Dueling Pianos and ice-cream tacos

We hadn't washed the car since we bought it (which is nearly a year ago now), and driving around all these national parks was not exactly keeping it clean. Everyone here keeps their car pretty clean, or maybe they just don't get dirty in the cities, but I decided it was time. We're not allowed to wash the car in the garage (and it's three flights upstairs to get a bucket of water) so we went to the car wash next to a gas station. Charlotte is all pretty now and enjoyed her day at the car spa. 

That was pretty much for Saturday during the day as I did a lot of sleeping in the morning. About 4pm, Laura came over and we got ready to go out to something in Claremont. Teresa had organised it all and we weren't really sure what was going to happen. All we knew was that there was going to be dueling pianos. 

We got there and it was a smallish bar with two pianos on stage at the front. We ordered some drinks and a few snacks and then waited for it to begin. They began by playing some songs and were very good. People were already singing along. The fun part though, was that people would bid on the songs. They would write their choice and then add a tip. The players would then choose from the songs with the highest bids and play them. What made it even more fun, was that if someone really hated the song which was currently playing, they could outbid the original tip and press the big red button on stage to stop it and play their own song. 

We saw this happen a couple of times and two people got into a frenzied bidding war over two songs. One guy ended up paying over $400 for Bohemian Rhapsody! It was a fun night with lots of singing (no dancing though, as we were all sat at little tables). 

Sunday we took slow after our late night. We also hadn't eaten enough as we sort of forgot about food once we got to the chaos of Piano Piano, so we weren't feeling great. We walked onto campus in search of exercise and junk food. We got some burgers and veggie wings from the vegan place and then sat and had a little picnic in a nice shady area. As we were walking through campus we found a giant orange sculpture in the middle of some orange trees. We also saw a big grasshopper on the pavement and a large hawk on the fence as we got back to our apartment. A very exciting walk!


Wednesday was Star Wars Day (May the Fourth (be with you)). So one of the libraries was hosting a big event with cosplayers coming in dressed as Stormtroopers. I went to take some photos, and it was really fun to see them walking around and doing regular library things. 

On Thursday, we went for a little date night in Redlands. It's another city in the Inland Empire and only takes about 20 minutes to get to. I'd seen that there was a night market there on Thursday night, so the plan was to get some street food and look at the stalls. However, we got there and the street was empty! We don't know why it wasn't on, but it definitely wasn't there that night. 

But the Downtown area we were in was very cute anyway, with lots of antique shops and cafes. We found a bar for some dinner (and a cocktail for me as Mitchell offered to drive home). We then had a look online and found a cute ice-cream/taco place we thought would be fun. We walked through the town and got there just as it got dark. 

The cafe was super cute and did rolled ice-cream in coloured sweet taco shells. I got a matcha flavoured one in a pink shell, which came with green tea pocky and a fortune cookie. Mitchell got a salted caramel in a green shell. They were very tasty and surprisingly big!



See you next time!

Emily and Mitchell

xxxxxxxxxxxx

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