I (this is Emsu, hi!) am enjoying the summer after my first year of law school, and Raus is enjoying working life after a year of unemployment and getting legal (ie, getting his green card). It was a tough year for the both of us, and our lifestyles + our recent marriage gave us the excuse to essentially never go out on a date. It was a dark year.
But with that behind us, we have been using our summer to leap back into the world of dating (each other) and discover our new home state of Michigan in the process.
Our first big date was to spend a day in Detroit - which, despite what the hundreds of recent news articles say (especially this little gem), is a pretty cool city (it does have many problems, but I think there's some sort of renaissance taking place there).
Our Date in Detroit!
My co-workers mentioned that I needed to try The Pupuseria, an El Salvadorian restaurant, so the date began with lunch there. The place is famous for their pupusas, which are fat, corn tortillas filled with your choice of meat, beans, or cheese. They are delicious and criminally cheap (I think each one was like $2, and 2 would be enough to fill you up). They also had pineapple Jarritos...so that along with the cheap delicious pupusas made this place amazing.
Raus and I then drove over to the nearby John K. King Books; four stories of stacks upon stacks of used and rare books - a book nerd's heaven. We randomly got lost in the yearbooks section for awhile, reading all the little notes Wendy and her friends had scribbled in her junior high yearbook from 1982. Ended up leaving with a couple classics, totaling $7. It's the largest used and rare bookstore in Michigan! So it's awesome.
Next up was the Detroit Institute of the Arts. If you haven't heard, some of the artwork from the museum may be sold off soon in order to pay for the city's debt, so I recommend checking this wonderful museum out before it starts getting chipped away. It really is a wonderful museum...lots of interesting pieces, with little pods placed throughout the museum that explain the meanings behind some of the paintings and photographs. This is much appreciated by people like me, who like art but don't really know what's going on.
And then (this was a busy date) the Heidelberg Project. I had never heard of this place until the beginning of the summer, when a friend recommended I check it out. It's a whimsical, weird, playful, incongruous outdoor art installation located on the east side of Detroit. It's really awesome and makes me wish an entire city looked like this, with polkadot people to match it. It was probably my favorite part of the date...not counting the pie part (keep reading).
This one reminds me of Roger Rabbit...when the toon world meets the real world!
For dinner Raus and I wanted to experience all this Detroit jazz people kept going on about, so we went to Cliffs Bell's downtown. It was really nice - live music, excellent food - but it was pricier than we expected. Actually, this whole blog post was going to be dedicated to going on "cheap dates," but then we went here and that concept no longer made sense. We enjoyed it, but are definitely going to look for a cheaper jazz bar/restaurant option the next time we hang out in Detroit.
Us in black and white, to make it look more jazzy! (and to cover up our funky sunburns)
The night ended with some mini pies from the local grocer's in front of the TV. The date was a good one, made great by the grocery store pies finale.
Raus and I want to document our dates in hopes that we encourage other married (and non-married!) couples to make the extra effort to plan nights out together. We know it's not easy. We also know most of our dates won't be as elaborate as this one, but even just going outside somewhere for a few hours together every week would be great for us and our marriage. More dates to come, and we hope this post kindled some ideas out there!
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