Oh Champaign, I have missed you.  And you apparently have missed me, as within five minutes of parking our car, I saw someone I knew from my Aroma days.

We were in town for Darren and Hannah’s wedding – Shane’s first trip back since we moved in 2007 – and kicked off our trip with a visit to the Esquire.  $5 for a pitcher of PBR!  It’s not good beer, but it is exceptionally cheap beer, and we split it while catching up with people at Symposium.  Some things never change – if it’s a warm summer night, GSLIS folks will be found on a patio, and DocD will be alternating between coffee and white wine.

photo by HorsePunchKid

With our alcohol blankets firmly in place, we wandered over to the Piglet, the new Blind Pig brewery.  The original Blind Pig was voted one of the top 50 places to drink beer in the country, so we had high hopes.  I really enjoyed my cider, while Shane was less satisfied with his APA – good, but nothing to write home about.  The new space is great, though, and if we were still in town, I could see us hanging out there all the time.

And then….the diner.  The first place we hung out, and the last place we hung out before we started dating:

There were no diner stacks tonight – or hangover horseshoes.  Just good old diner fare and the bondage toilet:

photo by benchilada

Like I said, some things never change.