Girl's Weekend started with a 5 hour train trip. I love the train. The seats are big, comfortable and there is also a lot of leg room. In addition, they have an electrical socket for each seat, so you can charge your entertainment devices while you ride.
My friend Stacia and her twins arrived to pick me up and we headed back to her place to wait for J.J. to show up. Stacia's twins, Avery and Morgan are 8 weeks old. She's gotten pretty good at juggling them both at the same time.
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| Avery is in front and Morgan is in back |
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| Stacia holding Avery with Morgan in her lap |
We had some wine, cheese and crackers while waiting for the girls to be fed and get settled down. Then we headed out for some dinner while her husband Matt stayed home with the girls. We ate at The Holiday Inn (the restaurant, not the hotel chain) and I enjoyed some "312 beer" for the first time. After dinner, J.J. and I headed back to the hotel and got an early night sleep.
Saturday, we had lunch at The Haymaker which is a microbrewery near Stacia's apartment. The food was good, but the beer was better. I had 3 different samples, one port and two wheat ales, with my pizza for lunch. Afterwards, Matt took one baby and we got the other. Avery came with us in her baby bjorn. She's still too small for anyone to see her head over the top, so basically she was all cuddled up in her own little cocoon, except for her feet dangling out. We went to Macy's and did some shopping and enjoy the windows. Afterwards, we headed to Christkindlmarket. It was awesome with the food tents, product stalls, and decorations. Unfortunately, it was super crowded. I hate crowds. The make me crabby. At some of the stalls, they were selling a souvenir boot cup, but the lines were terrible. Stac was at the head of our little group, finding a path through the crowd with Avery in her Baby Bjorn leading the way. She got some info that the line in the warming tent was short and moved fast. I'm assuming this was because the weather was great, there was no need for the sauna-like warming tent and therefore the crowd in there was much smaller than outside and people kept wanting to leave because of the heat. So, we got our Gluhwein in a boot. Gluhwein is warm red wine that tastes similar to wassail. I don't like red wine, but I like Gluhwein.
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| Stacia, Avery, and J.J. |
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| Souvenir Boot Cup |
We went to El Diablo for dinner and met up with Stacia's sister, Erin, and their friend Hany. We had some good Mexican food and it was nice to catch up.
Stacia and Me
I'm average height and Stacia and J.J. are taller, so I wore some hooker shoes to gain some height advantage. I was still shorter than J.J. wearing the shoes! Life is unfair sometimes.
Stacia and J.J. Hooker Shoes
One of the fun things about the restaurant is that it has a mechanical bill. I decided to give it a try.
Me on the bull
It turns out I'm not very good at it. I'm not sure exactly how long I was up there, but it was probably pretty close to 1.5 seconds. If you ever get a chance to try it, I'd recommend it. It was good for a laugh.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel. My feet hurt so bad that I ended up walking the last block in my socks.
The next morning we had breakfast and then Stac and J.J. walked me back to the train station. It was a fun weekend and hopefully we'll be able to get together and do it again soon.
