Perhaps the best part of my weekend was that, with basically the entire ND crew out of town, I got a chance to hang out with my fellow Fund kids from other schools, which ended up being a really good time. Thank God I'd become friends with a few of the Minnesota kids, Liz and Abbey in particular, because without them I'd probably have sat in my house literally all weekend doing nothing. As it was, I took my one remaining midterm exam Thursday morning and came back to my house to relax for the day. When it got to that magical hour of about 7 o'clock I realized I still had no idea what I was doing that night, so I got on the horn to my Fund buddies and found out that they'd be meeting in one of the dorms to teach a few of the Puerto Ricans a fantastic game called Kings. It goes by many names - Waterfall, Circle of Death, King's Cup, to name a few - but all in all it's fantastic, as our island friends soon found out.
From there, we went the place that EVERYONE goes when they're bored on a Thursday night in Toledo (oh yeah, and they're under 25 and are American)...O'Brien's Pub. We had a great time there with our buddy Emilio, as per usual, before heading out to one of the many hopping discotecas in the old city.
Did ya sense the sarcasm there? No? Oh well.
Yeah, the club thing was a bust, but I was in a comfortable state at this point, so I did the natural thing and went home and slept until 1 the following afternoon. Yeah, I love non-traveling weekends. Around 4 I again decided it was time to call in the troops and figure out what to do. Turned out the Minnesota folks (all of whom were pretty darn cool based on my experience the previous night) were going to do the American thing and find some pizza. I, naturally, was 100% down for that. Unfortunately, our trusty guides (read: Liz and Abbey) didn't know when the place they wanted to go to actually opened. Yeah...
The girls decided they wanted to wait it out while we guys, being guys, had mentally prepared ourselves for food and thus needed to eat something immediately. We scoured a bit and, amid growls from our respective stomachs, managed to find a tapas bar that was open at 7. We quickly sat and each enjoyed a hearty sandwich and a beer...ya know...as an appetizer. Our stomachs sufficiently full (at least for the trip back to the pizza place) we left and walked back into the heart of the city.
Of course, when we returned to this pizza place we'd heard so much about the girls were nowhere to be found. The important thing, though, was that this place was open, so we figured rather than call them we'd just sit down and order. I distinctly remember hearing someone say, "Eh, whatever...they'll show up eventually." Sure enough, as we got our pizzas who should arrive but Liz, Abby, and Lindsay. Yeah, small booya there.
After we'd all had our fill of what turned out to be pretty darn good pizza, the conversation turned to what we should do for the evening. "Drink heavily" was thrown out several times, but we all agreed we should go back to the Fund first and if nothing else let this fantastic food settle. Then naturally talk turned to grabbing 40s on the way back, and as soon as someone mentioned "external hard drives" and "music sharing" things took a turn.
Now those of you who know me know that few things are more fun for me than stealing copious amounts of music from peoples' computers and laughing in the face of copyright laws while doing so. Something I enjoy even more than that is doing so with someone who is, as I am, a stand-up comedy nut. Turns out Flynn, a guy from Minnesota, is just such a man. After going back and forth about everyone from Louis C.K. to Mitch Hedberg (R.I.P.) to Patton Oswalt, we finally got around to copying each other's music. And no, that's not a euphemism for something else...there were girls in the room and that would've just been weird.
Soon thereafter, someone suggested we watch a movie. I was all for it...but for some reason, when Fern Gully was the movie of choice I kind of decided I might be a tad tired and would call it an early night. By this I mean I came home at 1:30 and mindlessly surfed the web until 4. What can I say? I'm nocturnal to a fault.
After waking up past noon again (is it redundant to say I love weekends where I don't travel?) I putzed around the house until, you guessed it, it was time to go out again. This time I was fashionably late to the Fund pre-game and thus had to play catch-up...never fun, but definitely necessary. This time we decided we'd go to another area of Toledo, where we started the eve...
[The remainder of this post has been deleted for your safety. Its content was both offensive and dangerous to you and your family (read: nothing too interesting happens...bars were visited, clubs were considered and rejected, etc.). This message will self destruct in 3...2...1...]
BOOM.
*Through a cloud of smoke, we see Griff emerge from a hastily constructed bomb shelter relatively unscathed*
Good thing I'm handy with a Swiss Army Knife, some sticky tack, and a handful of spoons, huh, folks?
But seriously, the most interesting part of the evening happened after I left whatever bar/club I was at with a rather eclectic group of four: myself, Liz, my buddy Zach, and Laura, a girl I'd met that evening. We all decided that rather than go home we wanted to take a walk down by the River Tajo. Yeah, kids do weird things when they're in a city with an average age of 55 and it's 2 a.m. Even better than the walk by the river, though, was the fact that during the walk we got into quite the deep discussion about the social benefits of religion. I can't say everything we said was incredibly profound and intellectual, but hey, a good talk is a good talk, am I right? Once God got old, though, we seriously decided it was time for bed. And yes, for those of you keeping score at home, I did indeed keep my streak of sleeping past 1 alive the following day. Who's the man?
Sunday passed without much incident. I finally did get out into the city and took a few pictures, but I figure I'll compile them into an album for the end...Random Toledo Pictures or something creative like that. For now, I'll leave you. Maybe if you're lucky I'll be bored tonight and rather than watching more of Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother I'll update you on what happened this past weekend in Andalucia. We'll see how that goes.
Ciao,
Griff
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