Marco and Lucas

We have found our favorite place to eat in Charlottesville! Marco and Lucas, despite the name, is a tiny Chinese noodle and dumpling shop on the downtown mall. They serve dumplings, pork and vegetable buns, sesame noodles, sweet sour spicy noodles, and a soup. That's it - that is their menu. The place is tiny. The kitchen is right behind the counter and consists of a 5 foot long counter with a stovetop on which they cook the dumplings. There has to be a steamer or oven of some sort for the buns. The noodles are served cold and are delicious. The sweet sour spicy flavor has hints of chili, apples, and cilantro and the sesame noodles taste like they are in a light peanut sauce. The dumplings are addicting and at $3 a serving, you can afford to eat as many as you want. The best things about them is the sauce. I have actually heard it referred to as "crack sauce" - it is delicious!

Since discovering this jem right before Christmas, we have probably been back about 8 times and we can afford to do it! 2 dumplings, 1 pork bun, a noodle, and a can of soda is $12 and fills Charlie and I up.

Marco and Lucas is in the shopping center a little past Christian's Pizza. It's door faces the entrance to Cafe Cubano - which we will also have to check out.

Humpback Rock - Hiking

One of our good friends from college just returned from South Africa where he was working with the Peace Corps. We missed him terribly and even more so when all of our friends from New York and Delaware would call us and tell us about the fabulous time they were having with Joey back in town. Charlottesville is a little far away from the Long Island town Joey now resides in again, but he finally made it! We took him to Continental Divide, Marco and Lucas - twice, Splendorah's, Alakazam and Snooky's on the downtown mall, to hang out on the campus lawn with Take It Away Sandwiches, and to Humpback Rock.

Humpback Rock is off the Blue Ridge. It takes about 40 minutes to drive to the trail from downtown C'ville and the hike is close to a mile. While the hike is a little strenuous we all made it in one piece (and that is saying something). At the top of the mountain is a huge rock with ledges and cracks and beautiful views of the Charlottesville area on one side and the west on the other. You can see the variety of landforms that make up the area - hills and valleys, forests and farms. It really is refreshing and beautiful. Great date place!

Martin's Tailoring

I have had about 8 pairs of jeans and pants sitting on a chair in my living since we lived in DC. I haven't been able to wear them because they all needed to be hemmed. I have had some hemming disasters - including a pair of Joe's Jeans that ended up as clam diggers and a pair of Seven's that my little sister wears as cut-offs. Needless to say, I am a little hesitant to get things hemmed.

Martin's Tailoring came recommended by a sales clerk at Fashion Square's Gap. Since I'm wearing jeans everyday to work now, I figured I should probably get off my butt and do something about the unwearable pile. The shop is in the shopping center across from Barrack's Road Center next to El Puerto and behind the yellow brick building. It definitely seemed like the place to go to get things altered and hemmed as the little bell on the door was ringing constantly. Most people seemed to have an actual friendship with the little Asian man pinning all of their items as they stood on the wooden hemming blocks. His name is not Martin. He worked very quickly pinning Charlie and me and a week later Charlie and I had new beautifully hemmed jeans to add to our wardrobe. The hems match the originals and they are all the perfect length. I think we had 8 pairs of pants to hem for $47. My fears of hemming may be subsiding.