This was one of the more eventful and social weekends I’ve had in a long time. Being the extrovert that I am, I was really glad to get to spend time with friends.

FRIdAY

I guess we can kick off with happy hour on Friday. One of my coworkers unlocked a work achievement, so we had sangria and bread and hummus at Levante’s. It was a bit chilly, but we asked to be seated outside. The waiter seemed completely bewildered by this request, but I don’t know, my group wanted to sit outside. It was nice to wrap up the week with some work buddies, and I’m glad I have work buddies to hang out with!

During this time, I was checking with some friends about a birthday dinner I was going to later. I had checked the map and thought I got the location wrong. No way we were going to the Biergarten Haus that was a 25 minute walk away from the nearest metro station? Really?

Yes, really. After about 5 minutes of bickering on the phone, I decided that my boyfriend shouldn’t wait for me at his place (where I was going to drop off my work bag and lunchbox) and that I would meet our friends at Union Station, where we would all walk to Biergarten Haus together. I wandered around the mall of Union Station, admiring the architectural details (it’s a truly beautiful building) and had some guy tell me that “they’re coming, don’t you worry” only to then see about a dozen Chinese tourists round the corner.
Oh yes, this man thought I was waiting on Chinese tourists because why not. -____-”

Anyhow, the walk wasn’t so bad with everyone together. I would’ve really hated having to walk there by myself. You go a mile through this residential area in eastern DC (keeping in mind that southeast DC is one of the most dangerous areas in the country) and finally stumble upon a very lively street. That is completely not metro-accessible. Even the buses don’t go out here. (WHY)

BUT Biergarten Haus is pretty authentic as a German beer place, and everyone really loved their brews. There was German music playing and I had schnitzel and the environment felt good. There is a lot of outdoor seating and the patio is supposed to be heated, but it was chilly that night. I liked it but it is really out of the way.

From there, we went to FM Karaoke, which is a Korean karaoke/noraebang joint that I have not been to before. My boyfriend’s best friend really wanted to sing “All of Me” by John Legend, and he claimed that while our usual karaoke place didn’t have it, FM Karaoke did. I always notice one interesting thing with my boyfriend’s group of friends and that is that even though it’s all Asian guys (I was the only girl in the group) every time we hang out, there are almost never any Korean people in the group. However, we still go to Korean BBQ and Korean karaoke relatively often. Both are places where it’s helpful to have a Korean person available to translate and interpret and butter up staff.

REGARDLESS it was a bangin’ good time. I have noticed some very major differences between karaoke-ing as a bro (I’m a half-decent bro when I put my mind to it) and karaoke-ing with girls. There is a lot more rap (I mean a lot more) and a lot less Taylor Swift, Spice Girls, Ke$ha, etc. And when I rap to impress potential new bros, I go hard. I only know a handful of songs, but I do pretty well considering I have negative street cred and have a children’s sing-along voice.

You think this is a game? I memorized the lyrics to this song when I was 11, with exactly zero idea of what they meant.

I get to combine my ability to sing Rihanna and my admiration for Eminem here by doing the entire song on my own.

This song is weirdly popular with my boyfriend’s friends, so I had a lot of exposure and time to learn the words.

I don’t typically sing these at karaoke, so it was a special treat (slash torture) for my new bros. I sang “Let It Go” and couldn’t belt that note that early in the evening, but I managed fine for “Titanium” (David Guetta ft. Sia) and we had a tambourine so I think the night went well.

ON SAMEDI (SATURDAY)

My boyfriend and I met one of my closest friends for the DC Bunny Hop Bar Crawl. Some of you may remember I don’t drink much, but I wanted to explore the DC bars a little bit and i thought this was just a nice occasion to get out and hang out.

We started at The Front Page at around noon to pick up our 21-verified (but you still get ID checked) wristbands, souvenir mugs, and a ticket for a free beer after 4 PM. We started at Mad Hatter, an Alice in Wonderland-themed bar that I’ve visited before for my college roommate’s birthday, for some brunch. Even though there were some brunch specials for bar crawl participants at other places, we wanted to just sit down and have a nice brunch nearby, and this was the closest participating bar to us. I got me some eggs benny (well, technically I splurged on “eggs Chesapeake” because I wanted crab cake) and we got to catch up on life.

Not wanting to limit ourselves to once place, we headed to Ozio to get our $3 mimosas, which didn’t turn our color-changing cups a different color as promised. It was really quiet at Ozio, and we could hear something electric crackling… so after nursing our food comas and spending a long time catching up on life even further,  we headed to Sign of the Whale.

Yo. This place was packed and bumpin’ and it was 3 PM on a Saturday. Lots of people dancing to loudly playing “Forget You” by Ceelo Green when we showed up. We each had a jelly bean shot, and I’m not sure what is in it but they tasted pretty good. (That’s a good bet that the alcohol content wasn’t very high, just the way I like ’em :P) We were in and out of Sign of the Whale, as it was rowdy and also getting a bit on the late side.

Our next stop was The Mighty Pint, where we had each had a Captain Morgan & Coke. At this point, we found that our color-changing cups did, in fact, change color with cold drinks and we were glad our cups weren’t defective. We took our time with our drinks and by the time we finished, it was close to 4 and we were able to head back to Front Page to pick up our free beers.

After a quick coffee stop for my boyfriend at Panera, we headed back to Front Page where we each kicked back with a free Bud Light and tried to guess what the relationships between other people in the bar were. Girlfriend meeting the guys friends for the first time? Honeymoon-phase couple? First day-date?

THEN we stopped by Hello Cupcake for some yummy cupcakes. They all looked so good and inviting but I settled on a cookies-n-cream one, which tasted like a cookie but had that cupcake texture and was topped with a teeny cookie. So good. I haven’t had Hello Cupcake since someone brought me one my freshman year of college and this was my first time in the shop.

My brother also came home this weekend, so it was nice to spend some time with him. All in all, it was definitely a good weekend. 🙂 And significantly less traumatizing that my Easter Adventure of 2011, which I wrote about on my Xanga and may share with you again next Easter.

How was your Easter?
What are your favorite happy hour bars? Dupont Circle in DC is an area just crawling with bars and not a whole lot else, really.