Three Nights Three Dinners

Saturday, Sunday and Monday were all great days and all very different. All three were spent with virtually the same people but they were all so different with where we went and what we did (wow, if that last part of the sentence wasn't an alliteration, I don't know what is!).

Saturday started out at our place- Kristen was over earlier and eventually Neal came by with a ton of burgers and we all watched the FA Cup Final between Portsmouth and Chelsea. Game wasn't great- Michael Ballack went out with an injury after a bad tackle, Kevin-Prince Boateng missed a penalty, frickin' jerk face scored (I refuse to mention his name on my blog) and we ate some yummy burgers. We headed out right afterwards to our local "neighbourhood" pub- the Dew Drop for some drinks.

We sat down in the spacious beer garden and proceeded to be the annoying Americans. There weren't too many people out in the back but we were having a good time, watching Neal nearly fall off the rickety bench that we were sitting on, watching the Yankees on his i-phone, telling stories and catching up with Kristen who had been back in the states for a few weeks. The cider was really yummy though.
From then, we moved just a few blocks up the road to the Mason Lodge. I honestly don't know much about the Masons. I just recently read "The Lost Symbol", the latest Dan Brown book, and there was a lot about Masons but I'm always skeptical about how much of his stuff is fact and how much is just Dan Brown. But Neal is a Mason and he wanted to show us his "hood" so we headed up the road to the lodge.

We were highly under dressed- I was in a flannel shirt and the girls were in jeans and the first people that we saw outside the lodge were wearing black tie and nice dresses. As I said, clearly under dressed. There was some sort of event going on so we slipped to the side into the bar and Neal brought a bar-tender over. The bartender was kind of an awkward man but very nice- he later gave us a suggestion to head over to a restaurant in Summertown. At one point, a whole bunch of well-dressed Masons came into the bar area and we were given a few looks. Let's just say that we spoke quietly, finished our drinks quickly and skedaddled. Still an interesting experience though- probably will never be in a Mason lodge again so that was nice.


We were given a suggestion from that bartender to go to Mamma Mia, where they make the pizza right in front of your face. However, they were booked up straight and not even five minutes of Neal flirting could get us a seat. Eventually we headed over to the Greek Taverna and had a lovely meal- all of us had humus and pita bread and red wine and different types of shis-ka-bobs. Having quite a lot of drinks in us and nearly no food, the meal was well worth it and absolutely delicious and much needed. Plus one of the waiters was this old guy who had a red bow tie. Classic!
Clearly not done for the night, we headed over to Joe's Bar and Grill and found a back table to get some coffee. Neal kept calling the waitress Flo, like in Dumb and Dumber and we told her to just ignore him if he got on her nerves. Especially because her name was Chloe, not Flo. I stayed for one drink and then left because I had church the next day but the rest of them were out pretty late (and then even later back at our house- I woke up the next morning to fine seven empty bottles of Stella on the Table. Most were Neal's. Actually, all were Neal's.)

I got about three hours of sleep Saturday night so Sunday was a bit of a trial for me, especially since I helped out a lot at church on Youth Day. Kristen, Roni and I started to get ready when I got back from our tea at church and took Kristen's car downtown. We met up with everyone at the Living Room, right next to the Castle. The Living Room is a really swanky bar that didn't seem to have any of the wines that they advertised. Yeah, that was cool.

From the Living Room, we headed over to Exeter College for the night. Roni, Ian and another guy in our group named Andrew all had to wear their robes, as Exeter College members.

We had a big group- I think twelve people in all? We sat in the beautiful dining hall with the old portraits on the wall. It was incredible to think of all the different Exeter students and guest that had all eaten in this room before and now we were a part of that as well.
The food was interesting- the green beans and tomatoes for the first course were good but covered in a kind of weird dressing. The main course was chicken- along with pearl onions, peas and corn, good potatoes, a pretty bag stuffing block and a whole hunk of cabbage- which was NOT good.
Dessert was the best. Just look at it and imagine how delicious it was.



From Exeter, we headed over to the Exeter pub which was next to the dining hall and slightly underground. It wasn't a very large area and the music was just blasting. This would have been fine if it was good music but it was old school Blink-182 and I can't remember what else. Regardless, on three hours of sleep, it was certainly not what I had in mind and I was ready to get home and finally get to bed.

On Monday night, Roni got a call from Ian saying that they were going to Wahoo after they got in from Windsor. I think Wahoo's, I think fish tacos. But no, Wahoo (no s at the end) is a new club/bar/restaurant down south of the canal, on the way to the train station. There's a big open area in front of the restaurant where we waited for Ian and Alex and then headed into the bar. It was all black (floors, ceilings, walls, furniture, bar, etc.) and everything was light with blue and purple lights. There were at least twenty TVs around the bar (all showing weird Australian Rules Football/Rugby), awkward Americana wall hangings (Route 66 signs, No Parking signs, Coca Cola ads, surfing posters, etc.) and some bad European pop over the loud speaker.

The weird thing as that it was completely empty. And each table only had four chairs making it difficult for us to fit the seven of us together (three more people were arriving later). We finally found two tables to put together and went to go get drinks. Just when Blaine and Laura arrived, they were ordering food so everyone but Neal put their orders in together. Blaine and Laura's wings were the first to arrive. With the unlimited wings deal on Monday nights, everyone owho ordered wings thought that they'd be able to mix and match the different flavors of wings. Clearly not, they were told by the really ditzy blonde waitress, AFTER they had all ordered. Within two minutes, Blaine and Laura had two full plates of wings while the rest of us were staring at our drinks. Ditzy Waitress came back a few minutes later with another plate of wings but instead of giving them to Alex, who had also ordered wings, decided to take them back outside. Ian's pulled-pork sandwich and then our meals arrived and finally, Neal, who had ordered much later than the rest of us, got his food. Alex still did not have her wings. We kept trying to talk to the waitress about the issues but she eventually disappeared.


Let's just say that this was not was we anticipated from a near empty restaurant (the picture above is NOT what we experienced that night). It wasn't like the kitchen was backed up with orders- we were the only ones there! Eventually, the guy from the kitchen came out and asked us about our orders. Finally, Alex, slightly pissed off, received her order of wings and didn't really enjoy them. You know how you get when you wait so long for something that by the time it arrives, you are just over it. That's how Alex- and let's be real- all of us felt. We got out of there pretty quickly after that.

Moral of the night- let's never go back to Wahoo.