Once and a while, I make a conscious effort to do something off campus. I think, in a campus environment where everything is basically at your fingertips, it can be easy to get comfortable chilling in your residence hall or apartment at every waking hour with your roommates by your side. Especially on the weekend. And especially if you’re broke.
Getting out and buying a few useless items at Patrick Henry Mall would never work for me, since I’m terribly stingy to begin with. I thought about spending a few hours at the local library for a change of scenery, but I quickly realized how much I didn’t want to be (literally) surrounded by books for hours on end. Researching and working on assignments in the Trible Library is enough for me!
And then one day last year, one of my friends told me about this wonderful restaurant and coffee shop down in City Center, called Aromas. She herself was quite the coffee fanatic and said it was the perfect place to sit down for a few hours and talk with friends, or read or study, too. At first, I didn’t follow through on her insisting that I go; it’s the stinginess, you see. But on some Saturday when I had no scheduled work or assignments to finish (gasp!), I decided I would give it a try. And then a few more tries after that. The rest of it, as they say, was history.
Even now, at this exact sentence goes onto my Word document, I am enjoying a Saturday afternoon in Aromas, polishing off a delicious French onion soup, with loads of melt-y, gooey cheese, and sipping on a spiced chai tea latte. Although I don’t make it every Saturday or Sunday (hey, a girl’s gotta save for her Roth retirement plan), sometimes the combination of two hours of solitude and a different coffee concoction really hits the spot, both for my stomach and peace of mind. Maybe it’s the subtle jazz music playing in the background, or the fact that you can sit for three hours reading an exciting book and no one will bug you, that really makes Aromas a special place to go.
I feel like I’m divulging in one of my hidden secrets for the CNU community to know, which is why I won’t give you the address. If you want to visit Aromas yourself, you’ll have to work for it—which won’t be very hard, thanks to Google. But if you are ever craving an afternoon to yourself, give Aromas a try. You may not see the same special things about it that I do, but even so, their “Honey Do” lattes might make you a convert.
