After my long journey of preparation, the day has finally come: I woke up at 8 a.m. to go to Brandeis. The campus was a little sad. There were not a lot of students walking around, which was fairly unusual given the time of year. However, I have been on campus during breaks when most of the people on campus went home, so I have seen it be more empty. The stupid stickers all over the ground on campus were honestly just annoying and depressing. Whoever came up with “Hope is not cancelled, and neither is class”—who ever said that hope was cancelled? And just why? And why isn’t class cancelled?

In terms of masks, I was actually very impressed: Most people I saw were wearing masks and the proper way too! I’m proud of you, Brandeis. However social distancing is a weird one. Not many people were actually social distancing, but I cannot really blame them. Imagine walking to dinner with a friend while walking six feet behind them. How do you even have a conversation like that? And just in general, there is not enough space in most places at Brandeis to be able to social distance from everyone. So I can’t really judge. 

Seeing everyone in masks and so little life on campus was quite weird though; I feel like, while sitting at home, I can actually forget sometimes that this is a weird semester and everything related to the coronavirus. That is not something you can experience while being on campus, with all the rooms with the maximum capacity posted on them, all the signs, not seeing peoples’ faces, everything really. Seeing all these changes made me quite sad to be honest. But what can we do? We can talk about food. 

I have two separate Brandeis food reviews that may or may not belong here. Now that I say food, let me address the elephant in the room: the closure of Currito and the opening of Tres Habaneros. I loved Currito. After I moved off campus, that was the only dining establishment on campus that I went to. In fact, I probably prefer Currito to Chipotle and Moe’s. So when I saw that it was replaced by some new Mexican place I was heartbroken. Brandeis Dining had one good thing, and they got rid of it. But, I have good news. Tres Habaneros was actually pretty good. If I was to rate Currito, I would give it a nine, but I would give Tres Habaneros an eight or maybe even an eight and a half. They were very generous with the amount of fillings they gave me, and it was cheaper than Currito, so I was very pleasantly surprised. I do have to mention for accountability’s sake that I only tried the burrito (but that is also the only thing I’ve had at Currito). 

My second food review is regarding the new Sal’s Pizza that is currently operating in The Stein. There is a full on review of Sal’s done by another Brandeis Hoot editor, so I will not go into too much detail. But I do have to say that it was fairly impressive. They have three pizza options: cheese, buffalo chicken and vegetable. I only tried the first two, so I cannot rate the vegetable pizza. The cheese pizza was pretty decent, the taste was there, but there was not enough of it. I really liked the dough and the sauce, and, for once, I did not think that there was too much cheese. The pizzas are only seven inches wide, so they really are more snack size than they are dinner size. The buffalo chicken pizza was not my favorite. I am not a huge fan of buffalo sauce in general, so take my comments with a grain of salt. I thought it had too much cheese on it and really not enough chicken (I think the pizza only had like four pieces of chicken). I could barely taste the really good tomato sauce, which was disappointing. Something else that was disappointing was the price of the pizza. For the snack size cheese pizza, you will have to pay six dollars, while the buffalo chicken pizza will set you back ten dollars. For what you get, that is really a lot: I think one slice is only four bites. Maybe if I was craving pizza at 1 a.m. I would go to Sal’s. No, actually, I would go to Domino’s where I would get more food for the money. Sorry Sal’s.  

I do not have much experience with the new mobile ordering system, but of the two meals that my friend so kindly ordered for me, it worked pretty well. It was nice to not have to wait in line and to be able to customize your order without talking to people. I have heard mixed reviews of the system from other people, but since I’ve only used the app once, I am definitely not the best person to review it. 

I hope that my journey to campus was informative, or entertaining, for those of you who decided to stay away this semester.