It all started with planning Whitney's bachelorette party. I love planning bachelorette parties. Actually, I love planning anything. I like making up lists, organizing and highlighting them, striking through certain things (neatly) and then editing the list until it's an unflawed thing of perfection. I totally had a list for this. Places to go, things to eat and etc. But as you may know, the very best vacations happen when the list goes out the window and you just go with it. This is precisely one of those vacations.
Something especially great about this desert trek through the sands of awesome was that I didn't even have to leave town. We stayed at the Hotel San Jose right smack in the middle of bustlin' South Congress. That means we were close to some of the town's best shopping and eateries. The Hotel San Jose is one of "those hotels." As in, when you tell people you're staying there they all do a wistful sigh. It's not that it's overly nice, it's just really Austin-y and in a fab location. Here are some pictures!
When I showed up at the hotel the gals had just arrived. Even though I had never met them, I felt like I had because of a string of email threads that had been going on for months prior to the event. If you know me at all, you know I often speak very oddly. I'm sure you can tell via this blog. So when I started seeing strange language all over our email threads by them, it excited me to no end. I love saying amaze-yewls. When I saw one of them say amazeuals (what?! an extra syllable!!!) on one of the emails I was like "YES! I LOVE these girls!" And then Bonnie, Karen and Jennifer waltzed into my life and ROCKED IT. Whitney and Aubrie, the other two, were already ROCKING IT. Since all of them are from Dallas, I'm beginning to wonder why I be hatin' on Dallas so much. Hmm.
Check-in. Super annoying. They told me that check-in began promptly at 3pm.. but they didn't have our room ready until 4pm. What?! Yes, this gave us a chance to sit by the pool and begin drinking, but there were kids cannon-balling at the tiny ass pool. Look at the pool! I posted a picture! Dude, don't let your kids cannonball in a pool that size. Very bad form. So a full hour later (hello at least offer us a free drink or something!) we were able to check in and begin the oh-so-familiar girl get-ready process. Then? On to Gueros!
It's a taco bar about a block or two away from the hotel.
Live music came ext, as it was easy to access being right next door to the restaurant. Now, Jennifer up until this moment had seemed like the quietest of the group. Yes, she participated and was fun, but I hadn't quite pegged her to be the "WOOHOOOOOO" one. But then when the live music came about... Jennifer sprang from the depths of herself and was dancing like there was no tomorrow. I believe the band addressed her specifically several times. GETTIT Jennn!!!!
Even though the beer was flowing like wine and the salmon were instinctively flocking like the salmon of Capistrano, it couldn't change the face that due to the live music, we couldn't even hear ourselves think. So we decided to take a quick jaunt back to the hotel before making up our minds where to go next. Confession. I immediately broke into a sake bottle being held captive in the mini bar in our room. Save the sake guys! It was all alone in there! Not really, but anything I can say to rationalize drinking it.
Finally we made up our minds to go with Ego's, a karaoke bar within walking distance. Despite the fact that it was well within walking distance, we got lost. Of course. And as soon as I got to the bar, I directly ordered a double gin and tonic. I sat down, and started people watching. All of a sudden I felt the need to scratch my scalp, and guess what I found when I did. A WORM. A GEE DEE EFFING SILK WORM. Do these guys stalk me? EVIDENCE = YES.
Jennifer signed up everyone for karaoke, and she signed herself up with Whitney first. Jen picked SHOOP by Salt n' Peppa and we were all really excited! So she and Whitney get up on stage, and start. Usually karaoke is two people falling all over themselves to get the words right, and Whitney was at-par with that. But I think this was basically due to Jen TOTALLY DOMINATING at karaoke!
She knew every word and said it in perfect timing! This naturally made the whole bar obsessed with her. Including a girl. It was truly bizarre - she made Jen give her a business card, and upon realizing the card did not include Jen's cell, she MADE her write it down on the card. Whitney to Jen "that girl wanted to wear your hair." I think Whitney was right.
Ego's is a crappy looking bar. But it's fun. I had a lot of fun, and a lot of gin and tonics. And it was good that I did, because I needed a lot of the hard stuff to get me through the experience that was the bathroom. The bathroom looked like it was fresh out of the Rwandan genocide. Like someone had recently been there with a machete, slinging it all over the place. I'm pretty sure there was a blood-like substance on the ceiling. I actually cautioned some entering girls that it WAS Rwanda in there. God knows what they thought I meant.
Whitney basically carried Jennifer home, and that was the end of the night.
DAY 2
Since this post is getting awfully long, I'm going to give you the abridged version.
Girls go to get massages at AZIZ downtown. DO NOT GO TO AZIZ. They told Bonnie that her arms were strangely long and chastised Aubrie for having short nails. It looked like rural Mexico. They were all kept apart the whole time and they treated Whitney like CRAP even though she's the bride. They also charged them for a member of our party that didn't show up even though they were running behind on their appointments... if anything our extra party member being absent helped. They are ridiculous fools... but I can't say they didn't make things interesting.
Complete filth. But whatever.
The rest of the day went as follows.
Breakfast = Jo's Coffee
Lunch = Place that serves meat in a cone
Shopping = Hot as EFF on South Congress...like 90+ degrees. Miserable.
Next = Hotel.
Next = Getting ready, piling up into Bonnie's car.
Dinner = Sushi at Imperia. Wine and sake consumption.
We = Without question the loudest and most inappropriate table in the restaurant.
Weirdness = Encounter our second of 3 people with lisps on the trip - the second being our waiter. And our waiter tells us after eating some delicious escolar that it will give us diarrhea.
WAITERS. NEVER TELL PEOPLE THAT AFTER THE FACT. IT WILL NOT DO ANY GOOD. AND IT'S DISGUSTING TO SAY DIARRHEA AT ANY ESTABLISHMENT THAT OFFERS FOOD.
Then, the hand of God came out and touched our table. Collectively we decided to form a travel group called TRAVUALS! First we're going to Cabo San Lucas for Whitney's wedding, then we're going to have a birthday blowout for Bonnie at the Belmont. Future travuals ideas include Napa Valley, somewhere on the east coast for oyster tour awesomeness, Santa Fe/Taos, the Big Bend area and more. It's going to be so badass. What's better than a traveling group of inappropriate and debaucherous girls?! Nothing I tell you. Nothing.
Next = adult shop of questionable repute. I'm very shy about talking about this stuff, so I'm going to be cryptic. A lot of money was spent by the ladies. Let's just say that. But in the midst of this, we had to deal with the traffic associated with the Texas Relays. Relays is a gangster spectator sport, apparently. Everyone thinks it's just track and field. It's not. Because this is what we saw everywhere we went when we were out Saturday.
Then? Back to the hotel beer and wine bar for wine, beer and sangria. Penis tiara in all the pictures. At some point I decided to do the whole 'hold the camera up' thing to get pictures of the group in action. Basically I got a bunch of weird photos of the tops of peoples heads.
Back to the room. Whitney and Aubrie walk to Home Slice Pizza and get like 45 pieces of pizza to go. We eat them. All. With ranch. We basically motor boated the ranch and pizza.
Sunday morning = packing.
Go to Snack Bar for brunch, where we drink mimosas.
Order delicious breakfastuals.
Again, the loudest most obnoxious table in the establishment. We relive the night and embarrass the hell out of Aubrie's boyfriend who came to pick her up. He was so pleasant considering the content of our discussions.
So sad to see these gals leave. TRAVUALS IS THE FABUALS!!!!!!!
Also, this is a bachelorette party which warrants lewd behavior. So if you have a wayward eyebrow? As Bonnie would say, "judge and get over it."
