Graduation Dinner - Mi Piace

On the day of my graduation (which seemed so long ago but was just back in June), two of my best buds attended the two-hour long ceremony.

Knowing how long and boring commencements can be, I was already eternally grateful!

After things finally wrapped up, a couple more friends joined us at Mi Piace (pronounced something like: pee-AH-cheh), a New York/Italian restaurant that is always so crowded when I would walk by at night.

I guess my friends wanted to booze me up, so white peach sangria went down.  I didn't have very much, since I had barely eaten that entire day up until this dinner, and no food in stomach + alcohol = no good.

We started off with an ahi tuna tower... split among six people, ha ha.

I'm pretty sure this was a portobella appetizer.

My buds partook in raw beef!

Bread.  My friends got carried away (not me, I think...), and I think this was our third basket!

My main entree was this veggie lasagna.  Of course, I took lots of dairy pills before partaking.  I thought it was very delicious, though I like my lasagnas noodle-y, which this one was not.  I didn't finish this, but mainly because of the dairy content rather than me not liking it.

Sausage rigatoni across the table.

"The Ukrainian"'s linguine pescatore (or something like that; I am not cultured ;) )... he managed to not get any of this on his shirt!  And look at that lovely green pasta!

A meaty version of my lasagna from across the table.

The ol' spaghetti and meatballs.  This was definitely not just ordinary; we all loved the food here!

My friend convinced us to get this souffle.  She was so convinced that she ordered it way in the beginning so that these would be ready by the time we finished our meals.  Souffles normally require extra bake-time.  Yes, I said THESE.  (Note: My wine glass still very full. o_O)

I was kind of bummed that we forgot to take a group photo... but I only got some of 'em from behind, LOL.

The evening ended with a long walk with a bunch of photo-taking of ourselves.  Below is an example.  Y'all probably don't get to see a lot of self-pics in this blog.  Mainly because I don't have lots of people photographing me, and I often don't bother asking. So it definitely seems awkward to be posting one now, but maybe readers want to see the person behind these posts???

All along, I felt like such a lucky person to have my family and friends share such an important day with me. I'm still lost in a post-graduation funk of sorts, but thinking of this day always cheers me up a bit.