"There's just something about... cheese..."

Tonight, we had a 'girl's night out'—just me and two other girls.  It was kind of an impromptu decision to find a café with wi-fi because our internet was not working earlier in the day.  We headed to one area of Pune City, but the place we ended up did not have coffee (their machine was broken) and their wi-fi did not actually work... fail.  We decided to head to Koregon Park where there was a cheese festival... can't go wrong with cheese.  Especially considering real cheese does not normally exist in India.  I don't think the climate allows for it.  Anyways, the cheese festival did not disappoint.

We walked down a path littered with handicrafts and finally made it to a table full of cheese spread samples, including fondue.  They had garlic & herbs, smoked ham, and other delectable options.  But it got better.  Go to the next table and there were about 15+ giant hunks of cheese to sample.  This was the most random assortment of cheeses.  They had cranberry cheese, coffee cheese (yes, COFFEE cheese...), marble cheese, boursin with paprika, pepper cheese, and so many others.  We definitely tasted every single one until we made our way over to the Cookie Czar.

At the Cookie Czar, F and I got a cup of coffee to enjoy with our handful of cookies we purchased, after sampling nearly all of them of course.  They had chocolate orange, tangerine, apple walnut cinnamon, almond mocha, coconut macadamia and all of them were so soft and chewy! It was incredible. So we sat down to enjoy our snacks while H went to inquire about getting some fondue.  Apparently they don't normally sell it but we managed to convince them to give us an entire pot of cheese fondue with a basket of breadsticks over a flame on our table for only Rs 400.  That's about $7.  So, we settled in to enjoy our fondue, coffee and cookies.  We even had live music that was... interesting.  They kept playing the most random things like Africa by Toto... It was fun though and the lighting was perfect.  It was in an outdoor patio area with christmas lights in the trees and leaves raining down on us.  Such a silly romantic atmosphere.

Next, we headed to Shisha Café where we were disappointed to find they did not actually have any Shisha at the Shisha Café and on top of that irony, we found out it was a dry holiday so no, we could not have any drinks.  Well, why didn't anyone tell us? Apparently it was some sort of Iranian festival.  Not really sure but no one was serving anywhere in the city.  So we got some mint tea and settled into our cozy bench to chat for hours.  The mint tea was perfect... literally just mint leaves in hot water and our bench was large enough to stretch out and snuggle up to each other.  Yes, you can do both.  It was so relaxing, we could have spent all night there.  But alas, there's a curfew to keep! So strange living with a curfew...

Anyways, here's to more relaxing nights with the girls.  And more cheese festivals.
xo A