Breakfast at Fordham

This semester, my roommate and I both had a painfully early 8:30 class every day but Wednesday. Since we were spoiled by late class times the semester before, the prospect of taking notes while some of our friends were still in pajamas was less than exciting. To make our mornings a little bit better (and a lot less groggy), we decided to treat ourselves to breakfast every day before our classes. We thought that this little tradition would last a week, but to our surprise, it has lasted the entire semester.  First, it was just for the food; waking up and knowing there was a delicious dish of scrambled eggs and a freshly toasted bagel just a short walk from our room made our days just a bit better. But soon, we noticed that breakfast allowed you to actually get to know the people who work in the Marketplace. If you have ever toured Fordham's marketplace, you may have met Francis, who I can honestly say is one of the friendliest people here. Francis makes my roommate and I smile and laugh every day with his jokes as he swipes our Fordham ID cards in the front of the cafeteria. Then there is Martin, and while I love my mom and my favorite local diner, his scrambled eggs with veggies and ham are somehow better than both. Martin also has an amazing talent for remembering the egg orders of all the breakfast "regulars". Tomorrow morning he will again amaze me as he an entire line files in front of him and he simply says "I got you" to each person. And no matter how busy the breakfast line gets, he always remembers everyone's preferred egg order perfectly. By the time we've gotten our eggs, Iris, who works at the bagel station has already gotten our bagels ready and we usually stop and chat with her a bit about her day and our days. And as a student with food allergies, it is always comforting seeing the care and dedication the staff puts into ensuring the kitchen is allergen friendly.
While the topic of breakfast might seem fairly trivial in comparison to all the other exciting happenings going on at Fordham, I feel like it is strangely so essential to my experience here. What I like about breakfast is that it feels like a little slice of home. You see the same familiar faces getting orange juice and can pass through the uncrowded cafeteria and say hello to some acquaintances you haven't caught up with in a while. Tomorrow, I have a pretty busy day. But I feel good knowing matter how hectic it will be, for a that brief half an hour, I have time to eat some good food, laugh with my roommate and enjoy the kind of relaxing, hushed atmosphere that can be so hard to find in a city like New York.