'm hooked. As long as Shelley will keep going with me to make the night extra fun.

Hawaiian Murder Mystery Dinner

We totally overthought it and fingered the wrong person. The killer was actually obvious once you realized it. Hmmm...much like my algebra hw this week.

International Bazaar

People say there isn't much to do in Stillwater, OK. We've got laser tag, and glow-in-the-dark mini golf, bowling, and a movie theater. That's it. Slim pickins. But that's all the traditional, you have to pay for it type stuff to do. Stillwater is a college town and so it has lots of other stuff to do, it just varies week to week.

Today we went to the International Bazaar. It's held once a year by the International Student Organization. All the country or ethnic-specific groups have a table where they sell food and crafts. There's also dancing and music although that totally sucked this year. What rocked was the food. We ate yummy meat pies and donuts at the Africa table, borscht at the Russia table, rice noodles at the Thai table, sticky rice caked steamed in banana leaves at the Vietnamese table, sushi at the Japanese table, samosas with an awesome green sauce at the Indian table, fry bread at the Native American table, lentil something or others at the Turkey table, savory fried things at the Lebanese table, and a fried banana bread at a table whose country of origin has completely slipped my mind. You see, I started with the fried banana bread and then ate WAY too much and the subsequent sugar coma affected my long term memory the most. I also bought this weird hat from Thailand, because, well, I have a thing for hats. Anyway, Scott and I spent < $20 on all that and everything except the fry bread was delicious. So who says there's nothing going on in Stillwater, OK?