Weekend in Bloomington & Champaign

This weekend I drove down to Bloomington to visit my friends Preeti & Vikram who were moving to Pittsburgh for Vikram's new job assignment.
I got to Bloomington in time for dinner where Preeti had made these awesome mushroom & cheese hors d'oeuvres. After a long day at work and a seemingly longer drive through the traffic - these were the best surprise and truly heavenly.
The next morning I drove to Alok's University in Urbana Champaign. We met up for lunch and ended up going to the Red Lobster for some awesome grilled lobster and shrimp. After some more delicious tiramisu cake at Moonstruck the local U of I cafe with Alok & his friends - I headed back to Bloomington, for some good Thai dinner at a place Preeti and Vikram had stumbled on. It was good. :)
After dinner we went for a drive to Leroy in Preeti & Vikram's Jetta. The road to Leroy is lined by corn fields on either side. The Jetta has a fantastic sun/ moonroof. I stood up in the car and peeped out of the roof - It was a fantastic feeling. The cool wind on my face, for a moment - it felt like riding a bike with the wind in your hair and watching the stars in the sky, smelling the fresh corn fields of grass and corn and the typical meadow scent - far away from the city, far away from everything ... Just being able to stand up in the car and look out through the roof, was amazing and it seemed to blow any negative thoughts away.