I took a trip to Durham on Thursday with my friend Danny. It’s about that time where I have to plan elaborate lunch adventures to celebrate the last time I see my friends for a very long time. An especially long time in Danny’s case, as not only am I moving to California, but he is moving to Eastern Europe in a week to join the Peace Corps. It will be at least two years until we see each other again, so I’d be damned if we weren’t going to have something good as our last meal.

I decided on the Federal. Mostly because I love the structure, and the food… and everywhere else I wanted to try wasn’t open for lunch. I had curry corn chowder + bread + butter + half of a grilled cheese piled with roasted tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, and balsamic on grilled focaccia. ALL FOR FIVE DOLLARS. Best lunch special ever?

Conveniently, it also happened to be Danny’s birthday. It was officially on Friday, but he was born in Korea, so according to Korea time, his birthday commenced while we were having lunch.

So we celebrated.

Birthday jump.

Danny actually fell on his face approximately 0.5 seconds after this photo was taken. Maybe he’ll practice his jumping while in Europe.

We had some time to kill, so we asked waitress where we should head next. She advised us to either check out a graveyard down the street (we checked it out for 2 seconds. uninspiring.), or go over to the Duke Gardens. We ended up choosing the latter.

New friend.

Accidental outtake. Turned out halfway interesting.

END!