Last night I headed out to Auld Shebeen to get a few drinks in with Alex, Jev and Matt in a little send off for Alex. He is moving to South Korea of all places for work and will be gone for the better part of three months. The usual Alex nonchalant attitude hid his excitement pretty well, but it was pretty evident that he was excited about the opportunity. Can’t say I blame him though! His company will be sending him over there to observe clients and assess needs in person, and will be putting him up in a swanky hotel and compensating him for his time. I imagine he will have a fun few months over there seeing all the things the country has to offer. I can’t imagine living in a foreign country that’s so…well foreign, but I respect the hell out of his adventurous endeavor.
I convinced him to start a blog of his various misadventures, so stay tuned and I’ll update you guys with links when he has something up. It was good to get to spend some time with him and the guys before he got on his plane. There was a bachelorette party going on at the bar while we where there and I have a pretty hilarious picture of the bride to be autographing Alex’s rear-end. So if he never makes it back from the other side of the world at least I’ll have found memories of him immortalized in my iPhone.
Sunday, Eric and I went with Ken and Alex to the National Car Convention in DC. It was pretty cool to see all the cars on display, from the affordable to the very-much-not. I got to check out personal favorites like the Saturn Sky and Mazda RX-8. Sitting inside the cars and seeing them up-close, in all their polished glory, was a lot of fun an a great experience. While not scoping out cars that I could see myself cruising around, we wandered into the luxury vehicle sections, crazy hybrid-future cars and some massive RVs that made tour buses look paltry. I got the see the Chevy Volt up-close which was pretty impressive. The idea of spending .12 cents to got 40 miles is amazing. I can’t wait to see how the development of these efficient cars in the not so distant future.
After the show we headed to Chinatown and grabbed food at RDF. The substantial beer selection was terrific and between the four of us we sampled a fair few eclectic brews. My favorite was a banana bread ale from England. Good stuff! My surf and turf steak burger was fantastic too. Definitely a place I’ll return to next me I am in the area.
Last night was Sarah’s birthday celebrating her 25th. We went out to DC with a group of our nearest and dearest and had a great time in Adam’s Morgan and the surrounding area. Sarah’s friends from work came out to celebrate with her, and she had a great time. Kevin, Alex, Matt, and the elusive Patricio made it too which was awesome. Paul is in town for Thanksgiving so he and Christina where able to make it out also, so there was a lot of good times to be had for me chilling with my Virginia peoples. I had a really fun night, as did Sarah, though I think I was the only one really hurting for it this morning (not fair- she’s the old one!). Pictures will be on her facebook shortly.
For the record that’s not a middle finger salute. That’s simply me trying to mimic impromptu posing while holding a beer. That and it’s probably the most flattering picture of me in the whole set.
When I moved away I knew I was leaving behind a lot of friends and that things wouldn’t ever really be the same when I came back to visit. When it became evident that I was coming home I was excited for everything to be the way it was before I left. Unfortunately that is not the case, what with graduations, jobs and moving taking place in everyone’s lives, not just my own. While I understand this it is sad to think that there probably wont be another chill session in Kevin’s basement, or meeting for brews up at the Auld Shebeen. That said however I was really pleased to hang out with a few of my friends this past weekend out in Arlington (where all the cool kids live these days). Kevin and Alex are rooming together in Ballston, so Sarah and Jevan and I headed out to hang with them for a night, along with Nico and a group their friends who had a birthday amongst them. It was great just to sit around with a DVD on, a case of crappy beers and just shoot the shit with my old friends. Everyone seems so grown up now, (and by that I mean everyone has a collar). It’s great to see everyone making headway in their own life-directions too, but getting to chill with the good-old-boys definitely wins out As my favorite.
On Saturday I headed back out to Arlington to hang with Eric and Coy at THE CITADEL (Eric’s Arlington Condo- always in caps*). We chilled for a bit and did some my of my favorite; reminiscing with the TV on, before heading downtown to Lucky Bar- a pretty cool Welsh Bar in DuPont. We met up with a friend of Coy’s (Chelsea) who was particularly cool, and spent most of the night standing about making fun of ourselves. I ended up crashing at Eric’s and making the drive back in the morning. 
* Please note that Eric does not necessarily endorse the naming of his condo THE CITADEL…which is why it shalt be named thusly.
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