I'm not usually a soppy person, I avoid anything remotely romantic and I'm not too fond about people gushing about their other halves. For once I'm going to be completely unlike myself and say that my biggest reason to smile at the moment is James, also known as the boyfriend. After my really crappy exam on Friday, he told me he'd get something for dinner afterwards. I was expecting pizza or a Steers burger. This is what I got instead.

He'd set up a candlelit dinner in his res room (never mind the no candles in res rule) complete with red roses and wine and beef lasagne (my favourite) and cupcakes from Haricots. I was quite overwhelmed, as I really was expecting something like pizza and a chilled night. Then again, James never fails to surprise me. It was the perfect way to celebrate not only the end of my exam, but also six months of us dating. Not a long time, but definitely the most happiness that could possibly be packed in such a short time, and definitely worth celebrating.

Ode to bacon and boyfriends

I like bacon. I like avo. I like pizzas. I like the Rat and Parrot. I like bacovian pizzas from the Rat.

But most of all, I like getting a surprise bacovian pizza from the boyfriend with a message on the box that's cheesier than the pizza inside.

How not to dress like an Indian

This week is the last week of lectures, and also the busiest time for students frantically trying to finish and hand in all outstanding work. In the midst of all this, some friends and I got together and declared today "Indian Day" because two of us are indian. We ate curry and samoosas, burned incense and listened to music in a language we could not understand but sang along to anyway. Our interpretations of indian clothes was a little silly but hey, sometimes doing something silly is the most fun.

Hannah

Darsha

Cath

And meeee!

Waiter, there's a skeleton in my coffee

I went to get myself an iced coffee and bumped into a friend - gotta love living in a small town! And then while chatting to us, the barista created this cutie. Sweetest skeleton man I've ever seen.

Prison Break-fast

The Provost a year ago

A year ago, I did a photo essay on some interesting buildings on the Rhodes University campus and one of my favourites was the Old Provost, a prison that remained from Grahamstown's military days. Well a week ago that prison re-opened as a coffee shop! How's that for an out-of-the-ordinary culinary experience?

I popped in to The Provost Cafe last week after oversleeping and missing breakfast (which happens more often than it should) for a quick coffee but ended up staying for one of their savoury muffins. What a good life choice! It was a simple spinach, feta and pepperdew muffin but it was absolutely amazing. The filter coffee that I ordered, however, tasted pretty average. A friend of mine grabbed a cappuccino a few days later and said that it was really good, so I suggest you pay them a visit and decide for yourself because I am certainly no coffee expert.

The menu appears to be rather limited: just muffins, croissants and giant cookies but what is there is freshly made and wholesome. I do hope more food is added on soon though so I can say I know what prison food tastes like.

The Provost is on the outskirts of campus where it is much quieter, making it a great place to catch up on reading or meetings. I'm also pretty excited about using a landmark in such a way that tourists can do more than just have a look at the outside of the place. As you eat you are surrounded by the old jail rooms, which is possibly the strangest place I've ever had a meal at. Strange, but pretty darn awesome of course.

For more info on The Provost Cafe, this right here is their Facebook page. And if you don't already know that the Old Provost is a Panopticon (Panopti-whaaaat?) then do click here and be knowledged by the mighty wikipedia.

Happy coffee drinking!

Doors of the prison cells are now open for visitors to have a look around.

The view from inside the cells is now a much more pleasant sight.