Note: I started writing this 2 weekends ago when I got home but have just now had time to finish it. I blame pharmacy school and my incessant allergies.
Last weekend was a whirlwind... lots of traveling, spending time with friends and family, laughing, drinking, not sleeping, and having a great time. Here's how it went:
I went to class Friday morning in Knoxville until noon and then drove to Nashville. I flew to Detroit with my friend Jake. My parents let me use some of their southwest points for a free flight so it made sense to just fly southwest out of Nashville with Jake. We had a mild panic attack on the flight because we were sure we would miss our connection in St. Louis... luckily our other flight was delayed a few minutes too so we made it! We were not happy about the idea of being stuck in St. Louis and not seeing our friends. When we got to Detroit our friends Andy and Danyelle were there waiting for us! I have known Andy since elementary school and he just got an awesome job as an engineer for GM (yeah, he's kind of a genius). Danyelle is Andy's girlfriend that also happens to have an internship in Michigan this semester. Andy gets to borrow a new car from work every once and awhile and this week he had a beeee-u-tiful Cadillac CTS (i think?) coupe. While it wasn't fun for the 4 of us to take turns getting in and out of the back all weekend it was such a fun car to have. We took a little tour around downtown on the way home which was pretty cool. Then we stopped and went to a bar in Royal Oaks. I'm still not really sure what kind of area that is but it was super fun and the bar was really cool. After awhile we made our way back to their apartment where we continued our antics and I "taught" everyone a card game. It was a little rough explaining the rules but we all had fun and ended up staying up waaayyy too late for our 6:20am wake up call.
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| THE jake face makes an apperance |
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| Andy showing us around his city |
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| reunited! |
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| Royal Oaks |
After about 2 hours of sleep, we woke up and got ready to head to East Lansing for the Michigan State football game! Andy let me drive the car that morning which I was really excited about at the time but in hindsight I think I got tricked because it would've been nice to sleep. Funny story, when we got there I accidentally got out of the car, walked away, and left it turned on! That darn thing doesn't have a key and it's soo quiet that I just got confused. We tailgated with my parents, my Uncle from Idaho, and my Aunt and Uncle that live there (and all of their usual tailgating friends). The tailgate theme was Oktoberfest- which meant lots of bratwurst and some reuben dip I could've eaten with a spoon. It was fun having my family and their Michigan friends be entertained by my southern friends' accents. My favorite tradition of the tailgate is when everyone takes a shot of Crown before leaving for the game... I wish we did that at every tailgate I went to! The game was alright but it's really the tailgate that was the best. It was the perfect day to walk around Michigan State's campus so that's what we did for a little bit after the game. I got to hear "this is where we did this, this is where we did that" from my parents. It was sweet! I can only imagine how I'll be going back to UT's campus- but I don't have to worry about that now because apparently I'm on track to stay foreverrrr.
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| My riiiide |
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| MSU is beautiful! |
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| best tradition ever |
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| Noon games won't stop the four of us! |
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| You can take the UT alumi out of TN but you can't take the TN out of us! |
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| mi familia |
After the game a nap was more than necessary. We were in rough shape from our lack of sleep and activities. After narrowly dodging a flying bicycle on the interstate on the way home we basically collapsed. I'm still shocked that we somehow managed to make it out to dinner. We went to a super cute Mexican restaurant but were still feeling a little pathetic. Somehow we made the biggest recovery known to man and decided to go out in downtown Detroit. We went to a bar called the Detroiter and watched a little Tigers baseball. We were the only people in the bar not wearing tigers or redwings outfits. I think we had signs over our head saying "We're from Tennessee y'all". But we still had fun there. It was a good sports atmosphere, clearly. Then we went to a bar/club that was nothing like I've ever seen before (and I lived in Memphis, people). Most of the time there is a parking lot next to a little bar. Well on Saturday nights in Detroit this parking lot turns into a full out dance club/rave with a DJ and all the necessities. Just in the middle of a parking lot. It was weird... and soo crazy. We went up to the third floor of the bar and pretty much just watched people doing crazy stuff in the
parking lot dance club all night. People watching is the BEST. We weren't quite crazy enough to join in on that scene.
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| a mere "super burrito" |
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| this really doesn't come close to doing it justice |
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| aww... best friends! |
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| Andy in front of his world HQs |
Sunday we were LAZY. Once we all finally woke up Danyelle, aka my hero, went out and got us bagels for breakfast. Jake and I then sadly packed up our things and we all headed to the airport. On the way we stopped at a BBQ place that had the best ribs I have ever eaten in my life. Slow's BBQ my friends. If you're anywhere near Detroit (no jokes about running away) then do yourself a favor and go. I can't even put into words how perfect they were. It's also just a really cool restaurant in general. It had 50-some beers on tap and the design of the place was awesome. I made everyone go to the bathroom after I went just to see how cool they were. We also couldn't even figure out how to get into the place because it has this cool wooden door with kind of a hidden handle. A homeless lady walking by had to tell us how to get in (true story).
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| Slow's! |
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| there are no words... |
We were soooo sad to leave Michigan. I really had one of the most fun and crazy weekends I have had in a long time. Thanks Andy and Danyelle for having us!!! I had to arrive in Nashville and drive straight back to Knoxville and start studying for an exam I had in a few days. That was a fun welcome back. But at least the next weekend I was headed to the smoky mountains with my pharmacy fraternity and that ended up being pretty darn fun. But more on that another time....
