The 5th Avenue of Shopping Malls

Wednesday night I met up with one of Joanna's incredibly gregarious friends who relocated to Dallas after spending some time in LA, Mexico, and NYC. He actually grew up in Rye, which somehow doesn't surprise me -- of course I would meet someone in Dallas who grew up 3 train stops away from me. Thank you, Westchester Jewish Connection!

I got to see the temple, which is the 3rd largest reform synagogue in the COUNTRY (yowza!), and I met some other people my age. I think I had actually started to forget how lonely I was out there.

David took me to this huge, gorgeous mall, which contains ALL the super expensive stores that I didn't even know would even be caught dead in a mall. I'm talking Bendel, Oscar de la Renta... serious stuff.

Then we grabbed dinner at one of the mall restaurants. I had a Teriyaki salmon salad (greens, tomatoes, red pepper, tofu, salmon, unidentifiable dressing on the side), which was lovely, and we chatted about consulting, the neighborhoods of Dallas, teaching English, Spain, Mexico, Spanish, Larabars (another SERIOUS fan), tummy sensitivities, and Lactaid pills. We even spoke IN Spanish a little! Needless to say, we totally hit it off. I'm really excited to have a buddy there and may try to stay an extra night one week to really get to see the city and go out?

It was such a welcomed break from all my usual time alone. I forgot how nice it is to be social during the week, and now I feel like I have someone who I could ask for advice on places to go and things to see. Really nice experience. Oh, and now I have a STELLAR new place to shop! Anthropologie, here I come!