| rev:text
| - You gotta love any coffee place not named Tim Horton's or Starbucks these days. I've been meaning to visit Alternative Grounds for a few weeks now, and finally made my pilgrimage on Civic Holiday Monday. Ahhhh to be off work and wandering Roncesvalles on a Monday, is there anything better? Maybe wandering the streets of Paris, but it's a recession and I'm on a budget. This will do.
Alternative Grounds is a comfy place to grab a morally satisfying (free-trade) coffee with surprisingly ample seating. I am fond of sitting near the windows, and will almost always grab the chair with a view of the street.
Perhaps my companions occasionally find it rude how I try to listen, but find myself distracted by goings on outside. Today, however I was all by my lonesome. That is, except for the very loud middle aged women laughing like hyenas at a nearby table. Fortunately, I never leave home without a trusty book and an mp3 player full of Metallica, Beatles, Oasis and even some classical. Yes, I'm not afraid to admit it - I'm a raging introvert!
This place reminded me a bit of Tinto Coffee House, further down Roncesvalles except that the menu was far more limited here. Bagels, a few salads, cookies, and other pastries seemed to be the extent of it.
But I'm always down for a tasty cookie and a long espresso.
I snagged a table near the window, grabbed my goodies and set to work casually devouring my cookie, and sipping my coffee.
What I find annoying about Starbucks and Second Cup, is that when you order an espresso, they will invariably refer to it as an 'expresso.' Before I went to Europe, I wouldn't have known the difference either. I suppose it's just a cultural thing. North Americans are more accustomed to a Timmy's Double-Double - than they are to a fine Italian coffee. This place has less of a take-out feeling to it. As in Europe, people will sit and enjoy their coffee. Pure joie de vivre.
Apparently they had free wi-fi, although I can never be bothered to haul my laptop with me when I'm out.
I love holidays. This makes me think, why isn't every weekend 3 days long? Our ancient nomadic ancestors spent all their time and effort from dusk until dawn preoccupied with hunting, gathering wild edibles, and the rigors of survival. Then we slowly developed agriculture, built cities and settled down. Eventually the industrial revolution allowed us to mass produce goods cheaply. Economics, supply and demand force us to focus our efforts on what we do best. Some of us make cars, others fix the pipes, and others drive buses. With all the advances in society, why aren't we taking more time to enjoy life?
Life is short. We shouldn't be working so hard. Take a load off sometime, and visit Alternative Grounds. Just don't forget to take your headphones and something good to read.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)