Beck and I got to the town about 6 or so and headed downtown to check out the local scenery. Charlottesville is definitely a college town, but they also have a "historic downtown" section, a nice outdoor mall with shops and restaurants and you name it. We found ourselves a fantastic hybrid Indian-etc. restaurant that had been featured on page 13 of Brett's 73 page entertainment guide. We hadn't had Indian food (cue Ali joke) in quite some time, and the dining there was delicious taboot - good stuff. We did have to endure a extremely loud bald dude who verified that every dish was "as authentic as possible." He even chased down the waitress a couple of times. Fun. But it was a nice sitdown dinner, and we successfully passed the time until 9, when people were meeting at the South St. Brewery.
We got their early like a pair of dorks - turned out that was the night that Brett and Heidi's respective parents were meeting for the first time and their dinner ran a little late. No worries - we recognized the borderline two-dimensional Brett when he walked through the door with his dad, Chip. Beers were immediately ordered - fantastic selection, if you ever find yourself in the area, might I recommend the "Satan" - and we sat down in a circle of four that grew to 6, 8, 12, 16, 20 or so as the evening progressed. Heidi and her sister were among the second wave to arrive, and a slew of brett's UVA Business School (Darden) classmates came in, too. Matt rolled in a little later - we all hung out and had a great mass conversation while the Lakers cough-cough-choked game 4 away against the Celtics above the bar. Nice evening, and it set the good laid-back but fine tone of the entire weekend.
On Saturday morning, after a "deluxe" continental breakfast featuring tires and skunks, Beck and I trekked up to Monticello, a destination eagerly anticipated by her because she studied it in arts classes throughout college. 'Twas nice, but the tour was highly regulated - the guide spoke as though reading from a script, and she ushered us through the various rooms pretty quickly. (My favorite part of the tour, btw, was the seemingly required-by-law quick mention of Jefferson fathering slave children - just a perfunctory sentence about it, and then a "which seems strange, what with the 'All men are created equal' and such." You see, our hero myths can handle contradiction! In aside form!). The grounds were gorgeous - they've kept up big horticulture / gardening projects, and everything atop the hill looked quite majestic. Here are the requisite tourist snaps:
Beautiful stuff. Beck and I also visited Jefferson's grave and took a nice shaded path back down to the car after our tours proper. Called up Brett and Matt & Ebbett, who were free and up for lunch. We met them in the historic downtown district (TM) and went to a downhome type lunch place - fantastic. I had Jamaican jerk chicken and mashed potatoes and cornbread and macaroni, tres bien. Good to see M&E and their 8 month old baby "Not Otto" Benjamin. Brett got their a little later; we were glad to be able to sequester him from his groomly duties for the time we could.
After lunch, Beck and I parted; she took a walk around UVA campus while I went on a little five mile going-to-die run. While I melted away, Beck got the following nice snaps:
Row 1 and Row 2,1-2: The Rotunda, smack in the middle of campus. Row 2, 3-5: The chapel in which Brett and Heidi were wed. (2,6): A rather violent antiestablishmentarian logo present on the bulk of UVA signage.
Ran into Ryan (pronounced Ree-un) and Jay in the hotel hallway and made arrangements to head to dinner before reconnecting with the wedding party peoples later that night. Both guys were away from their respective eight month olds and seemed to enjoy the respite. Beck, it turns out, did not get to enjoy the chicken and dumplings special that afternoon at lunch, so we ignored the substantial sections of the BEG (Brett's Entertainment Guide) and went back to the exact same place. Hoo-ah! I had: the exact same thing! A lie: they were out of mashed potatoes, so I ate spicy black beans instead. Sigh. Another great meal, and our college friends, save Macy's related factors, are about the same. Jay riveted us with an excessive amount of talk of business travel - I can't imagine that's a fascinating talk even for frequent business travelers, but hey, Jay's never been one to consider his audience. Ha! We had a good meal and time, the first among many that weekend. Headed back to the hotel and walked up to another bar to wait for the wedding party.
To wait and wait for the wedding party - things ran late, though I'm sure in no way related to a Brettian propensity for epic speeches, We had a nice enough time chugging beers and waters in the upstairs bar - when Brett et al (noticeably minus Heidi, who made a brilliant strategic move to avoid puffy-eyed-brideness the next day) (speaking of, props to the parents of the bride - they were out every night until the wee hours, and kept kicking the whole while. Now we see where Heidi gets her beer-festivaling ways) showed up. Too late for us, so we decided to save our A-game for wedding day.
"But wait!" you demand. "Weren't Dan and Xtina staying with you at the hotel? When will they enter the narrative?" Dan and Christina, it turns out, got SC-rewed by the airline. They had a 1:15 flight out of Phoenix, showed up at 11:30 only to be told their flight had left at 11:15. Huh? Yes, apparently they can do that. Their only option was to take the red eye to Hotlanta and then catch a flight up to Richmond early Saturday morning. Lame, and it meant essentially an under 36 hour stay in Virginia for them. Ouch. Props to them for coming; lesser friends would have bailed in those circumstances.
So our Saturday started with another barftastic breakfast courtesy of our friends at the Cavalier Inn and a drive to Richmond to retrieve bleary-eyed friends. Got em! But not even Mitch Hedberg could keep C awake on the ride back to Charlottesville. With excessive wrangling, we contacted all the appropriate peoples and agreed to meet at another B-recommended diner for, yep, a brunch (and a morally righteous brunch at that). Elaine had just made it into town, so she met us at the diner just in time for Olympic bacon.
(Hadn't seen Elaine in a while - wow, can she ever channel the spirit of Ali of Gringoat fame. It was a little uncanny - a rough facsimile, of course, you can't duplicate the real deal. But she regaled us with a half-hour tale of breaking her ankle with such violent hand gestures that we couldn't help but expect to see Ben coming around the corner at any moment. Eerie. No substitute - we get the real deal, as mentioned, a month from now!!! Can't wait).
Good brunch - Beck broke the party down just in time to get us back to the hotel and ready in time for the wedding...
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