One of my favorite spots, and an all time favorite of many Ohio State students, is Condado Tacos. When I was thinking of where I wanted to bring my mentees to introduce them to the city of Columbus, Condado seemed like a perfect fit. My mentees, Kate Dunne and Lindsey Bradley, seemed very excited to go because it meant an escape from campus food, which towards the end of the semester can get very repetitive. I brought them to the Short North location because they had never been there and I also wanted to show them the COTA and help them get used to taking it down High Street. We went with one other ACES mentor/mentee group and all hopped on the COTA together from Smith-Steeb and began the trip down to Condado. The conversation started flowing very effortlessly. Lindsey began telling me about how she is signed up for formal recruitment this spring and how she was getting nervous about the whole process. I am glad that I am in a sorority so that I can help guide her through the process and tell her my own personal experience and tips. She seemed very excited to rush and I explained to her how long the days can get and how to keep an open mind throughout the whole process. We also talked about clothing and how fun but also stressful it is to look for recruitment outfits.
Before we knew it we were at Condado and sitting at a table for six. At Condado you get to build your own tacos so we instantly got to work picking out fun toppings and talking about what queso we were going to get. The only bad part of our trip was that our waiter failed to notice that we were sitting in their section and we ended up waiting ten to fifteen minutes to even be helped. We were entertained while we were waiting because they were streaming the Ohio State and Northwestern game on a big screen right by us. It was so fun to be all together and cheering on the buckeyes at the same time. We talking about the Michigan game and how we were all at the game for the whole time to watch us win and to sing Carmen, Ohio at the very end. Even though it took a long time to place our order, we were able to talk the whole time we were waiting. I asked Kate and Lindsey about their finals coming up. Kate has been very busy this semester with all of the activities she is involved with but told me that her finals aren’t looking too bad. She has a few but doesn’t think they will be that difficult. Lindsey on the other hand told me how her art finals were going to take her a lot of time to finish and that she was worried about that. I told them that finals can be scary but as long as you put in your best you will be able to come out on the other side better than before.
Once our food came we all instantly reached for our phones and took a picture of our beautiful tacos. The conversation stopped momentarily so we could eat our food. When we were finished eating I told them about all of the cool shops that were located near us and some cool thrift stores that they should visit sometime. Then in order to get back to Smith-Steeb we had to figure out when the next COTA was coming and we tried to plan it accordingly because while we were eating it started to downpour. I showed them how to easily track the buses on the Google maps app which helped them realize that the COTA isn’t so complicated after all. We all hopped back on the COTA and said our goodbyes. Overall, I had a ton of fun taking my mentees down to the Short North. I got to check in on how their semesters went and how they were feeling overall. It seemed like they were both in a good spot and they were looking forward to next semester. We discussed what their schedules were looking like for next semester and they are both excited for their classes.
I would definitely recommend Condado Tacos to a friend because it’s a fun environment to hang out in and they have many different food options. I hope that I can return here with my mentees at some point during the year to check up on them again.