The Friday Five, 2/1/19: 5 things I've been up to this week

This has been a super busy week and I'm hoping to squeeze in a nap tonight before Birmingham Restaurant Week dinner with Yelpers. The Polar Vortex hasn't helped—yesterday it was -13 REAL TEMP when I woke up ("feels like -32") and eventually went up to a balmy 0 degrees.

Phantom of the Opera, at the Detroit Opera House

What I've been up to this week:
  1. Seeing Phantom of the Opera, at the Detroit Opera House. Phantom is one of my favorite shows, so I was pretty excited about this. I first saw it in January 2017, also at the Detroit Opera House. We also had fantastic seats, as Broadway in Detroit is very generous—we were row C, on the right-hand side of the theaters. Great show!
  2. Hanging out with friends. On Saturday night, a friend hosted a fancy wine and cheese party—I say "fancy" because the dress was formal, so we all wore nice dresses and everyone brought wine and some cheese. I've also been eating out a lot this week with friends, which leads me to ... 
  3. Eating out ... probably a bit too much. On Friday, my boyfriend and I tried out the Royal Oak Brewery, before Phantom, so I could use my free birthday meal coupon, and it was pretty good—they do a good happy hour, where all appetizers are half-off. On Saturday, my parents took me to Cheesecake Factory for a belated birthday lunch, and on Tuesday, I went to Panera with a coworker friend so I could use a free You Pick Two that they had gifted me via email. Yesterday, I went to Bella Piatti for Birmingham Restaurant Week with coworkers, for lunch, and that night, a friend and my boyfriend and I went to a influencer event at M.C. Wiches in Ferndale, which was super tasty. The eating out continues this weekend too: lunch with a friend today, BRW with Yelpers for dinner, and Stage Deli tomorrow with a gift card I won from @chowdowndetroit on Instagram.
  4. Seeing a really bad movie. Despite the awful reviews, on Sunday I went and saw Serenity, with Matthew McConaughey, and it was just as bad as people had said, LOL ... there's a twist at the end that's actually pretty interesting, but could have been done much better. I'm hoping to see Miss Bala tomorrow—I got an AMC A-List ticket but I'm waiting to see if I feel okay, as I've been super tired this week.
  5. Seeing live figure skating! A friend won tickets to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, at Little Caesars Arena, and she gave us tickets for Sunday night, for the Skating Spectacular, which was more of an exhibition skate versus a competition. The only other time I've seen ice skating is when I saw Cirque du Soleil on ice last year, so this was pretty neat; I love watching figure skating during the Olympics.
S'mores cookies, M.C. Wiches, Ferndale, MI
Delicious S'mores cookies from M.C. Wiches - perfectly gooey!


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