highlights from charlottesville

friday night i ventured to happy hour with susie and a bunch of her work friends. when one of her coworkers suggested a spontaneous road trip to charlottesville the next day, we quickly agreed. little did we know that it might have been the best idea we could have ever had.

even though we were only there for less than 24 hours, we really did manage to pack it all in. i'll try to cover all the highlights...

we arrived in charlottesville and immediately went to take it away. we parked in the lot right next door and had to wait about 10 minutes for the parking attendant to return from the "bathroom." that was annoying. but take it away is always worth the wait. for any of you that are lucky enough to be down in charlottesville will be happy to know that take it away is now open on sundays.

next we got some coffee and headed around grounds for a tour/walk down memory lane. we hit all the high spots and reminisced about all the good times we had. we even took it all the way back to first year and walked around the dorms. who knew there was a wooden bear back by watson?!?

we ended up back at the special collections library. somehow i hadn't made it down there fourth year, so we decided to take a look around. there's a pretty cool exhibit on the declaration of independence down there. if you're in cville you should definitely check it out.

we rushed back to my sister's apartment to watch the basketball game. wow, big mistake. that was just depressing. luckily they had mini-cookies for us, so the afternoon wasn't a total bust.

lucky for us, my sister was hosting a women's gymnastics party at her apartment saturday night (no really, lucky for us). she had bought lots of valentines decorations and fortunate for her the guys we brought along just happened to be in the mood to hang up shiny hearts all around the apartment. i have honestly never seen two people be so strategic about hanging decorations in my life.

susie had the genius idea to go to starr hill for dinner. good thing we got a ride there because we decided to play a little game called "don't stand up til your drunk." somehow we managed to have our $112 bill comped. i'm still not sure how that one worked out. so a delicious dinner (and just a few beers) later we called a cab and were on our way to the party.

now my only cab experience in charlottsville was with LJ, who might have been the coolest cab driver in the whole world. boy was i in for a surprise saturday night. first off the cab was a mess and driver had the greasiest mullet i've ever seen. when we piled into the cab susie attempted to make some small talk with the driver. what a bad idea. when she asked how his night was so far he responded: "you don't want to know," and then proceeded to turn the volume on the radio WAY UP. so whatever, the cab ride was only about 2 miles, we could handle this. we proceeded to chat about what the plan for the night was and i commented on how much i loved charlottesville. another bad idea. the driver then interjected: "i would cut off my right arm to get out of virginia." wow, tell us how you really feel.

we somehow made it back to my sister's apartment in one piece and busted in on the party. there was so much pink and red i almost wanted to vomit. we were definitely the oldest people there, by a lot. after we overheard about the fifth person say "let's ask if the old people want to play/take a shot," we figured it was about time to head to bars. we called another cab and went to wait outside. i guess we didn't get out there fast enough, because when we called to check on the status of our cab the dispatcher said they had already picked someone up. dagger.

i made the executive decision that we were going to walk out (clearly i am not the most patient person in the world). so we grabbed a beer (or two) for the road and bundled up for the walk to the corner. i was able to hail a cab about halfway down jpa, but if we hadn't walked that little bit we would have never met the couple dressed as hamburlers on their way to a "cops and robbers" party. that was priceless.

clearly the first stop of the night was biltmore. we settled in at a table (not the table, but a table just the same), got some drinks and started playing 1,2,3/scenarios. if you've never played that game you have missed out on life. at some point during this game sus got up to check on the status of the back room. she came back to report that there were no tables set up and there was a dj. what?!?!

we got up and moved to the back room for a while (i mean we had to experience a dj at bilt), but after 15 minutes of us being the only people back there we decided it was about time to head to the next bar of the night. [note - a reliable source informed us the next morning that the party definitely got started once we left. yes, that's right, there was a giant dance party in the back room at biltmore. wow, things have sure changed since we graduated].

next stop, zydeco (or is it zyde-company??). for those of you who don't know, it's the new place that's in the buffalo wing factory space. we headed straight to the back bar, and lucky for us they've enclosed it since the wing factory so it wasn't too cold. we played some photo hunt (a charlottesville tradition), met up with some friends and had a few drinks.

then it was time to head down the corner. jaberwoke looked pretty happening so we decided to head in there for a bit. they had a legitimate dj booth set up and he was playing some crucial 80s songs. our group (which had miraculously grown to seven at this point) immediately took over the stage and started a giant dance party. quite possibly the best part of the night was when def leppard came on and one guy who was with us put one arm in his shirt and starting "playing the drums." it was priceless.

1:30 am - the lights go on and the bouncers begin to literally throw people out of the bar. once our tabs got closed we meandered out to the street and did the only rational thing to do at 1:30 am in charlottesville - go to the white spot (which evidently is not a dance club). i fought to the front and got us some gusburgers and we headed toward the lawn.

our newly made friends had never been to charlottesville and they had already told us that they wanted to soak in as much charlottesville in the little time we were there. clearly they were dead set on streaking the lawn. sus and i held onto their clothes so they could run (to homer and back).

after a few group pictures on the rotunda (fully clothed, don't worry) we started heading home. we made a quick stop in some random lawn room (where our friends grilled the guy who lived in it about whether or not he was a seven). then we cut through cabell and finally we made it out to jpa (where the boys punk'd a group of girls). it was really cold on saturday night - my sister's apartment felt really good when we got in.

we quickly figured out sleeping arrangments so we could get some shut eye. don't worry, i got stuck with the short couch again. of course susie and i woke up early the next morning. instead of making the boys get up we decided to go pick up some bagels. i love bodos. and i love how cheap it is. and a word to the wise - the woman at bodo's seriously told me that they reccommend one tub of cream cheese for every six bagels.

we managed to get on the road not too much later, and took a drive down rugby to complete the charlottesville experience. well, truthfully the speeding ticket we got on they way home really did complete the charlottesville experience.

a fitting end to the whole trip was when they dropped susie and me off and as we were walking into our house they said "it was nice to meet you." hard to believe we had met them just a mere 24 hours before.

in anticipation of my next trip to charlottesville, i've already started a to-do list:
1. meet will harris
2. stick around for the dance party at bilt
3. more to come...