Essentially an expensive pub crawl
Monday was... well... a typical Monday; work, gym, happy hour drink, and recuperating back at my place.
Today/Tuesday, though: I had a ticket to a Tastes of Federal Hill event starting at 6 PM so after racing back from work, I got a haircut (also closed at 6) and headed over to Charles Street for the event.
At the event, everyone separated into assigned groups to do a 'crawl' where we visited a new place every half hour with free food and drinks. The $55 entry fee fortunately rose the average age well above the 23 you'd expect from an event like this (if anything, I was by far the youngest) though at the same time, with everyone seemingly paired off with people they knew, I felt a bit out of it (though with booze everyone DID loosen up at least). We began with cheese samples from the market and then visited the following places in order:
6:30 - split between Brightside Boutique (what looked like a fancy thrift store or something specializing in women's clothes; the special was various tapas-y snacks and red wine)
and Bridal Suite (consignment store for bridal gowns; served chocolate truffles with nice pink fillings and actualfax champagne)
7 - Matsuri (could get sushi pieces as well as free wine; I was pacing myself to have half a serving of booze or so at each stop so I could enjoy ALL of it)
7 30 - Magerks (a pub; drinks only stop with free beer of whatever's on tap; I chose a Flying Dog selection)
8 - Mothers (the food special involved a nice chicken gumbo stew ; free beer as before and I chose seasonal Sam Adams)
8 30 - Illusions (beer; I chose a light hefeweizen and watched the bartender perform a magic trick at the end)
9 - Cowboys and Rednecks (just like the last time I was there, apparently trivia was going down; the food special was some weird macaroni and cheese thing with hot wings thrown in that tasted WAY better than it looked while I sipped some free Yuengling)
9 30 - at the home site, where there were quite a few other groups meeting up as well (fun dessert offerings: cookies, eclairs, chocolate covered strawberries, mini cupcakes - along with spiked rinks, where I had a hot chocolate spiked with a bit of Bailey's and Kahlua, while I took a shot of Kahlua with half of my group)
After that, a few of us (including one person who actually added me on FB for future hanging out purposes of course, she was married and even there with her husband, but even making friends of any sort locally is an accomplishment AS IS) headed down to a seedy looking bar on Fort and William where I sipped a chartreuse shot for a bit... before heading back, buying a few things for tomorrow, and... having way more fun than I should have!
Incidentally, it seems nearly everyone here had been to several of these types of events before (in fact, you could request a group to tour with - and many people did)... but, of course, the cost of entry makes it VERY unlikely for me to go to anywhere near enough of those events to become a regular!
And as for everything else? At least things seem to be going well/in the right direction with life as a whole... even if no super awesome breakthroughs can happen immediately. Just about all of my problems seem to have solutions in the foreseeable future, which is a great change of pace!
Today/Tuesday, though: I had a ticket to a Tastes of Federal Hill event starting at 6 PM so after racing back from work, I got a haircut (also closed at 6) and headed over to Charles Street for the event.
At the event, everyone separated into assigned groups to do a 'crawl' where we visited a new place every half hour with free food and drinks. The $55 entry fee fortunately rose the average age well above the 23 you'd expect from an event like this (if anything, I was by far the youngest) though at the same time, with everyone seemingly paired off with people they knew, I felt a bit out of it (though with booze everyone DID loosen up at least). We began with cheese samples from the market and then visited the following places in order:
6:30 - split between Brightside Boutique (what looked like a fancy thrift store or something specializing in women's clothes; the special was various tapas-y snacks and red wine)
and Bridal Suite (consignment store for bridal gowns; served chocolate truffles with nice pink fillings and actualfax champagne)
7 - Matsuri (could get sushi pieces as well as free wine; I was pacing myself to have half a serving of booze or so at each stop so I could enjoy ALL of it)
7 30 - Magerks (a pub; drinks only stop with free beer of whatever's on tap; I chose a Flying Dog selection)
8 - Mothers (the food special involved a nice chicken gumbo stew ; free beer as before and I chose seasonal Sam Adams)
8 30 - Illusions (beer; I chose a light hefeweizen and watched the bartender perform a magic trick at the end)
9 - Cowboys and Rednecks (just like the last time I was there, apparently trivia was going down; the food special was some weird macaroni and cheese thing with hot wings thrown in that tasted WAY better than it looked while I sipped some free Yuengling)
9 30 - at the home site, where there were quite a few other groups meeting up as well (fun dessert offerings: cookies, eclairs, chocolate covered strawberries, mini cupcakes - along with spiked rinks, where I had a hot chocolate spiked with a bit of Bailey's and Kahlua, while I took a shot of Kahlua with half of my group)
After that, a few of us (including one person who actually added me on FB for future hanging out purposes of course, she was married and even there with her husband, but even making friends of any sort locally is an accomplishment AS IS) headed down to a seedy looking bar on Fort and William where I sipped a chartreuse shot for a bit... before heading back, buying a few things for tomorrow, and... having way more fun than I should have!
Incidentally, it seems nearly everyone here had been to several of these types of events before (in fact, you could request a group to tour with - and many people did)... but, of course, the cost of entry makes it VERY unlikely for me to go to anywhere near enough of those events to become a regular!
And as for everything else? At least things seem to be going well/in the right direction with life as a whole... even if no super awesome breakthroughs can happen immediately. Just about all of my problems seem to have solutions in the foreseeable future, which is a great change of pace!