What's something out of the ordinary you can do at lunch?

Egg roll and Orange Juice.

My daughter is on spring break.
Lunch with her, and some xbox.

Go to lunch with an old college pal of 30+ years aquaintance. It’s totally coincidental that he happens to work a few blocks away. It’s the only good thing I can say about my current work location, an arid, soulless suburban hell.

@David_Achilles Soulless? Does that mean you eat at Jack In The Box? That’s tragic.

Get a couple of friends to go for a walk together and engage in some street photography in your local area. You don’t need cameras if you have a camera on your phone. Perhaps each go on a different route and then meet up to have your sangers and share the photos you captured. See the world through each other’s eyes as you explain why you took the shots you did.

Same idea, but this time take in some art materials. It could be as simple as a box of coloured pencils and have a 30-minute drawing session.

Or find a lovely place to sit and write down all the sounds, smells and other sensory sensations in a place near where you work. It could be a busy street or a park. See what you learn about you and the place you’re in. If you can get some friends to join you, you can share the experience later on.

@Earthbound_Misfit Are those some things you actually do on your lunch break?

I used to be able to mountain bike for 30 min or jog and fit in a shower before returning. An old job was located in a state park.

^^Nice.

I have sat and done the sensory thing, yes. I’d love to get some friends to go on a walk and take photos with me. I do take street photography shots myself. If I could get some of my colleagues together to produce a piece of art during lunch, I would. I think we need to engage more creatively. We do have writing days and we’re starting a writing session at the coffee shop.

I think using the other side of your brain is very good for stress relief and we are often so busy we don’t get to see what’s around us. And I think it would be a fun way to learn about how your peers see the world.

Don’t you like the ideas? (And did my card arrive?)

I work in the “Arts District” of Downtown Los Angeles. I can take a walk and view very lovely public art, or stop into a gallery.

I used to go hang out at an arboretum with a picnic lunch and a beer. Ah, good times…..

@Earthbound_Misfit I realized from your answers that there are 2 ways to read my OP. :) There’s what I was thinking, which is “What is something you are able to actually do on your lunch break that isn’t usual?”, and there’s what you read, which is “What could one do during lunch that is out of the ordinary?” (Not yet. I’m excited now!)

@Hawaii_Jake

My guess is that @David_Achilles’ workplace is located in either Nevada, Arizona, western Texas, or inland California, away from the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Fair enough @Hawaii_Jake. I wish I could do those things with my peers. The most we do is go to lunch together at a cafe or go for a walk.

I have taken a spin in a plane during lunch. A girlfriend and I hired a biplane at the local airport and went for a spin during lunch. It was such fun! He wouldn’t do barnstorming, but we still had a ball.

Well, today I made tzatziki. (But that was only because we were snowed out of work and I could take an extra-long break at home.)

I used to go to an old cemetery at lunchtime and sit my book and a sandwich when I worked at a small branch library with no lunchroom.

job circa 1996
I would take a nap under a big ole tree on Boston Common or watch kids skate on the frozen frog pond, depending on the season.

job circa 2000
I would walk to the dock and watch the airplanes come and go from Logan Airport across the harbor.

job circa 2002
I would walk down Newbury Street and window shop at the Armani Store, knowing I could never afford anything there. Once, I even went in and tried on a suit.

job circa 2008
What lunch?

job circa 2012
I took walks through the village which was full of eccentric shops including a zen gallery.

The last year I lived in New Zealand, I would grab my lunch and walk here and eat it.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Mount_Maunganui_and_beach.jpg/1200px-Mount_Maunganui_and_beach.jpg

I work from home, and I get two 45 minute meal breaks.

I live in a fairly rural suburb of Tampa, so that 45 minutes might be enough to swing by the bank and grab a cheeseburger at a drive through, but that’s about it.

More often than not I’ll set a timer and play video games until it’s time to log back in.

Damn, I really want to live in New Zealand.

Fire chef & hire another from the agency before dessert is served

I work in a downtown section of a city in NY (not NYC). I consider it a fairly boring city – there are government buildings but not much in the way of museums or anything fun like that. I can go shopping or take a walk but not a whole lot that’s out of the ordinary. Maybe if I searched on Tripadvisor I mgiht find something unusual but nothing stands out.

To all who may be interested…“suburban hell” translates to Jericho, Long Island, New York…. no, not Nevada (which admittedly is more arid)....I don’t eat at Jack in the Box. I eat at my desk most days which is why lunch with my friend is such a treat. There is a nice Japanese restaurant nearby that I go to occasionally which has excellent service. But I miss being able to walk. I used to take long strolls at lunchbreak and walk to the subway after work to get home. I would pass houses and gardens, yes…suburban enough, it’s true, but so different. Now it is almost like taking your life in your hands to cross the street.

@David_Achilles I know what you mean. I’ve been off work with a torn knee joint since mid January. My lunches are now at home, but at least I have a view out my window of the fjord.

@cazzie A view of the fjord sounds really great! I work from home one day a week and then I can walk in the park.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to work in an “industrial Park”. You know, one of those isolated industrialized areas where there is no real town of any kind. They try to make it better by surrounding it with grass like a moat. Then there is a huge parking lot outside. I imagine that people working in those places eat at some kind of company cafeteria or, like me, eat at their desk. I miss being in New York when I could walk to the Pierpont Morgan Library on my lunch hour….

@David_Achilles A couple of my jobs in New Zealand were in those types of industrial parks. One was out on an orchard where it was a juice factory set up in a large packing shed. No cafeteria or even a decent bathroom to speak of. We froze in the winter.

me?

@David_Achilles: I used to work in an industrial park. On our lunch hour, we’d either eat in the lunch room or run errands (with our cars). We could have sat outside on a picnic table, too, which I think we did sometimes, depending on the weather.

Many, many years ago, I was working customer service at a commercial janitorial/sanitation wholesale distributor. If I walked south, I would walk deeper into the commercial area, but sometimes I’d find a burrito truck.
If walked north, I’d cross the street and see those old arsenal that has been converted to a wildlife management area. Prairie dogs, eagles and other raptors, and songbirds. The entrance was half a mile away, just enough time to go sit and relax for about 20 minutes, then swing by the food truck on my way back.