After an action packed first day in Boston I was so relieved to be able to sleep in on Thursday. Soon after waking I reported for bridal party duty. The nearest train stop to the bride’s house is actually Harvard.

I have always enjoyed Harvard Square. There are some great restaurants, coffee shops, shopping and bars to peruse while in the area. I personally have always liked Harvard Square. It has a kind of hippy vibe, like a less intense version of Venice.

After bridal duty I checked into some of my favorite spots.

Like Crema for coffee.

Crema is an adorable and delicious café in Harvard Square. It is independently owned and if you haven’t checked it out yet and you live in Boston then you should! I ordered a non fat, iced latte.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Starbucks but this really is better. I think you can taste the difference.

Then I decided to shop at the Harvard outpost of my favorite consignment store, Second Time Around.

Second Time Around has a great selection of clothing but I wasn’t able to find anything at this location (remember I got the $15 never been worn Tom’s the day before).

I did see these, a sure sign that you are back in Boston:

Don’t worry, no Lilly Pulitzer for me. This style would never fly in LA. Don’t get me wrong: I love prep but this is a bit too much.

I also restrained myself from buying a hot pink Vineyard Vines Blazer. I called my Mom and she talked me off the ledge. That is why God invented Mom’s, to stop you from making rash fashion choices.

Then I got a manicure so I would be wedding ready (clearly, it was also time for more caffeine).

Before I got on the T to go back to Carolyn’s I decided to hit my favorite Boston cup cake spot: Sweet.

Sweet didn’t open this location until after I left Boston but I frequented the Back Bay location since it opened a few years ago. They have many delicious flavors, were recently named “best cupcake” by Improper Bostonian. They pretty much lead the cup cake trend in Boston and we all know I take my cup cakes seriously. Plus, it’s adorable inside.

After spilling my life story to the women behind the counter (“I went to college here, and moved to LA, and went to the Back Bay location, and I write a food blog and I love Susie Cakes” seriously I’m the freak show) I looked over the display cases for the perfect cake.

Facebook cupcake = sure sign that you’re in Harvard Square:

After narrowing down all of the options I settled on the lemon and raspberry cupcake.

The cake was lemon with raspberry jam filling and a cream cheese based frosting. You couldn’t really taste the cream cheese; it tasted more vanilla-lemoney. This was probably the best cupcake I’ve ever had from Sweet. The frosting wasn’t too sweet and the lemon and raspberry flowed together effortlessly. Raspberry and lemon might be one of my favorite fruit flavor combos ever.

I also bought a “frosting shot” for 50 cents. I enjoyed it on the way to the T. I knew that the cupcake had a cream cheese based frosting and I was really craving some butter cream.

Is this not the best concept ever? I think it is!

After cupcakes I clearly needed to workout. Carolyn invited me to go to Zumba with her. I had never tried Zumba before but I’ve read all about it in the blog world. I was pretty sure I would be totally lost for the entire class and I went into it expecting to sweat and just jump around to compensate for having no clue what I was doing. Overall, I LOVED ZUMBA! I seriously am going to work this in as cross training. UCLA does offer classes and I need to make it a priority after classes start again. Zumba is a hip hop and Latin based dance class. Seriously, it’s socially appropriate to booty pop; I am so there! The class was intense but not too challenging. Even though I was sweating buckets I didn’t feel like I was working out. It was epic.

Afterwards we enjoyed wine in a public square near Carolyn’s house. It was a perfect vacation night!

What would be your perfect vacation night? Drinking wine with friends, having fun and laughing my tush off is pretty much perfection in my book.