I Like The Baa-aaaarrrr-Tender!

He made us drinks - (to drink) - We drunk 'um - (got drunk) -
And now I think
He thinks
I'm cooooooooo-oool...

Well, Friday night started out well enough....

Maybe I should go back a bit first.

We finished our first week of classes!
Yeay!




It was long.

I think I cried every day.
For any number of reasons.

At least some of them were artistic.

Thursday we had out first cabaret, and I performed with some friends, a piece about 'this life we've chosen' (theater majors in the house, Holla! - You know what I mean. And you can see how I might come out of it bruised if we were doing it right...), which left me considerably sore but generated some really interesting conversation (internal and external). And then dinner with the local white wine I bought at Eurospar. [a Pinot Bianco I can't remember the name of at the moment. It had an interesting flavor - savory almost. I suggested that it tasted a bit like chicken broth, but everyone thought that I was crazy. Very woody, I think, and not at all sweet, but I wouldn't call it dry either really... I have more in the bottle, I'll let you know]. And then two hours of "Tramonto", which translates literally as sunset, although a closer approximation in the English would be something like, "Community meeting that we ritualize in order to increase the chance of tears and the probability of spending all night deciding things like whether or not we should have to make increasingly more extravagant presents to our Secret Friends or walk around feeling like a bad person".

...

I didn't like Tramonto.


So by the time we finished classes on Friday afternoon, we all needed a little release.

it started well enough,
we went into the city around 6pm in jeans and heels to pick up some necessities from the Eurospar. (I bought a dessert wine that was on sale, a mid range Vin Santos to try, and a bottle of Sambuca I thought would be good with the Campari.) We met our movement teacher Brian there (because it's really not that big a city at all) and invited him out for Pizza. We went back to the place we'd eaten at before (No, I still can't remember the name) and I ordered a dark beer called St. Barnardus (for the name and the picture of a happy monk giving you a thumbs up on the blue label. It was 10% alcohol, and, as far as I'm concerned, fairly nondescript, but not bad at all. Similarly, I split a pizza with a friend that we thought sounded like the one we'd gotten last time, which ended up being one of the more traditional variety - meaning no sauce or cheese, just some very thin prosciutto, some fresh slices of tomato, and a bunch of arugala which gave the one the distinct impression that the crust had somehow escaped from the oven and was hiding in a pile of lawn clippings. It was called a Pizza Rustica incase that piqued your intestinal interest.
For all that, it was still great. And after the banana, stacchiatella, and nuttella e pan (best gelato flavor ever) gelato we got from "the good place", I felt fantastic.

Now if only I hadn't had such a strong desire to show off my lovely white halter top...

I did try. I mean, I didn't drink anything at the first bar we went to, but then we hit up the old martini bar, where it's just so pleasant to slip the bar tender a five and pick out something new to try from their posh square menus.

I had a Capirinha again, and Side Car:
Cognac, Cointreau, and lemon juice
Which was not bad, but not as good as the Paladar Havana Side car, which (correct me if I'm wrong) has Tommy Bahamas golden rum, tequila and Cointreau in it (delicious, by the way, I highly recommend it and will post the recipe if I can find it). It's better than a Lemon Drop (not having any vodka in it, and being less sugary since it uses subtly sweet alcohols and real fruit juice instead of sugar water and yellow food coloring. I don't like Vodka drinks, can you tell?)

and, of course, I couldn't let that half a Long Island Iced Tea go to waste - what kind of alcoholist would I be?

So then we decided to try out the local gay bar, Liquid (not Fluid, which for some reason is what I kept calling it) in our search for dance and a good time, but we got side tracked by a bunch of people we know sitting in the Guinness Pub.

That had to be my favorite stop of the evening.
For starters, cute bartender.

Now, I wouldn't have had anything here, but after sitting down at the table we'd noisily claimed by the front window, it became obvious that we were going to stay, and, after all, as I mentioned earlier,
Cute Bartender
So I walked up and ordered a White Russian:
(the official drink of The Dude in The Big Lebowski, this drink has popular appeal and a creamy sweetness to back it up. It's just Vodka (I know, I know, but I was already in my cups, as they say, and this was something I knew would be decent without being difficult to order) and Kaluha poured on the rocks, with a float of cream on top.
But as he was making it, he got out an extra shot glass and poured in something clear which I assumed was some variation on the recipe, but then he handed me the drink, sans shot, and when I gave him the cash for it, he brought over the extra drink and gave it to me. I asked if it was for me to drink and made the universal sign for downing a shot, which he returned with a smile, so I gladly accepted (what kind of guest would I be to turn down such hospitality in a foreign land) and found that a shot of Sambuca goes well a White Russian. Especially, when it's free.

I am so going back there.



We finally made it to Liquid, which turned out to be about the size and shape of a vassar single and a total bust, and I decided that, after some 7 hours of walking around the city in high heels and carrying a good 5 - 10 lbs. of liquor in my purse, it was time time to go home, which I did, to cap off the night in the Limo with some intense emotional conversation (Dory rocks).

If only I hadn't decided that it was only polite for me to drink the glass of wine that someone poured me before I had the chance to say that I was good...