One down...

Four more to go... Weddings, that is. We returned from our Baltimore/DC weekend last night and I am still completely exhausted. The weekend was a blast and full of drinking, eating, and much merriment, and because of that, I am still recuperating and will be for a day or two more!

We arrived in Baltimore Thursday early evening and after getting our rental car, we began the drive to Alexandria, VA to Brian's friend Jason's apartment. With our flight being delayed a bit and of course having to wait for our luggage and get the rental car, we were running a little behind schedule, so upon arrival at Jason's we modified the evening's plans a bit. Instead of going into DC for dinner, we had a quicker, but most definitely just as delicious dinner at a chili restaurant in Olde Town Alexandria. It's a small chain in the DC area and with Brian having lived there in the not-so-distant past, he was due for his fix and also to introduce me to the yummyness that is called Hard Times Chili. I had 4 Way Cincinnati Chili and a couple local brews- it was so tasty and totally hit the spot after a long day of traveling.

After dinner, the 4 of us, Jason, Dawn, Brian and myself headed down the street (Jason thankfully drove the couple blocks because it was so insanely cold in DC this weekend) to a bar he made reservations for us at. Yes, a bar that requires reservations... It's what you would call a speakeasy- no sign on the exterior, just a door with a blue light over it. You have to ring a doorbell, and someone comes to answer, and provided if you're dressed appropriately (men are required to wear jackets) they may let you in. Being that we were all dressed so tastefully well, they let us in, had us read the "rules of the house" posted in the stairwell and the doorwoman led us up a flight of stairs to the bar area and then into the front 'blue' room where we had 2 swanky couches reserved for us. In addition to our 2 couches, there were two other couches, each with a couple sitting on each, the couches all faced each other, one on each of the 4 walls with a small square stool/table in the center. After being seated and checking our coats, we began to peruse the menu... The whole menu was full of classic cocktails made with homemade ingredients and also some other cocktails that I had never heard of before, but all sounded good. My first drink was a homemade ginger ale and ketel one vodka served in a copper mug. The drink was really delicious and the ginger ale was spicy and delicious. We all tried different drinks and after 3 rounds, we had nearly tried all of the drinks on the menu (some more tasty than others... Brian ended his evening on a not-so-good one). The atmosphere of the place was very cool- it was chill with jazz music playing in the background, until a different group got sat in our room and kind of made it a little rowdy... The service was lacking- I was brought the wrong drink first and it took basically until the rest of our group was ready for their second for me to get my correct drink. The whole thing with this place is that it's not supposed to be fast paced, but you'd think if you screwed up, you might make an exception and bust that one cocktail out a little faster than the rest. Another thing that bugged me was the supposed dress code. We got all dressed up, with the boys in jackets and the girls in skirts and when we arrived, one of the men seated in our room had on jeans and hiking boots. So that was a bit disappointing. I just figured if they are trying to get this whole reputation built, they might actually enforce their rules. If you want to check out the place, you can access their website through: http://www.eamonnsdublinchipper.com/ You have to click on the blue "PX" on the bottom right of the screen to actually get to the right website. So mysterious. Anyways, it was cool and we got to try a lot of good drinks and overall had a great time.

After the bar, we went back to the apartment and stayed up till 4am talking, drinking green apple martinis, and eating baked cheetos (they are really good!).

The next morning, we obviously woke up later than we had planned since we had such a late night and after getting ready, we began our little tourist day in DC. The last time I was in DC was probably when I was in the eighth grade, so I was looking forward to seeing the sights again. The one downside of visiting this weekend was the weather and it was under 30 degrees with some mean winds and it literally hurt to walk for any length of time outside- not something that is easy to avoid when sightseeing in DC! We headed into DC and made our first stop at the FDR Memorial... After walking the short block to the memorial and checking it out- which it was very cool- I'll post pics soon, we decided that being outside was absolutely miserable. On top of that, I didn't bring a hat, so I was very gingerly wrapping my scarf around my head and neck hoping to cover as much of my head as possible with very little luck. About midway through the memorial, my toes began to feel like I had been outside sledding all day. At this point, Brian was ready to hop on one of the trolley tours and just see DC that way... I was ready to get back to the car and get warm.

We ended up going back to the car and decided to just hit the memorials that had parking close and we wouldn't have to be outside for any length of time. Pathetic, I know, but if you had been there, my guess would be you'd just want to head home or to a bar for some drinks. Oh, and also, I forgot to mention that DC had been hit with a nasty snow/ice storm the day before we arrived so most sidewalks were not cleared and were just 3 inch thick sheets of ice. No joke. Every other step we took, one of us was sliding and nearly falling. We did a couple loops around the Jefferson Memorial area and after not being able to find any parking any where close to the vacinity of it, I decided I had seen enough of it from the comfort of our rental car. We then began to loop around the Mall area because one thing I really did want to see was the Lincoln Memorial. Brian found a killer parking spot basically right next to the Mall and on the end that the Lincoln Memorial is. It was also conveniently located next to a street vendor selling hats, so we stopped there first before trekking across the ice laden sidewalks and up the icy stairs of the memorial. I got an awesomely cheesy pink hat that says "I DC" on it and proudly wore it the rest of the day. I think Brian was a bit embarrassed, and honestly, I was too, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I have an awesome pic of me in the hat I'll have to post. On the walk to the Lincoln Memorial we slid down the sidewalk next to the Vietnam Memorial and saw that which was cool to see. And after seeing the Lincoln Memorial (basically the only one that we went to that had any sizable of people there- at FDR, we were all alone), we walked over to the Korean Memorial and saw that as well. We decided it was much too cold to try to walk over to the WWII Memorial, so we headed back to the car to warm up. It was getting late in the afternoon and knowing that we had to drive to Baltimore that evening, we decided to get some dinner. We drove to Adams Morgan to have dinner at one of Brian's favorite places, an Ethiopian restaurant, Meskerem. It was my first time eating Ethiopian food and I must say I was impressed- it was very, very tasty and warming and just overall a fun experience.

After dinner, Brian took me on a quick driving tour of his alma mater, American University, and then we headed to Baltimore... in the middle of rush hour traffic... on a Friday... on a holiday weekend... in DC where almost everyone gets President's Day off. Yay. I was soooo tired and after only going a few miles in what seriously took over an hour, I had to close my eyes and sleep a bit. I felt bad that Brian was driving, but I just couldn't take the heavy eyelids anymore! All-in-all it took us 2.5 hours to get to Baltimore that night. We arrived at the hotel around 8pm, checked in, and pretty much had to get ready to go meet up with people right away- no rest for us!

We met up around 10pm at a bar in Fells Point where I got to meet some more of Brian's friends from DC and of course the bride and groom and also got to catch up with some friend's of his that I had already met when we were in Hawaii last year. We called it a semi-early night, or I thought that, but discovered on the elevator ride back up to the room it was past 1am. So much for getting to bed a bit earlier!

Saturday morning we slept in... I swear I have never slept in such a comfortable bed, though I think it was just because I was so tired and it felt so good to sleep in general. We didn't make it up for breakfast, but did have just enough time to walk to a restaurant for lunch. My one goal was for a crabcake. Well, my goal was to eat as many crabcakes as I could the entire time we were there. We ate lunch at a restaurant named Bertha's in Fells Point and I had my first crabcake of the weekend. It was absolutely divine. Bertha's is apparently known for mussels, which they did sound fantastic, but we didn't get any and I didn't think mussels were an appropriate food to cure a mini-hangover nor prepare for another long night of partying and drinking! By the time we were done with lunch, it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for the ceremony.

We carpooled with Dave and Paula to the ceremony, as we were all staying in the same hotel. The ceremony was really beautiful and made me think lots about our upcoming nuptials, of course! It was also a Catholic ceremony, so that was good to see, since ours will be too, and it's been a while since I've been to one. After the ceremony, we headed back to the hotel to hop on the shuttle that would take us to the reception. We made a quick pit stop in the room and then headed back to the lobby to wait for the shuttle. And waited we did... The reception started at 4pm, and it wasn't until about 445 that the shuttle arrived. By the time we actually got to the reception, we nearly missed the entire cocktail hour- oh no!

The reception took place in a really beautiful ballroom with gorgeous chandeliers and a cool old school wooden bar. We started the evening off by grabbing a drink, Van Gogh Double Espresso, Double Caffeine Vodka on the rocks, the signature drink of the happy couple (I later heard that's what the groom used to woo the bride when they first met). It was so yummy and smooth, I was amazed it was simply vodka on the rocks. We had a few hors d'eourves including tasty shrimp, baked brie, and of course crab cakes (my second crabcake of the weekend, actually 2nd of the day, as well).

We all took our seats for dinner and were served a delicious meal of filet and black bass, asparagus, and mashed potatoes accompanied by a salad and bread. After dinner, there was a dessert buffet with the wedding cake and fresh fruit. All of the food was really good. After dinner, there was dancing and we all had a good time busting our moves on the dance floor. The reception ended around 9pm and we headed for a bar via cab to all hang out. The bride and groom even joined us all later on in the evening. We stayed at that one bar for a while and then decided to call it a night, but not before stopping at the 'sip and bite' for a little food before heading back to the hotel. I had a cup of crab soup there, which was quite tasty, though I was a little frightened of it when it was served with half a crap hanging over the edge of the bowl! It was seriously just sitting there looking at me. The soup was good, and I had a gyro, which didn't compare to a Doggie Diner Gyro, but it was all good. We split a cab with Brian's friend's Eveline and Rich back to the hotel and were treated to a true party cab ride. Meaning, this cab was equipped with a disco ball, strobe lights, other various dance lights, and some bumping music. All we could do was laugh hysterically... But there was really no better way to end a night!

Sunday morning we slept in as late as we could, packed up our bags and then headed out to meet up with some more of Brian's friends from college who weren't at the wedding, Tim and Meghan. We met them at an Irish restaurant not too far from Fell's Point along with their adorable kids. When I say adorable, I mean it... Their son, Liam, is about 4 years old and entertained us with a performance of Kelly Clarkson's "Since You Been Gone" pre-lunch and as a post-lunch performance, he dazzled us with his vocal stylings while singing "Breakaway". He knew absolutely all the words, the intros, bridges, endings- it was quite impressive! They also have a daughter who's about 1.5 or so and every time she looked at Brian she started crying- that was pretty awesome (and okay, it wasn't every time, it just happened twice). Let's hope our kids don't have that same reaction to looking at their dad! As with all of Brian's friends, Tim and Meghan were both awesome and so nice and I also got to hear some good stories of Brian's college days.

After lunch, we headed to the airport to begin our journey home. Oh wait, I forgot to mention that for lunch on Sunday, I had a crab cake sandwich- so that was crab cake #3 of the weekend- not too shabby!! Our flight home was fairly uneventful, though because of southwest's unassigned seating assignments, a little 6 year old boy got stuck sitting next to me and not his mom (who was a few rows behind with a even littler one). I basically had to entertain and babysit this kid for the 4 hour flight, including disposing of his garbage, requesting drinks for him, playing some crazy tic-tac-toe game he made up in which I never won, the 'crayon' game where I had to guess what color the crayon he drew was and of course he was the only one who knew the answer and I was, of course, never right. It was a little annoying, but the kid was actually pretty cute and we had a good time. Brian was on the other side of me and was I think on purpose ignoring me for most of the flight so he wouldn't have to start playing games he'd never win. Brian is much too competitive for that.

We got home Sunday evening and pretty much called it a night- that was a lot of partying to recuperate from!