Looavul

Ben called me on Thursday to see if I would be interested in attending an open house for his work on Saturday in Louisville, we would get to stay overnight and have dinner on them. Did he even have to ask? I love getting to stay at hotels away from home and eating dinner at new places, especially for free!

So Friday we headed down to Louisville and stayed at the Marriott downtown. It was gorgeous! Huge lobby, sitting areas off the bar, two restaurants, and beautiful flower arrangements all over. And, lets not forget the spectacular view of the vacant parking garage that was being well utilized by Louisville locals. As a platinum member (so elitist) we received a half bottle of wine, fruit, and pretzels as an arrival gift. After devouring everything on the plate, we changed and headed out for dinner and entertainment. We'd heard about 4th Street Live, "the place to be" in Louisville. This was a city block blocked off for, well, clubbing/drinking. We had to show our id's and get a wrist band as soon as we crossed the sidewalk. Ben and I were a little taken aback and that was before we saw the free standing bars in the middle of the road selling jello shots and Rum Punch. This should be interesting.

Earlier we'd ask the concierge for dinner recommendations, which led us to Red Star Tavern. It was a great spot to be. We ate outside on the patio, listened to the free country music concert and watched guys prove their manliness on the Marine pull up challenge. It was really very entertaining but the food, not so good. We started our meal with lettuce wraps that were extremely greasy, we couldn't even finish them. Ben ordered a chicken dish and I got lemon chicken pasta. Both were so, so. Mine tasted like an entire lemon tree had been squeezed over my pasta and Ben's had a mango salsa that looked and tasted like an afterthought. Not that we consider ourselves foodies, but we were very disappointed in our free meal.

We walked around for a bit and decided to have dessert at the hotel restaurant. We should have eaten there from the get go, they had a Moroccan band playing and the food smelled delicious. We sat in the lounge and ordered dessert, Chocolate Lava Cake. This, hands down, was the best part of the weekend. It was awesome, the only thing it was missing was a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side.

On Saturday, after having a delicious breakfast, (yes, this weekend revolved around eating) we headed to the open house. The open house was fun, a typical family day outing, with dunk tank, bouncy things, and a picnic lunch. Ben gave me my own tour of their new building and it was amazing! Put my old office to shame for sure, the cubes were even nice! I met a lot of people and their families and I think we're even considering driving down for the Christmas party this year.

Saturday afternoon when we got home, our palates had not been satisfied so we headed to our local Chinese buffet and consumed enough calories, MSG, sodium and cholesterol to shorter our lifespan by about three years. If that wasn't bad enough, we had Mexican tonight for dinner. Overall, a very productive weekend. Off to the gym!