Coffee, Tea, and a McDonald’s Rant!
Hello from 2:00 in the morning! What a long day!! I drove to my parent’s house from Albany tonight with everybody else in the world returning to NYC from their Fourth of July Weekend vacations. Luckily, my parents live about 30 miles outside NYC so I didn’t have to drive all the way there. Traffic was horrible!
Dara and I decided to go shopping today before we left Albany! Before we headed out, I snacked on this
Blue Corn Tortilla Chips, Baby Carrots, and Spinach & Artichoke Hummus
Since it was a beautiful day (finally!!), we decided to shop around an outdoor mall called Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany. I bought a penguin shaped ice cube tray at this cooking store. Now I can have penguin shaped ice cubes! (Pictures will come soon, promise!) We also checked out a book store and this cool health food store that I never knew was there!
We ate lunch at this place called Peaches Cafe. I ordered the Mediterranean Vegetable Sandwich
The sandwich contained Grilled Eggplant, Tomato, Roasted Pepper, and Mozzarella Cheese on Basil Focaccia bread. It was so good. The description on the menu said it came with fried eggplant and I just asked for it grilled instead. I ate half the sandwich for lunch and the other half later for dinner. The basil focaccia really made the sandwich. Yum!
I also got a vanilla iced coffee with skim milk from a local bagel place
After we were done with lunch, we headed to the Crossgates Mall. After walking around for a while, I stopped at Teavana and got an Iced Jasmine Green Tea
I love floral teas and this one was amazing! I love Teavana!
When Dara and I had enough of shopping, we headed back to my apartment. I packed enough clothing for the two weeks I am staying at my parent’s house (read: 2 suitcases) and we hit the road at around 8:00pm.
Road Food/Drink included:
Starbucks Skinny Vanilla Iced Coffee (skim milk & sugar free syrup)
and… (gulp)…this
Yes, that says McDonald’s. It was the only thing open in the rest area where we stopped. It contained Apples, Grapes, Non-Fat Vanilla Yogurt, and Walnuts. The yogurt was loaded with sugar so I only used it to dip my fruit into. I didn’t eat it completely. And the walnuts were candied! I don’t get why McDonald’s can’t just have a healthy snack without adding something unhealthy to it. Regular walnuts would have been fine. They didn’t need to be coated in sugar. This ’salad’ was reasonable when it came to calories (210 for the whole thing) but it had 25 grams of sugar! Needless to say, I only ate the fruit, less than half of the yogurt, and one or two of the walnuts. I wasn’t incredibly hungry so the apple and grapes kept me full for the rest of my drive home. I wish McDonald’s didn’t suck so much!
I didn’t get to my parent’s house till nearly 12:00am with all the traffic (it should have taken 2 hours, and it took 4). My parents just got back from a trip to Maine and brought me this
- Blueberry Tea
- Blueberry Mug
My parents know me so well! Can’t wait to try the tea!
Well, I’m off to sleep. I am going to pay for a 2 week trial to NY Sports Club while I’m staying here so I don’t miss out on too much gym time. It’s definitely not walking distance like my gym at home is though!
More Tomorrow! Have a Great Night/Morning! :-)
Rosey Rebecca
Sorry to hear that traffic was bad. :s
A cooking store, a book store, and a health food store in an outdoor mall must be heaven. Can’t wait to see pics of penguin shaped ice. :P
too funny! thanks for sharing…best, s
I love peaches cafe! Such a diamond in the rough… great food and so cheap! Teavana intimidates me for some reason. I went in there once and couldn’t figure the place out. Do they have a drink menu? When i went, I couldn’t seem to find it!
Peaches was great! You can order any tea that Teavana sells either hot or iced! I’m obsessed!
Sorry about the awful traffic ! I live in NYC and driving going over the GW bridge is always a-w-f-u-l. Last weekend I parked my car and read a book until the cars in front of me started to move…Anyway, your weekend eats look good! I’m loving all the veggie sandwiches :-)
Mark got that at McDonald’s on our drive to Rhode Island over the weekend. He didn’t eat much of the yogurt because he said it was basically sugar and we also were chatting about how expensive it was compared to the crap on the 99 cent menu! McDonald’s is awful. Period.
I agree completely. I wouldn’t care if all of the McDonald’s in the world simultaneously exploded! (without people in them of course) :-)
The only thing I ever eat at McDonalds, are the grilled chicken snack wraps, which only cost like $1.50. Buy two of them for $3 for a cheap, high protein meal. The downside? The wrap is a pasty white burrito bread and if you put sauce on your wrap – they offer chipolte bbq, ranch, honey mustard – you’re adding sugar and fat. Still probably the healthiest thing at McD’s short of salad and fruit.