College! (revisited).

(this is a long one, sorry guys).

So, not to date myself (and I mean that as in “identify the era in which I was born” and not as “can I go out on a date with myself”), but I graduated from college almost six years ago. This weekend, a friend and I decided to relive our college glory with a trip to the University of Virginia, under the guise of visiting her brother before he graduated in May. Some things never change.

My friend and I flew in on Friday night and were picked up in Richmond by aforementioned little brother…and embark on the hour+ car ride to Charlottesville. It was a beautiful spring day and we were ready to matriculate into our weekend. We arrived at little bro’s off-campus apartment. Please see the picture below. No words necessary.



We set off to have dinner and “go to bars.” That is the UVA term for going out.

Commence drinking! One round, two rounds, three rounds, four. We head back to the apartment to launch “going to bars” and head, over some railroad tracks, under a guard rail, and to the other side of campus to “The Virginian”. Creative bar naming is not a trait of this bar’s owner, but it is nonetheless my friend's little brother’s favorite bar and therefore ours. A guy was sitting all alone in a booth. We sat down, ordered him a shot, and then he left. MONEY. We stayed there until they closed (last call at 1:30am? Come on, that is not really college), and then walked home, under the guard rails, over the tracks, etc. Proceed to Jeopardy: 5 of us challenge Alex Trebek on Tivo’d Jeopardy episodes…my friend and her bro win – I can’t even read the question before they have the answer. Jerks. Insert mysterious glass breaking here. We don’t know why all the glassware in the kitchen suddenly became one with the floor, but we did know we had to wear shoes in the apartment for the rest of the weekend. Hello college, how I love thee.

Pass out. Face down. College style. Wake up, hot, smelling like butts (cigarettes, that is, you pervs), to the sound of 10 construction crews hammering together an apartment building next door. It feels like they’re hammering right ONTO MY FACE.

Day 2, having started of with a bang, commences. Friend, brother, and myself go to get breakfast at The Tavern: “where students, townspeople and tourists come to meet.” Yes, that’s actually painted on the roof. At this point, I am the mayor of Strugglesville (aka Scrugglesville). Alternately sweating, nauseated, and suffering from IBS, I decided to dive right into undergrad/southern living and order Chipped Beef on toast. With a side of Bacon. It literally looked like something vomited on my plate. Why did I order that? I must have been still drunk. I manage to get down some potatoes and made a valiant effort at pretending I liked what I ordered.



Next up, we decide to drive through the country. If you’ve never been there, Virginia is lovely…and hilly. Hilly + chipped beef + jagerbombs = me doing lamaz breathing in the backseat of the Honda. Not a pretty sight. We return to “the apartment” where the broken glass has magically been cleaned up and decide to dive back into drinking – bloody maries on the porch, AND WE’RE OFF. Next up, Craw Daddies at KA. I barely know what that sentence means except that we went to a party where there were people eating crawfish and drinking beer. Here is the trick to getting in: Answer the following questions – Are you 21 and are you a UVA student? “Yes (in my head: "yes! this guy thinks I could be YOUNGER than 21!"), Yes (real answer: no)”. Bingo! Give me the Natty Light! I got some free smokeless tobacco. My friend and I are now endlessly promoting the impending kegger we have planned back at the apartment. Everyone we meet goes something like this, “Hi I’m Friend, sister of little bro", then I jump in with "Hi I’m me, friend of Friend. We have a Keg at column house later, you should come by! KEGGER!”. And we’re off to the next.
After our promotion efforts we were expecting a KILLER kegger. Not so much. I think like 20 people came, but we all drank that keg anyways (thank you Gene and Stephanie!). After 10 games of Beirut, I was still no good at it and all the balls fell in the bushes three flights down. The keg expired, the salami was gone, and we decided again to “go to bars.” Giddyup.

Over the guard rails and train tracks, we headed up to the Virginian one more time. Then we moved down the row to Orbit and played pool. I am apparently terrible at that too. At 1:30 the bar made last call…and that’s when we unleashed a UVA tradition on ourselves: We went to a restaurant called the “White Spot” and ordered double gusburgers and a side of heartburn. A gusburger is essentially a cheeseburger with a fried egg on top. Our host, little bro, hazed us by ordering us the DOUBLE gusburger with TWO patties of meat, cheese and a egg on top. WOW. He did not order anything - so us two lovely gals were sitting there HOUSING ground beef while this 21 year old actual college student abstained. Anyone have the number for Jenny Craig? Then we went home and played about 3 hours of Jeopardy shows on Tivo. Seeing a pattern here?

On Sunday, we did the following:
+ attempted to go eat authentic fried chicken. It was closed. Thanks.
+ went to Monticello to throw down some Thomas Jefferson love but then decided that we could not hike the 0.5 miles to see the actual house. The parking lot was nice.
+ had pitchers of beers. COLLEGE!

Overall – College was great. I do not want to go back anytime soon. Wearing flip flops in the shower, hearing about pooping in a box to stink up your roommate's room, waking up with black feet, eating Fritos and Gusburgers for dinner, are things to be enjoyed once in a blue moon for this 27 year old.