In Which We Try To Have Fun and Fail

SPRING BREAK! WOOOOOOOOoooooooo!

Spring break began at 2:30 on Thursday for me. Yet I'm still at school (edit: I started this entry this morning. I am no longer at school). Even though I could have gone home on Thursday, I was promised that if I stayed we could go to murder mystery dinner theater at the Spaghetti Warehouse. Now come on, who can say no to that! So I puttered around my room for the next 24 hours, "cleaned", napped, watched some Netflix WatchInstantly. Life was grand. Until I was in the middle of nap number 2 when I heard a knock at my door. I mumbled come in and Nicky slinked in the door looking sad. "I have some bad news" she said. She was wearing all black, she looked distraught. I knew what she was going to tell me but secretly I hoped her bad news was that her favorite aphid had died. "Ari just got a phone call....murder mystery dinner theater at the Spaghetti Warehouse has been cancelled". I rolled over in my bed and let out a few choice curse words before rolling back over and letting out an "awwwwwwww". Nicky shuffled around before looking at me to say "how are we going to tell Paige?". 

As comfortable as I was, I knew Nicky couldn't tell Paige alone. Paige was not going to take this news well. So I got out of bed and went downstairs to deliver the bad news. We walked into her room to find her sitting in bed. "We have some bad news" Nicky started. "I should warn you, I'm not wearing pants" Paige replied. Silence. Awkward. I take a deep breath. "Murder mystery dinner theater at the Spaghetti Warehouse has been cancelled" I quickly spurt out. Paige's face goes through a variety of emotions before she screams out "NOOOOOOOOOOOO! OH GOD WHY!" We knew she was going to take it the hardest. 

After repeating the same thing over again (Why? Is it something we did? Is it because we were the only people to sign up? Will they try again later?) we realized the worst part, what the HELL are we going to do tonight? We started with the basics, dinner. We needed to eat, all of the dining halls were closed and we wanted to pay money to buy away our feelings. We agreed on the Thai restaurant in Bryn Mawr pretty fast, always a good choice. Entertainment options were bleak. Luckily it was the first Friday of the month, so Philadelphia would be hosting "First Friday". Galleries would be open and free booze would be served. It's also Beer Week in Philly, but we had no idea what that meant. All we knew was that if we went into the city we would be rewarded with alcohol. 

After a delightful dinner of Pad Thai we boarded ye olde R5 to the city. Paige got the lucky seat right by the door which meant she was almost mauled by it on more than one occasion. Since it wasn't staying open she took to holding it open for passengers to go through. People appreciated it, thanking her as they exited, however the conductor gave her a stern lecture on how it is not her job to hold the door and that it will stay open on it's own so please kindly keep your hands off the door. The conductor was ridiculous. At every stop he made sure that we knew this was NOT the stop for the flower show. I offered Nicky a dollar to stand up and yell "HE'S LYING! THIS IS THE STOP! EVERYONE OFF!". Two dollars if she hijacked the loudspeaker to do it, four dollars if she ran the length of the train yelling it. She considered it but ultimately passed. 

We were in two facing two seaters so we shared space with a very depressed looking man. As we made fun of the flower show he grabbed his ticket to show to us, it was a commemorative flower show one day pass. We nodded politely as we were sort of afraid of him, he looked like he could snap at any minute. He asked if we were returning that night and when we nodded yes he gave us the pass. "I bought a round trip but I'm not coming back..." I gulp thinking the worst, luckily he continued "tonight. This stupid pass is only a one day thing, I'm not coming back until Sunday". phewwwww. Sweet, free ticket back. I give it to Paige because I owed her 5 dollars. 

Once we reached the city we set about finding fellow Doc Night members Liz, Ari and Drew down at First Friday. It was really warm in the city last night so everyone was out and about in the galleries. Unfortunately this meant all of the wine was quickly snatched up. The art was...special. There were some cool pieces, but some really terrible stuff as well. We continued our favorite game of "Bribe Nicky" with Paige offering 20 bucks if Nicky touched a painting. She very well near took that money, I'm not going to lie, I might have taken that money. What would the consequences be? A stern "please don't do that" and a few moments of public humiliation? What would the rewards be? 20 bucks and total street cred. Nicky should have taken that one.

We were about to give up on the booze when we wandered by a hair salon. They were offering snacks so we went inside. There a bunch of hairdressers were just sitting around chatting, as we grabbed some pita chips and hummus one of them offered us vodka-mango lemonades. Well if you can't have wine, might as well take the vodka-lemoade from the hipster hairdressers. Drew scoffed as he drank his, deeming it "glorified jungle juice". Some people get pompous about the art at First Friday, Drew gets pompous about the free booze. 

We separated from Liz and her friends at that point as they were going to dinner. The rest of us went off to find out what this beer week thing was all about. The problem was that we were in a strange time that was too late for happy hour but not really late enough to go to a bar. Loyal readers of my blogs will know that I cannot stand to go to a bar at a socially incorrect moment. While I scoffed at first, we settled on Triumph Brewing Co. because it was one of those place where people are always at the bar, so we wouldn't look so much like alchies. Since it was early we also got to sit down, which was great. Good times at Triumph, I think I scared a woman sitting at the bar because I was trying to read sports scores on the TV behind her and when she turned around it looked like I was staring intently at her. Awkward. 

Around 10 or so they turned the lights down and some lights behind the bar started flashing. Pop music was pumped into the room in order to try and get a nightclub feeling going. We took this as our cue to leave. We went wandering trying to settle on another bar for the night. After no decision was made I made the executive decision to go to The Irish Pol, an Irish-Polish bar. I liked that it represented my true heritage. I've always thought that the Irish bars lack that Polish element and that the Polish bars are always in shady Trenton. This one combined them together. After we walked inside Ari muttered "dammit". "What's wrong?" I asked her "I was hoping that we would find that this bar was filled with Nigerians, thus confirming your thesis" she replied. Touche, Ari, I appreciate that you thought about that. 

Ari immediately went to go flirt with the bartender in order to try and get free booze. "TAKE CONTROL OF THE SITUATION!" Paige bellowed at Drew. Drew groaned and inched his way towards his woman. He really could care less. The bar was fine, it provided what we needed beer for a reasonable price. The graffiti on the bathroom was especially vulgar, which is always hilarious. 

Around 12 o clock it was time to hit the road. Ari and Drew peeled off to go to the subway and back to Temple while the rest of us continued to the train station. SEPTA has added a couple late night trains that run on Friday and Saturday, so we can now stay in the city past midnight. Unfortunately when we got to the station we discovered that we had just missed the train by 10 minutes and would have to wait an hour for the next one. By the time we got on the train a bunch of drunk people had joined us. Drunk people cannot navigate their way onto a train very well. Perhaps my favorite moment came when we stopped to pick up people at Ardmore and the door slammed into a drunk Nova girl wearing a tight tube top and short skirt, nearly knocking her over. Nicky and I couldn't contain ourselves and openly cracked up. And we wonder why we don't have any Nova friends. A post train trip to Wawa finished our night. 

It was not murder mystery dinner theater at the Spaghetti Warehouse, but it wasn't a half bad night. Good times to kick off spring break (wooooooo!!!!)