Birthday party, long lost friends, jam packed Sunday

So back to Friday night. I got out of work really late and went home to put on make-up to go to my friend Emma's birthday party. The party started much earlier with dinner and apparently some pre-dinner drinks. Liezle met me at my house and dropped off her stuff, then we cabbed it to wine bar where the crowd was in the middle of a trivia game. I generally love trivia, but we got there in the middle of it so we couldn't really play, plus there was no background music or anything. So the two of us split a bottle of wine and talked to Cody, who was at the bar and very drunk. He told us some interesting stories and made us laugh by being completely inappropriate.

Happy Birthday Emma!

Pinkie swear with Cody - not sure what we were swearig

After trivia and another bottle of wine, the vast majority of the party goers moved onto another venue. A group of 5 of us tried to go to a dance club and set it up for others to get there, but they were charging too high of a cover for any of us. I got mad at Dallas at that point due to mutual misunderstanding and when I asked him to explain something he said he didn't want to deal with me, which made me angry. Luckily there were enough other people there that I didn't need to talk to him. Some other very weird things happened that night - some of which I took pictures of. I didn't do anything too weird, other than taking what turned out to be a pretty nice picture of me and Liezle in the bathroom at the bar. We ended up leaving around 4 am. At about 9:30 on Saturday morning I woke up and went to Dallas's house because I needed to talk to him about the previous night. He wasn't ready to talk to me yet, so we fell asleep for another hour, watched an episode of Smash, he ate breakfast and then we talked about it and are fine. At that point, I went back to my apartment and met Liezle. We had plans to go to Sanchempo (spelling ?), but cancelled them at 9:30 when we saw it was raining. So we didn't feel rushed to meet anyone. We talked for about 2 hours about the previous night and other things going on in our lives. Then we got ready to go to lunch and meet her friend Nick.

Me & Liezle in the bathroom at Urban Drink before closing time

While we were getting ready, Nick called and texted her on and off trying to figure out when we would get downtown and what the plans were. He was invited to go with us to Sanchempo, but we messaged him and told him we canceled because of the rain and would tell him other plans later. He kept telling Liezle that we were late and we couldn't really figure out why he was saying that. When we finally got downtown, he was in a coffee shop with his friend and didn't want to come to lunch with us because they had already eaten. We were both starving and went to a chain dak galbi restaurant. When we finished eating, Nick met us there and we started walking down the street. Nobody said anything and Liezle and I assumed we were walking to a coffee shop that we often go to together. When we passed the coffee shop, Liezle finally asked where we were going. Nick goes, "To Sanchempo. I have a car. Get in." We just looked at each like what is going on? He told us he needed to be back for work at 6, so that we'd drive there (about a 30-40 minute ride), get coffee and drive back. We didn't really have other plans, so we got it. It was a little awkward because neither Nick nor his friend are "talkers" but luckily he played some decent music during the trip.

He pulls off on what looks like the side of the road and says, "It's open." I still didn't know what he was talking about, until I looked at the water. There is a boardwalk leading to a dock. On the dock is a coffee house. It was actually really cute, but as all of us had slight hangovers, all the rocking was not the best feeling in the world. The coffee was ok, but a little expensive and the lady was quite rude to Liezle. But after the coffee, I leaned back and the rocking almost put me to sleep, so I was ok. We chatted for awhile and then had to go back so Nick could get to work.

That's the coffee shop

Liezle and Nick ordering

Coffees

View from our table

Me, the guy I don't know who said 15 words the entire day, Liezle and Nick

Liezle and I then went to another coffee shop and split a piece of cheesecake because she had been craving it for awhile. In fact, it was one of the only things on the list of things she wanted to do that weekend. We talked some more and I realized (as always) how much I miss having her around. We text a lot, but it's not the same. Kyeong He joined us at that point and told us this disturbing story. She always makes me laugh so I'm glad she joined. Then my friend Caleb, who I messaged at 3am for some reason, who I also haven't seen in a year, messaged me asking what we were up to. So I told him to join us for dinner. It was kind of a weird plan because we were supposed to meet other people at various places. It was really cold, so we took a cab and made the guy stop on the side of the road while "boy Ryan" hopped in. Then we stopped at little further on at Diaso where Dallas was waiting for us. I hadn't told him all these people were coming, so I think he was a bit overwhelmed when everyone kept coming out of the cab. Then Caleb joined up and we set off. We didn't know the name of the place, but we knew where it was, so we had to walk.

While we were in the coffee shop I told Kyeong He that she wasn't allowed to make nice comments to Dallas today - that it was a test. On the walk, she said something about him being handsome and I said, "no". Then she was telling me a story about how she's going to be careful about it when other guys are around because if she compliments him but not the other guys, maybe they will feel bad. It was kind of funny, but also nice. Luckily I think only the girls heard this conversation. We went to the samgyupsal place again and split a large amount of food. Five of us were eating though, so it really wasn't that much. Caleb had already eaten, but he sat and talked to us.

Kyeong He and Liezle did most of the cooking

After dinner, Kyeong He went home because she was really tired. The 5 of us then went to another coffee shop (do you see a repeated theme). This was a bit of a fancier place, but had comfy chairs and we stayed there talking about vampire apocalypse and other bizarre things like that. I remember how much I enjoyed hanging out with Caleb and he and I have very similar senses of humor. The bad thing is that he's public, so our hours are off. After coffee everyone split up. Liezle and I went home and watched a movie and talked a lot more. We ended up going to bed between 2 and 3 and right when we were about to fall asleep we heard the clompy upstairs neighbor coming home. She banged around for about 10 minutes and then settled down.

My latte at the dreadfully named Coffee Brown

Sunday morning we had to wake up around 9 because we were meeting our friend Lindi at (can you guess?) a coffee shop. Lindi left Korea on Monday, so this was our last chance to say goodbye. She also needed to give Liezle back a guitar. She couldn't stay long because she hadn't finished packing or cleaning. After coffee we went shopping downtown. I bought some shoes - green sneakers that I had been wanting and finally found in my size. Then Nick met us again and I left for church. After church we had a planning team meeting where we listened to a seminar and then talked about long term planning for the church and what needs the people who go to church need. After the meeting, we all went to a pasta restaurant to meet up with another group of people for a goodbye dinner for Corinne. The food was ok, but the worst part was that it took over an hour from when we ordered to when we actually got our food. It's a good thing that I enjoyed all the people around me!

t-shirt I debating about buying - I didn't get it

Salt & pepper shakers at Lucia - they were actually cuter in person

When I got home, I did a bunch of chores including dishes and laundry. Then Dallas came over and we went on a walk through the little park area near our houses. We stopped halfway for coffee (shocking I know) and then walked home again. I like Sunday walks - alone or with people - and I hope I keep them up. I'm sure there are some other stories from the weekend that I could add, or that I forgot, but this was the gist of it. I'm really glad Liezle decided to come and I was happy to be able to see a bunch of people I hadn't seen in awhile. Overall it was a pretty good weekend.