Cosmic Run DC 2013

Monday, 14 October 2013Tuesday, 19 April 2016 Starr4 Comments

I am not athletic. (Although I once was.)
I am not a hardcore EDM fan.

But this past weekend, I completed my very first 5K (ish) due to the allure of a light show and the promise of EDM.

Who was I to say no?

My first time wearing numbers pinned to my shirt?

Cosmic Run DC took place yesterday, 12 October. I have a few things to say about the organization prior to race day:

Packet pickup was on Thursday and Friday, aka work days. Out in Falls Church, Virginia. They said “for your convenience”, they were having it on 2 days, but it was still pretty inconvenient to have to go on a work day to pick them up. At a location that was FAR AWAY from the actual race site.
We weren’t told the race site until this past week, and it was not in DC. This was to be expected, but Waldorf, Maryland is NOT NEAR DC.
I didn’t know what charity this race was benefiting until this past week, also. I would have liked to know, uh… WHEN I PAID but you know, better late than never, I guess. As long as the money benefits a charity. I don’t mind if the money doesn’t, but don’t say that you partner with a charity every year and then not tell us until the week of the race, please.

JUST TRYING TO DO THIS RACE was an adventure and a struggle. It has been very rainy in the DC metro area this week, after one full week of 80+ degree weather this October. So strange. Driving down to pick up our packets was a little bit tricky, but we made it.

Race Day

Well, we made it to race day. (It’s not really a “race”, but whatever. “Run day”?) After a pre-race/run meal of Red Lobster (hahaha this may have been a huge mistake), we set off for Waldorf, which is an hour away from my friend’s apartment, even with a little bit of rainy-day-slowness-induced traffic.

Or so we thought.

There was an accident about 15 miles away from the arena, causing a complete standstill in traffic, as I think all lanes were closed. We started seeing cars driving in the shoulder (naughty) and then we saw cars going in reverse down the shoulder (super naughty). We’re getting pretty freaked out because several of the cars were reversing quite fast.

AND THEN almost all of the cars in front of us turned to go on the off ramp.
Yes. You read that correctly.
They made a crazy turn into this on ramp, and we really were left with few options but to follow, as we were surrounded by these turning cars.

At some point while we’re getting on this off ramp, we hear a cop car. Maybe it’s because of the accident… we hoped. Obviously not. It was there to make sure no other idiots tried to follow us morons down the off ramp, but we were pretty safe, I think. We found a local road that runs parallel to the highway and made it to the run about 20 minutes late.

We were not told that there would be staggered starts, but luckily for us, there were. We were able to join a group at the start line, where we didn’t get to catch any of the glow sticks that were being thrown down to us plebes.

FUN FACT: In an effort to hydrate but also to fight off food coma and give us a kick, we drank quite a lot of water and caffeine prior to running. We did go to the bathroom beforehand, but after almost 2 hours of driving, we needed a revisit that we wouldn’t see until after completing the 5K (ish). Sigh. That was pretty painful XD

Although there wasn’t music all throughout the course as I thought there would be, it was nice to have the checkpoints where we’d hear some EDM pounding, get blacklight-visible colored powder thrown on us, and see some admittedly cool lights and lasers. Some of these powder people were a little bit off though. One definitely just threw a fistful at my pants, which meant I just had a bunch of pink on my crotch, and another threw a handful at my face, which meant I was tasting cornstarch for a few hours and wiping blue out of my eyes an awful lot. (Oy. Rude.)

I also lost my friend right at the beginning. Considering I didn’t have my glasses or my phone, and everyone was wearing black clothing for the blacklight colors to show up, I was pretty frantic. But we found each other! And all was well.

Then the race was over. I wasn’t very tired, which means that it wasn’t 5K. I am almost positive that wasn’t the full 5K because I’m usually quite tired running 3 miles, and I have only done so about twice, so I doubt that I just got better at it. The course ended sooner than I thought, and I finished quite fast considering I did walk about 25% of it.

ALSO I HAD WAY TOO MUCH ENERGY FOR THE AFTERPARTY.

Image courtesy of Instagram user hannahhmo, as I didn’t want to risk bringing my phone/camera out on the run.

So the best part of the Cosmic Run is the afterparty. DJs blasting EDM while they throw color and glowsticks to a crowd of sweaty people covered with cornstarch+rain paste. It was kind of super amazing just to be losing it and going crazy and jumping around. (But again, I shouldn’t have had the energy to rave as hard as I did XD)

All in all, this was kind of a struggle, but I definitely had loads of fun. Not sure if I’ll do it again next year, but I will think about it.

Also not sure if I’m ever gonna pay money to run again, but we’ll see. 😛

Cruisin’

Thursday, 10 October 2013Wednesday, 12 March 2014 StarrLeave a comment

Before I do a city-by-city recap of my vacation, I want to make sure I spotlight one of the main features of my trip. This was my first time on a cruise ship and it was pretty spectacular! It was even better than I imagined it to be.

We originally wanted to do a 12-day cruise that started and ended in London, with a stop in Amsterdam, but we hit a SNAFU with that one, so we did a 9-day cruise that began and ended in Copenhagen, minus the stop in Amsterdam. This was a blessing in disguise, because it afforded us more time in London and the opportunity to visit Paris!

The cruise ship that we called home for 9 days was the Norwegian Star. I cannot recommend the ship more. It was amazing. The ship was extremely well-kept and the staff was SO welcoming and friendly and wonderful. They made you feel like a part of the giant family that we had on the ship. The entertainment staff in particular was really good about knowing people’s names and always being very welcoming and courteous to guests. Serious shout out to the beautiful fantabulous staff on the Norwegian Star.

The entire experience was just so fun and comfortable. From the moment you walk onto the ship, you’re greeted by your crew, dancing along to electronic dance music. (I felt that EDM was really appropriate for a European cruise.) Sometimes they give you little bits of drink or gelatin snacks. Sometimes the crew will come out on stilts. Sometimes they provide nice ice cold towels for relief on a hot day. The welcome makes you feel so welcome and wanted. Plus, every day, we were greeted by a cute little towel animal on our bed!

Examples of the towel animals we would find on our beds

The food on the ship was delicious. Our favorite spot was Versailles, which was of the no-cover joints. Since our cruise fare included food, we didn’t have to pay at any of the restaurants. However, there were a few places that required cover as they were slightly fancier, like the Brazilian steakhouse and the teppanyaki restaurant. We loved Versailles because the food was really yummy, and we really didn’t want to venture to the other places after loving the first place we chose. I had the best steak of my life there. It was only one time, even though I tried to get it again, but it was the best steak of my life. And I’m not even a huge steak fan.

Surf & turf on our first night at *Versailles* yummm

Beautiful sugar-free chocolate panna cotta

Choosing a dessert was really difficult. #firstworldproblems

There were a lot of fun activities available. There was a casino, shuffleboard!, a great pool, lots of hot tubs, Bingo, karaoke at the bar… there was a LOT. There were a handful of big parties that they had, with lots of dance music and booze for all the senior citizens and people closer to my age. (Lots of line dancing, I’ll tell you that.) It was VERY difficult to be bored on this ship. I even managed to escape a few times to their library, where there were daily sudoku and crossword puzzles, as well as a bunch of great reading options. (Also, I could eat basically all day.)

This game is called “The Keymaster” and its song haunts my dreams.

We don’t know the rules for shuffleboard.

On top of that, I saw some brilliant performances while aboard the Star. There was this great musician who played a bunch of cultural folk songs using a variety of instruments, like the pan flute! I don’t remember his name, but he had this fantastic energy, even though between songs he was very calm and collected. We also saw this MAGNIFICENT Russian acrobatics duo that absolutely took my breath away. Maria and Dimitri have such control over their bodies and the choreography was so fresh and beautiful. We also saw a show by Brenda Cochrane, who was fabulous.

I think I severely underestimated how wonderful our cruise would be. I loved it. I loved it times a million. I want everyone to get to experience what I experienced on that ship, maybe minus the bit of seasickness that kept me from stuffing my face so furiously.

I have so many more photos, but I don’t want to overwhelm you guys. I will most likely be making a separate post about just some gorgeous water shots I got, because there were a lot of those. But I need to publish this before it’s winter XD

Big Apple Recap (… Rec-apple?)

Thursday, 10 October 2013Wednesday, 19 March 2014 StarrLeave a comment

(Sorry about that pun, I had to try!)

This past weekend, I took a little weekend getaway with my boyfriend back to my native metropolis of New York. I was born and raised in New Jersey, and I will always love the city. My boyfriend really wanted me to share my love for the city with him, so off we went on Thursday.

OKAY I need to say something about BoltBus. Now I have heard a lot of good things about them, but it was my first time riding with Bolt to go up to New York. It was good and very timely but DANG, the air conditioning was blasting onto me the entire trip and I was fuh-reeeeezing. Seriously, they need to fix that. Way too cold. The entire wall of the bus was cold, so I had to lean away from the side of the bus and cover the vent with my jacket, because wearing my jacket didn’t really keep me warm when there was air blasting at me. 😦

OKAY SO. (Links to my reviews included.)
We stayed at the adorably Irish Fitzpatrick Grand Central. (Seriously. So Irish. So adorable.) Very comfortable stay, and the location was great. We were only a few blocks away from the Halal Guys cart at 53rd and 6th, so we were pretty much golden.

I saw my old friend from elementary school, Connie, for dinner that evening. It was really nice catching up with her, and I was really relieved seeing her. I remember the last time I saw her having nothing to say… so it was nice to feel like we didn’t have enough time to say everything we needed to say. We ate at Baohaus because Max Brenner is closed for renovation. 😦 Then we headed literally around the corner to try Momofuku Milk Bar, since I’ve heard soooo much about David Chang and his Momofuku restaurants and the cereal milk and the crack pie. (Verdict: Okay, not worth the hype though.) Then we just chilled in Union Square for a little bit before she headed off to go back home.

2013-09-26 20.09.03 — Connie and I have been friends for nearly 16 years, how is that possible??

We walked to the High Line, which is one of my favorite places in the city. I think it’s just so nice to be above all the craziness, plus I love the urban design of the park, which used to be part of a railroad line. There’s a bunch of plants and sculptures and great views up there. It was nice to visit with my boyfriend this time, because it is definitely a very romantic place? And almost exclusively visited by couples. The last time (and first time) I visited, it was with some of my bros. Hahahaha awkward.

Then we decided we’d just walk back to midtown, taking a little detour through Times Square so that Ben could see what was what. I spent a very long time in the Disney Store because I’m a pretty big Disney geek. It was a wee bit frustrating for me, mostly because Ben’s childhood is suspiciously devoid of Disney. He asked me such absurd-to-me questions as:
– Is Goofy Disney?
– That looks like Mary Poppins, but she’s not Disney, right?
– What’s this from, Hunchback of Notre Dame? (Pointing at BELLE in the Beauty and the Beast section of the store.) (He reasoned that both stories were the same thing. Ugly guy, pretty girl. WOW SO MUCH WRONG.)
Basically, if you imagine me staring at him slack-jawed and then slamming my palm into my face, you’d be right.

We then went off for chicken & rice at the Halal Guys’ famous cart at 53rd & 6th and walked back to our hotel, where Ben was blown away by how yummy the food was. Duh, I would never lead you astray.

The next day, we slept in. This is a big deal for me because I’m the kind of person who tries to squeeze as much fun into a vacation as possible. But Ben is the kind of person who likes to sleep in and laze around. It was pretty relaxing to try it out this way, not gonna lie, and I go to the city so often that I have no need to rush around. We went off to go eat lunch at Ippudo Westside (amazing service, seriously). Then, we headed off toward Central Park, making a stop at Columbus Circle and wander around the Shops in the Time Warner Center. We walked about and enjoyed the truuuuuly nice weather we were having.

I got a bit silly while Ben was working out dinner detail on the phone.

We were going to meet Ben’s old roommate and his girlfriend for dinner, so we started down 5th Ave to do some casual shopping and for me to point out some key spots. Stopped by Uniqlo but I get super overwhelmed by stores on that scale. (e.g. the Forever21 in Times Square, the H&M on 5th Ave…) But I had fun shopping around, looking at things, before we headed down to St. Mark’s for dinner.

I had eaten the Korean fried chicken (aka KFC) at Boka before, and I was trying to not let it bug the bejeezus out of me that Ben’s roommate didn’t want to make reservations for us on a Friday night… I figured it he wanted drinks, I’d just take us to this Korean bar for wings and watermelon soju. (They serve it in a watermelon!) We ate, I grabbed some bubble tea, and we sat around in Washington Square Park for a bit before heading our separate ways.

Ben and I went back through Times Square, where I went back to the Disney Store and ultimately bought 2 things:

I got this T-shirt because a) it was one of the FEW things on sale due to the fact that b) it is a limited edition Artist’s Series Snow White T-shirt. They only had it in large and 2XL… but I bought the large because I did like it and it is a limited edition. I don’t know any fancy tricks to make it fit my body better, so I’ve only worn it underneath blazers and cardigans so far.

I figured since this is the Manhattan Disney Store, I should get something that shows my love of my favorite city and of the Mouse himself, so I grabbed this tumbler. I don’t know when is best to use it, but I liked the design a lot. I would’ve gotten a T-shirt if the ones I liked came in smaller sizes. (Why were all the shirts either an L or a 2XL??) (Or ugly?)

Grabbed some more chicken & rice on our way back to our hotel and got some sleep in preparation for our final day in the city.

We headed BACK down to the East Village again (again) to eat brunch with some of my friends I knew in high school. We ate at Yuca, this trendy tapas place with a pretty yummy brunch menu, and chatted about some random stuff. I’m glad my friend Albert was able to make it because he helped add a little more energy to our otherwise sleepy Saturday morning. Then we rounded the corner to hit up the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, which I’ve heard a lot of hype about, too. Good ice cream, good drag queen.

2013-09-28 13.40.53 — Albert, myself, and Willis

Ben and I then headed for Chinatown, where we walked around a bit and got a quick bite to eat at XO Kitchen (recommend!). I was able to walk along the Brooklyn Bridge after, which I’ve never actually been able to do before! That was pretty fun, although it was a much longer walk than I anticipated, just trying to get halfway across the bridge. Ultimately, we had to turn back so that could catch our bus back to DC.

I had a great time, and even though I was being really difficult about the planning, I am super glad that I was able to relax and attempt going with the flow with Ben. I saw some old friends, I got some Disney swag, I ate delicious food, I got to spend time in my favorite city. It was a great trip.

Muse @ Verizon Center (09-11-13)

Sunday, 15 September 2013 Starr3 Comments

If you would like to see a recap of my Red Lobster Yelp event, check out my review for the event on Yelp, because I made sure to be nice and detailed and include my photos from the night. I am usually not THAT active on Instagram (I typically do a maximum of one photo a day) but they were giving out gift cards for the social-media-ly active.

BASICALLY I holla’d for a dolla. And I got a gift card so it paid off! It was an amazing event, I had the BEST time. It would’ve been the sole highlight of my week.

That is, of course, if I didn’t attend the amazing Muse concert Wednesday evening.

I bought the tickets on April 11, 5 months prior to the actual concert date. I was SO so so very excited. I started listening to Muse relatively late, my freshman year of college, but I immediately loved them. I don’t really listen to any rock bands, but Muse is my favorite band. For an indecisive person, it’s nice to know I have a favorite band.

I’ve never been to a big proper concert. I’ve been to performances at school before, which are big and feature big artists, but it’s not quite the same, you know? And I saw Turquoise Jeep this past spring, but it was a small intimate venue and, admittedly, their influence is no where near as wide and impactful as Muse.

It was a struggle to get in though. I purchased my tickets through Muse’s website, as a member, earlier than the general public. I learned that the concert was using paperless ticketing, but that I was paying shipping. I guess that means I was getting a paper ticket. That ticket never came in the mail, so a few frantic emails later, they informed me that I could pick up my tickets at will call.

That service was NOT Ticketmaster, the company that takes care of will call at the Verizon Center. So when I showed up, all eager and bright-eyed, they couldn’t find my tickets. It took about half an hour of me sitting without my driver’s license and trying not to cry on the phone with customer service as the will call folks scrambled to figure out what was going on. FINALLY they figured out why they had trouble finding my tickets.

My tickets were listed under my name. But as “Last initial. First name“. Starr is my first name, but they had it as my last name, so obviously they weren’t pulling up a match. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t just use my invoice number or seat numbers to check the first time I went, since that’s obviously what they had to do to find my tickets in the end. I’m sure if you saw someone named “Thomas Jones” but the reservation was made under “Jones Thomas” for those exact tickets, it isn’t a coincidence, it’s an error. (Fun fact: I do have a friend whose first name is Jones and last name is Thomas. Apparently, many people get confused by this.)

IDIOTS AREN’T GOING TO GET ME DOWN. I made it in time to catch the opener, Cage the Elephant. Now, I hadn’t heard of them before, but I certainly have now. The frontman is… a character, to say the least. He’s very energetic (likely under the influence of… something) and lively. Their music was good, though. I was feeling it. The enthusiasm of frontman Matt Shultz helped a lot. It was pretty infectious, although I spent a lot of their set looking like this: O.o

Here's Matt Shultz standing on the crowd while crowdsurfing — Here’s Matt Shultz standing on the crowd while crowdsurfing

Their set ran for an hour, and we had to wait for another 30 minutes before…

… Muse ascended the stage.

I don’t have the words to describe… how elated I was to see my favorite band in person. I kept marveling at the fact that I have only seen Muse through my computer screen, so the fact that this experience was surrounding me blew my mind.

The laser show was amazing. The stage was magnificent. And Matt. Oh Matt. I had a confusing crush on Matt when I started getting into Muse that helped me understand why girls throw their underwear at rock stars. I was never the kind of girl who liked rock stars until Muse entered my life. It needs no mention how cool and amazing Chris and Dom were, too.

ALSO. They had some fancy video equipment, if they were playing live footage on the screen. So much editing within the live footage, it was amazing. If they use the DC footage for the tour DVD, it’s going to look SO FANTASTIC, seriously. Just the footage that was played on the screens would suffice.

Here’s the setlist from the show, courtesy of Peter Hutchins on Tumblr:

The 2nd Law Tour Setlist:

The 2nd Law: Isolated System
Supremacy
Supermassive Black Hole
Hysteria (Star-Spangled Banner intro)
Panic Station
Resistance
Knights of Cydonia (Ennio Morricone’s Man with a Harmonica intro)
Monty Jam
Feeling Good (Leslie Bricusse & Anthony Newley cover)
Follow Me
Plug In Baby
Liquid State
Madness
Guiding Light
Time Is Running Out
Unnatural Selection
Uprising

Encore:
The 2nd Law: Unsustainable
Starlight
Survival

I had the most amazing amazing time that could only have been improved if the couple in front of me spent less time making out and more time enjoying the concert. I think I wished that they interacted a bit more with the audience, but you know, I would rather have more music than waste time with people going up on stage or them trying to tell jokes. The music is ace.

PERFECTION.

The Nation’s Capital of Fun!

Sunday, 8 September 2013Monday, 7 October 2013 Starr2 Comments

Today, I went to Six Flags America because my boyfriend’s dad’s company had reserved the entire park for a family fun day for all employees. I think it’s nice for companies to spend money on nice things like that for their employees. Personally, even though I sometimes feel weird about companies spending their money on employees in crazy ways, I think that letting employees and their families have a fun day at Six Flags once a year is a nicer and better use of money than flying people around first class everywhere to stay in presidential suites and eat at really expensive restaurants.
That’s just me.

Anyway. Our group was me, my boyfriend, two of my closest friends, and my younger brother. I was actually pleasantly surprised that my brother agreed to come with us, because he said no thanks the first time I asked him a few weeks ago. I know that he just started college, so I figured him wanting to spend time with his new friends there combined with a very natural teenage aversion to spend time with his big sister who feels a compulsion to embarrass him as much as possible to make up for my parents not being able to.

Snickers ad on the side of a wooden roller coaster — Fun Snickers ad I saw when walking into the park

I had so much fun!

It was a really warm and beautifully sunny day today. We arrived at the park at about 11:00 AM, and we set off immediately for a roller coaster before the lines started getting too long. We rode Apocalypse, which is a stand-up roller coaster and does little things like blow fire and smoke near you. (Whoa there.) This was decently fun, but it did shake us around quite a bit. We thought this was the “headache coaster,” as my brother warned.

We were mistaken. The “headache coaster” is wooden roller coaster Roar. Wooden roller coasters tend to shake a lot, and Roar is no exception. I still have a bit of a headache from how much that ride thrashed me about in my seat. It was pretty painful. I will not be riding that again simply because I was really uncomfortable with how much my head hurt afterward.

After that rough experience, we took it easier with High Seas, which is your standard swinging ship ride. While it’s a great deal tamer than the roller coasters we had just experienced, it gave us just enough of a thrill, too. The moment of zero gravity you experience when you’re at the top of a rotation is pretty fun, but can be harrowing for more timid riders. (Like my friends, who I spotted clutching each other for dear life.)

Having settled down and calmed our heads, we went on The Mind Eraser, which loops around quite a lot but was not as jolting to my head as Roar was. We liked this roller coaster quite a bit, especially since it didn’t hurt us as much as Roar did…

We had some time, so we stopped to watch the Pirate Hunters show. I was very skeptical of the show that promised humor and stunts, but the show actually delivered really well. The jokes were REALLY funny. The risk that a lot of these shows take and fail with is being too campy or trying TOO hard. I think Pirate Hunters tried pretty hard, but they had a lot of really good jokes and were not afraid of laughing at themselves. They incorporated some popular culture references into the jokes, and while sometimes those seem really poorly executed, theirs were great. (“Yes, I started from the bottom. Now I’m here. Now the whole team’s here!”) Great job. I underestimated them. The stunts and physical humor were okay, but also better than I expected. (“Parkour!”)

Photo of myself with my friends and the cast of "Pirate Hunters" — From left to right: “Quartermaster”, “Chef Linguini”, Jen, Molly, “Captain Dante”, Me, “James”

We also did some bumper cars before heading off to lunch. (Although I was lapped a few times, I think I was able to bump into my friends more than they were able to bump into me or each other. That’s a win in my book!)

The company sponsoring Family Fun Day also had a great lunch spread ready for us. I ate a hot dog, a hamburger, potato salad, pasta salad, fruit salad, chips, and a cherry-flavored ice pop. And some delicious orange Hi-C to wash everything down on this hot hot day. Omnomnomnomnom.

We obviously didn’t want to go on any roller coasters after gorging ourselves at the lunch picnic, and it was really quite hot out, so we headed straight for Shipwreck Falls. This is the ride you go on if you want to be drenched. Avoid this ride if you do not wish to be soaked. This was maybe our first actual line that we encountered, since it was a hot day. We sat in the back, with all of us being a little worried about our shoes (which we were required to wear), socks, jeans, etc. Since we were sitting in the back, we got the FULL BRUNT of the splash of our little boat PLUS the splashing of water falling off the bridge above us.
Needless to say, I was soaked through and through. Since we were already as wet as we basically could get, we decided to stand on the bridge upon exiting, because the bridge is where you REALLY feel the entire wave of water that is splashed up. (I don’t think you have to ride the ride to go up the bridge, since it’s up by the exit, but mostly only people who are leaving the ride wait there and get WHOMPED ON by water.)

Soaking wet, we walked about to ride another water ride, since we were already as wet as we could get. We rode on Renegade Rapids, which is a significantly less wet ride and this park’s version of the rapids ride where you sit in a big circular raft and get bumped and splashed by rapids. We may have worried some people stepping off our raft, since we were still drenched from Shipwreck Falls.

Then we headed for The Joker’s Jinx. I have to say that my favorite roller coasters were in the Gotham City area of the park, because they didn’t jerk me around and were fast and fun. Joker’s Jinx loops and twists a lot, but was a good deal of fun and helped my hair dry! Score! XD Also, this coaster launches you out at the start rather than having you make a slow ascent, so you go from 0 to 60 mph in about 3 seconds. This startled the bejeezus out of my friends, who decided they did not want to ride Joker’s Jinx after all.

Then we went on Ride of Steel, the Superman ride. This is the tallest roller coaster in the park. It is the type of roller coaster that has a very high ascent and a very steep descent. Very fun but also very smooth, since it didn’t really thrill you by jerking you around corners and twists, although you weren’t completely upright the entire ride. There were bends and turns, but the ride felt very nice and smooth. I’m only sorry that my friends got a bit scared and wouldn’t ride this one with us either.

Our last ride of the day was Batwing, the Batman ride. The line was quite long here, as it was nearing the end of the day and I guess it’s a popular ride anyway. You sit down in your seat, but then the seat reclines until you’re horizontal, and you make your ascent with your back facing the peak of the ride. Then you are flipped around and you soar over the park, getting dangerously close to the ground with nothing between you and the grass but the air and your restraints. It’s a really fun ride.

All in all, I had a super duper amazing great time. I’m glad I got to spend time with my friends and my brother and my boyfriend, and I hope they all had as much fun as I did. 🙂