Saying so long to the Queen City

  Charlotte, North Carolina
Friday, December 28, 2007

"Ding! Welcome to Charlotte where the local temperature is 63 degrees..."  I wake up feeling disoriented as one can only be after being rudely awakened from a beautiful first class plane nap after having slept less than five hours over the last two nights.  My flight gets in early, so I call my buddy Mackenzie to tell him that the party will begin ahead of schedule.  Within minutes, he arrives and I'm whisked away into the night by a friend who, despite not seeing me in over 9 months, is more than willing to pick me up at the airport, put me up in his house, and then try to show me up on the dance floor.  We snag our buddy Brian and waste little time on our way to dinner at an old favorite tapas restaurant of mine, Arpa, where we meet up with the rest of our group of 10.

After several sangria pitchers, some good duck and lively conversation with old friends, the crew sets out on a mini bar crawl that picks up some steam as more people join us at each venue.  The night takes us to three different bars including Tilt, The Attic and some new club (name?) that are all crowded with a mix of three guys to every girl.  While this is a normal Charlotte night as I recall them from my ~3 year stint at Wachovia, I wake up the next morning feeling like a million bucks.  I seem to be enjoying the feeling of being able to wake up with just about everything on my "things-to-do" checklist already crossed off!  We hit up Mert's, a country southern joint, where I have a greasy brunch of mac 'n cheese, green beans, fried chicken, corn bread and some sweet tea to wash it all down...  "yall come back now, ya hear" is like music to my ears! 

I pick up my rental car and head out of town thinking fondly of the time that I spent living in this wonderful town...