Red Emma’s offers food, friendship and reflection

I got back from break this past Saturday, and I was craving some quality friendship time. Due to effective advertising on their Instagram feed, I also wanted to go to Red Emma’s.

Based on the photos that kept on popping up on my phone, Red Emma’s was serving delicious waffles with fruit toppings, maple syrup and cream.

I really needed some in order to jump-start the end of the spring semester. I gathered a few friends together and made plans to go to Red Emma’s mid-morning on Sunday to beat the morning rush and still get back in time to attempt to do some homework.

Our journey took longer and was more expensive than we expected because the JHMI was not running on its normal weekend schedule.

However we eventually made it and were greeted with the typical charm of Red Emma’s. If you have ever been to Red Emma’s, you are familiar with the friendly, soft chatter that mixes with the overhead music and the inherent coziness of a bookstore and a coffee shop.

Red Emma’s exhibits an interesting mixture of Baltimore culture. Situated in Station North, patrons of Red Emma’s are a mix of Baltimore’s hipsters and the city’s less fortunate residents.

The establishment itself provides many community events such as book readings. Red Emma’s also provides ways to give back to the community monetarily by buying meal and drink tokens as you’re checking out.

They are also a co-operative business which means that everyone who works there also owns a share in the business and has a say in how it is run.

The atmosphere that this creates, combined with the radical literature that they sell, makes it a great place to learn about and observe the world around you and outside of Hopkins.

Shortly after we got there, we placed our orders and anxiously waited for our delicious waffles and coffee.

While we were there we talked about all the amazing classes that are being offered next semester, the future of healthcare policy in America and any interesting books that we were reading or had just read.

Finally our waffles came. They were worth the wait and the trip. They were exactly the consistency that a waffle should be.

While we were eating our waffles we talked about the value of cats versus dogs and what we were theoretically going to do with our lives. Disclaimer: None of us really knew.

We finished our waffles and put away our dirty dishes, as is the custom at Red Emma’s, then decided to head back to the Homewood Campus. After getting back to my apartment I prepared myself to hunker down in the library for the rest of the day.

Shortly after making that decision, I decided instead to read new literature and reflect on my spring break.

Something that is often lost on Hopkins students, and college students in general, is the idea that we should take time to reflect on our experiences in order to fully grow from them. We’re constantly worried about the next big thing, the next assignment that’s due or the latest thing that the President has done.

Sometimes you just need to get off campus, sit in a cozy bookstore and drink some coffee in order to really get the space you need.