Coffee Tour de Gainesville: Curia on the Drag

Another week, another post. I realize that I don't have an about me of any sort on this blog as of yet... maybe I should get to that. Eh, I'm lazy. Anyway, for those who don't know (as if anyone actually reads this), I've quickly become a huge coffee fan. What started as buying a miniature coffee maker for my dorm to keep me awake during late nights has turned into almost an obsession. These past few months in particular, I have occupied myself with creating the perfect cup of french press coffee and searching for my favorite coffee place in Gainesville.

Thus begun the Tour de Coffee: my exploration of all things coffee in Gainesville (specific shops, the best non coffee specific places to get it, my own personal coffee adventures...), beginning with Curia on the Drag. This past Sunday was my first time going, and I will most definitely be going back. I'm a huge fan of iced coffee (especially in this Florida heat) and their cold brew just does magical things to my taste buds. It's smooth but nice and strong. Can you tell that I don't know much about coffee aromas? I'm trying. Or maybe not really.

Curia is small but with a great vibe, comfortable seating, and lots of things to look at. Maybe not the best place for studying, but a great place for hanging out. My favorite part, I think, is the dinosaur statue chilling outside. Not sure if it even goes with the coffee shop... not really sure why it's there at all... hopefully with more visits, I will find out.

For those not too interested in coffee, Curia also serves a variety of teas, beer, and wine. I saw they have Swamphead Big Nose IPA and let me tell you, I cannot wait for the day I turn 21.

My Best Friend and a Couple of Bikes

I find it so easy to pity myself, to wonder why I don't have certain things, why bad things keep happening to me. So easy to pity myself, yet so difficult to, as most people put it, count my blessings. Over the past four months, I have had to take my car in for very expensive repairs several times. It's frustrating - especially considering I work across town - and I have been getting increasingly upset over it. Without my car, I am left without a reliable source of transportation, and with my best friend in town for the week, we are left stuck in my apartment with little to do other than watch movies and groan about the car situation.

That's where we turned lemons into lemonade (sorry for all the cliches, it's just that kind of day). I fixed up my old bike before he arrived, planning on taking him on a few bike rides - mostly just to UF campus - so that he could get a taste for how my life goes when I'm up here. What turned into a few planned rides has evolved into four days of adventures. All my favorite places, all explored through the scorching Florida heat (95+ degrees today!), four wheels, and two bikes. I may still be upset about my car (how can I not when it was supposed to be ready yesterday...), but I do have blessings to count, and that definitely counts for something.

Some of the place we've been after the jump

a poem

Living   in the earth-deposits   of our history

Today a backhoe divulged   out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle   amber   perfect   a hundred-year-old
cure for fever   or melancholy   a tonic
for living on this earth   in the winters of this climate

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered   from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years   by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin   of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold   a test-tube or a pencil

She died   a famous woman   denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds   came   from the same source as her power

-"Power" by Adrienne Rich, from The Dream of a Common Language

Little Things in the Last Light

These past few weeks have allowed me the time to sit back and think - where am I going from here? Why am I persueing this path? What is important to me, and what is worth fighting for?

While I may not have all the answers, I still think time for reflection is important. The truth is, I don't know why I'm on this path - in Gainesville, studying English, slowly turning into what my mother calls a hippie, and consuming an unhealthy amount of Hyppo popsicles and Midnight Cookies. I used to love literature, and then the anxiety of university left Dante sitting on my desk and me avoiding it like the plague.

I guess it doesn't matter what I am doing or why I am doing it. What does matter is taking the times to appreciate the little things, like enjoying the last few rays of light in my hammock by a creek, the temperature perfect, the cicadas singing me their hopes, the mosquitos surprisingly at bay, and my thoughts reminding me that I am enough. I am just right.

Currently reading: Gather Together in My Name by Maya Angelou