Miss V and I are on a graduate school scouting trip for the next few days. We've already finished our time in North Carolina, scoping out UNC Chapel Hill. (No pictures because I was too lazy to take any.) Now we're in Central Pennsylvania considering the joys of Penn State.

Well, at least V is doing that. Me, I'm prepared to wander around during the day and Goof Off, which seems to be what I do best in these situations.

But before I do anything else, I must share with you the wonders of the Breakfast Nook. See, every other hotel I've ever stayed in that offers complimentary breakfast has some sort of breakfast room where the meal is offered buffet-style to all patrons who care to rise and shine for it. But in this particular little budget motel, when we checked in they gave us a short order form asking what kind of continental breakfast we wanted (coffee, tea or hot chocolate; bagel with cream cheese or several different flavors of danish; apple, orange or cranberry juice), and every morning at a time we specify, they come by and deliver our order to the in-room breakfast nook.

"Wait, what on earth is a breakfast nook?" I hear you cry.

I'll show you.

Here's the breakfast nook (helpfully labeled), just beside our door. There's another opening (not shown) on the outside.

And at 7:30 every morning, here's what we find inside the breakfast nook: breakfast! Complete with a small carafe of hot water to make hot chocolate. Noms.

While offering breakfast this way might be more labor intensive for the hotel, there's less waste -- much less uneaten food to throw away later, because they find out in advance what customers want to eat and provide only that. Kinda clever, no?

Besides, I kinda like how breakfast magically appears. As regular as the mail, but much more tasty.

Later: adventures around State College.