Tuesday, July 31, 2012

STP meets RVA

Hello kittens, I'm back from Virginia and slowly settling into "normal"... as normal as my life will be in limbo for the next 2 months until results come out. 

Alas, in the meantime, what's the saying? Ignorance is bliss? Thursday morning I left for Richmond, Virginia to visit my chidhood best friend who is interning with a minor league baseball team out there. She picked me up from the airport Thursday night and we headed to the horse races.
[ So southern!] Their team had a suite and a sponsored race that night. 

The next day, we slept until 11 [HEAVEN] and then trekked over to her complex's pool. Apparently we needed a pool pass, but the little Russian pool boy wasn't too heavy handed and let us in "just this once." Thanks, bud. 

[Side note: I DEVOURED Emily Giffen's newest book: Where We Belong. I bought it in the airport Thursday and had finished it by Friday night. Love me some Emily Giffen]
 After that, we went and had froyo before dinner. Why? Because we're adults, and we can. This was my first taste of Sweet Frog. [Fun fact: I learned FROG stands for "Fully Rely On God"]
 I had 2 types of fruity froyo, with strawberries, raspberries, and "wet walnuts".. which I learned was a really bad way of saying walnuts that were soaked in some kind of syrup. So, what I'm about to say next may make me crazy, but I'm willing to run that risk. Froyo is frozen YOGURT. Therefore, my theory is, since I only really like fruity yogurts (strawberry, banana, vanilla, raspberry, etc.) I have only ever gotten fruity froyo. I am also what I refer to as a "purist"... so, fruity froyo, means, only fruity toppings, with the occasional nuts. Can you tell I'm a recovering law student? Type-A-crazypants, over here.
 We drove down Monument Street, where there were tons of.... monuments. Yes. 
Here's stonewall on his horse.

Friday night we made fajitas at home, watched Say Yes to the Dress, the Olympics, and were in bed by 10:45. Saturday morning we drove around the city.
 We then wound up in a district called Shockoe Bottom. Maybe I'm a giant 10 year old, but every time someone said "Shockoe" I just kept imagining Choco Tacos. You know, from the ice cream man? See. 10 year old. 

There was a rather festive man in knickers loading up a boat on the canal for a tour, so we jumped in line and hopped on the boat, where a family from Massachusetts proceeded to tell me how much they liked my ring. The grandmother asked me if I was on the Bachelor. Bahaha. Flattering, (and no offense M) but a few carats shy of qualifying for that.
 The view down the canal.
We headed back to her apartment, showered up, and got ready for the night and the 2 of us along with one of her coworkers went to dinner. We went to a place called Lucky Buddha that we had passed earlier, since I was craving Chinese. We walked in, and the place was EMPTY. Not EMPTY as in there were 1 or 2 other people, I'm not exaggerating, aside from staff, we were the only patrons there. 

I ordered the spicy orange chicken: 
 Beautiful, no? We noticed a little pamplet on the table that said "July Menu Tasting: Half off full menu, except specialty rolls"... I assumed this meant the Suhshi menu. Then our bill came. My total? A whopping $3.89. My jaw hit the table. The other girls' drinks were just as expensive as their meals. We think this place was primarily a bar and just recently opened the kitchen up, so they were having a tasting the entire month of July.. also would explain why there was nobody there.. people may not know about it yet. Overall, a fantastic surprise.
The girls at dinner. 

After dinner, we wandered over to the bar to wait for some other girls. We decided to give it an hour or so and see what kind of a nighttime bar this place turned into. Well, it turned into a mini rave. I parked my ass at the bar the whole night. I started off with a small rum & coke. For unexplained reasons, the bartender gave me a tall one for my 3rd. For my 4th (over a period of 4 hours, people...) I asked specifically for a "small one"... apparently the bartender was some kind of comedian because he proceeded to fill a shot glass with rum and coke and stick a straw in it (the glass on the left). Hilarious, dude. He then gave me a real one. 

 Speaking of me sitting.. apparently sitting at a bar is weird, because some Mario Lopez lookalike marched up to me and told me as much. He said he just HAD to come talk to the "girl who was sitting down" all night. I had a bar seat, I was still in on the conversation, and I wasn't interested in schmoozing with dudes, obvs. Anyway, after asking me if I had any pets (another interesting opening line) he asked if I had a boyfriend. I flashed what I have dubbed "the man repeller"- my ring- and he exclaims "HOLY SHIT you're MARRIED!?" I said no, engaged. He then proceeded to inspect my ring, call his brother over, and tell me how beautiful it was and asked when the wedding was. Strange turn of events, but at least he knew to back off. haha.

Sunday we spent the entire day at her friends' pool complex grilling and sitting in the pool. I took zero photos. We went home and watched the Olympics, again. 

Monday morning I went with Tori to work at the stadium. She had a quick meeting and then was going to bring me to the airport. One of her duties at work is to take care of Parker, the mascot. Meet Parker: 

Yes, Parker is a potbellied pig. It was hilarious, she opened his pen under the stands and he went TEARING out of the pen, around the corner, towards the field. She hadn't told me what was going on so my first thought was, "Shit, she better know how to wrangle a pig." Little did I know he ran to the fence where he patiently waited for her to open that gate, and then ran inside the field to his "outdoor pen" that he stays in during the day. Who knew pigs could be trained so well! 

From there, I hopped on the plane, and touched down in MN around 6:30 where M was waiting to bring us to a baby shower for a friend of ours...where I also took zero photos. 

Hey, at least you have some from Virginia. Haha. 

Not much else going on here. Started back at work today, which was great. I missed it, surprisingly enough. Everybody was so nice and happy to see me, it seemed like. Lots of "So, how did it go!?" outside my office door. 

Have a girls night planned for Friday and a 2nd birthday party for my cousin Saturday.. so I'll be sure to stop back with updates later this week. 

-Kelly

5 comments:

  1. Your trip sounded super fun! Love the guy who was hitting on you...or whatever that was ;) So fun having a man-repeller right?!

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  2. Love the "man-repeller" part of the story! And your dress at the horse track is awesome.

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  3. BAH!! Do you have any pets?? That's a new one!! LOL Looks like a fab time!

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  4. Eeewoah!! Mario Lopez, back OFF!! I pretty much hate when I get approached in bars, creeps me out :-S

    Aaaaaand now I want a chocotaco. Like, badly.

    Looks like you had just a WONDERFUL time!! Beautiful photos and lots of fun (best friends, sleeping in, pool, froyo-- yes, please!)

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  5. Looks like such a fun trip!!! :)

    Side note - please try chocolate froyo. Or the cakey flavored ones. SO GOOD. :)

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