Weekends were made for quick road trips.

And last weekend, Charles, our friend, O’cie, and I found ourselves making a 6 hour drive up to New Haven, Connecticut to visit our friends, Anthony & Stephanie.

Located about an hour north of NYC, this was my first time ever visiting New Haven and I found the historic city/ college town to be surprisingly charming despite the heavy snow that decided to bless us and the Northeast with its presence.

With that said, below is a list of what we did during the 36 hours we spent in New Haven. :)

Explore Yale University’s Campus

^^ O’cie, Anthony & Charles. They’ve been friends since middle school. Always fun to play 4th wheel to their bromance when we’re all together :) ^^ Portrait of the 1st African American to graduate from Yale^^ Portrait of the 1st cohort of female Ph.D.’s to graduate from Yale.

New Haven is home to Yale University, the 3rd oldest institution for higher education in the U.S. Founded in 1701, the campus’s original architecture (with necessary modern interior updates) gives off an old world feel that I immediately fell in with when Anthony showed us around campus. In particular, I fell in library love with the Sterling Memorial Library said the blogger who worked as a work-study librarian during her undergrad years.

Grab A Late Night Treat @ Donut Crazy

A donut shop open until 3am? Hell yes. Donut Crazy was a perfect way to close out our first night in New Haven.

Prior to that, we grabbed dinner from Elm City Social. Charles and I ordered the lobster doughnut dinner to split w/ a side of veggies and fries. The waffle fried lobster claws were soooo banging.

Now that I think of it, we were definitely on a donut kick that night haha.

Stroll Through The Grove Street Cemetery

^^ Leaving footprints in the fresh snow. ^^ Tombstone of Roger Sherman = One of America’s Founding Fathers and the only person to sign all four of our country’s founding documents: the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. ^^ Tombstone of Noah Webster = In 1843, the Merriam-Webster bought the rights to the 1841 edition of Noah Webster’s magnum opus, An American Dictionary of the English Language, Corrected and Enlarged. At the same time, they secured the rights to create revised editions of the work. Since that time, Merriam-Webster editors have carried forward Noah Webster’s work, creating some of the most widely used and respected dictionaries and reference books in the world. ^^ Tombstone of Eli Whitney = inventor of the Cotton Gin = an invention that played a huge part in influencing the start of the Civil War.

If you’ve been following this blog since the beginning of time, you may already know that I, Setarra, have a thing for walking through cemeteries (during the day) and reading tombstones. If you’re a new reader… Well, if you don’t know now you know.

I think my interest stems from my fascination with greek & roman mythology and the idea of being immortal… To me, a tombstone is another way of keeping a person’s memory alive. And by taking the time to a read their tombstone and appreciate their contributions to the world, I feel like I’m doing my part in helping to keep their memory alive as well.

As such, when I learned about Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, there was no question that I would make time to visit. Founded in 1796, Grove Street Cemetery is the first private, non-profit cemetery in the world and as of 2000, is a designated National Historic Landmark. Prior to Grove Street, burials of the dead were done randomly, not in one established location. It was one of the earliest burial grounds to have a planned layout, with plots permanently owned by individual families, a structured arrangement of ornamental plantings, and paved and named streets and avenues. Basically, the way cemeteries are designed and run present day is a direct result Grove Street Cemetery setting the precedent which I thought was pretty interesting to learn.

In addition to it’s place in “cemetery history”, there are also a few cool people buried there which I made a point to find. Photos of the notable tombstones I found with captions above.

Grab Breakfast @ The Pantry

Before I say anything, it must be noted that Charles, Steph, O’cie and I waited outside in the cold for 20 minutes to get into The Pantry. Steph said it was worth the wait so we took her word for it. Thank goodness the food was good or else, I would’ve been upset lol. As you can tell from the photos above, we went in.

Charles and I decided to stop eating red meat, chicken & turkey as of January 1st this year and the transition with our diet has been much easier than we thought (thinking about doing a more in depth post about this later). Only when eating out do we sometimes run into issues but that’s mostly for lunch or dinner menus. Breakfast is always easy to find something when eating out. Charles had a massive order of french toast and I ordered a spinach & feta omelette with a side of toast and home fries. Everything was delish.

Watch An Ivy League Basketball Game

^^ Pre-game good luck send off with Anthony^^ Steph & Friends :)

Anthony is an assistant coach for Yale’s basketball team and so, while in town, we went to two of their Ivy League games in support.

The 2 games we watched were Yale vs. Dartmouth & Yale vs. Harvard with the latter game being a huge rival game.

I’m not a big fan of watching sports on t.v. and in general but I do enjoy watching games live, in person. The energy in any kind of sports stadium is always invigorating especially when it’s a big rival game.

Celebrate Steph’s 30th Birthday!

^^ The main reason we made the trip up to New Haven = To celebrate Steph’s 30th birthday! She reserved an airbnb and had a whole bunch of friends from NYC come up to celebrate as well. Great times w/ great friends… And a subtle little reminder to me that I will be turning 30 in less than 2 months. O_O