Recap

I've been meaning to write this for the past week. Rehash my trip in a bit more detail. But, like this entire year, time seems to be getting away from me and before I knew it, it was already Sunday. So now, without further ado, my experience in North Carolina...
THURSDAY: Despite getting all four of my wisdom teeth out on Tuesday afternoon, I felt perfectly fine. The dentist gave me a prescription for 15 vicodin for after the novocain wore off but I just took two advil and went on with my life. I got up, tried to go to the DMV to renew my registration (which was an epic fail because the car is registered in my dad's name and not mine), got into a mini-fight with my grandmother because she was mad at my dad for not giving me money (even though I didn't need money and she insisted I couldn't drive anywhere without cash) and peaced out of Bayonne. Got back to DC around four, repacked clothes for a warmer climate and showered. Then I got to chill until 10:15 when my parents finally got to school and picked me up. We drove another 45 minutes south and stayed in some town near Fredricksburg. Of course we got the room on the top floor of the hotel. Thats did wonders for my crippling fear of heights.
FRIDAY: Because my dad is a slow driver, we had to get up and out of the hotel early if we had any chance of making it to Charlotte at a reasonable point in the afternoon. We left around 10 and didn't get to Charlotte until late afternoon. In total, we spent about 8 hours in the car that day for a trip that would normally take about 5-5 1/2 hours... my dad does not drive that fast.
We stopped to get burgers at one point in Southern VA, maybe we were into NC at that point. Let me just say, I am not a fan of Southern country living. Southern city living seems great. But the country.... they don't move at any kind of normal pace. I don't want to judgmental, but if you picture a stereotypical Southern country guy or girl or kids, those are the people we saw in this Wendys. I'd never been happier to have grown up in the North and in a city.
Finally, around four, we rolled into Charlotte. We were staying at the Embassy Suites, but I was fairly convinced we were at The Mirage when we first walked in. Just look at the evidence. The first is our hotel. The second is the Mirage.
    
Add in the blazingly hot weather (90 and humid) and I thought I'd ended up in the wrong state. Not that ending up in Vegas is ever a bad thing, but you get my point.
We decided to go to Uptown for dinner. Its the "downtown" center of city where then have their basketball arena, bars, restaurants, the different bank headquarters and basically a lot of things going on. It reminded me of Chinatown in DC. After driving around for a bit and scoping out the area, I insisted we park and get dinner because I was beginning to weigh the pros and cons of eating my own finger. Leave it to my dad, but he found one of the two Irish pubs located in Uptown and thats where we ate.
The entire time we were in Uptown (and I'm talking the entire time), my mom made comments about how everyone was dressed up. "I mean I just can't get over it. Every other woman I see is either in a dress or a stylish top and heels. Even the guys are all in dress shirts and dressed up. Kaitlyn, you're just going to have to be dressed up at all times down here." She failed to recognize that it was 9:30 on a Friday and people were dressed up to go bar hopping and clubbing for the night. No one was any more dressed up than the people in DC but I let her have her mini-rant.
SATURDAY: For some reason, my mother felt it was necessary to take not one, but two tours of Charlotte. So we took a history tour in the morning and got to see most of the sites in the city, including but not limited to  a club where Frank Sinatra and Elvis once played, the Duke family estate (gag) and a cemetery of Confederate soldiers, one of which was a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. I really better start becoming interested in the Civil War. It is by no means my favorite era of American history, ranking somewhere between Manifest Destiny and the Industrial Revolution. But the South is all about the War of Northern Aggression and still believes the Confederacy will rise again, as is evident in VA governor Bob McDonnell declaring April to be "Confederate History Month". What is our world coming to?

After our tour we went to lunch at this AMAAAZING burger place called "Big Daddy's Burger Bar". For anyone who is looking to visit Charlotte, I seriously recommend it. I had fried pickles for the first time. That was definitely an experience. Not sure what I was expecting because they're totally a Southern thing that we do not partake of in New Jersey, but they were really good. Definitely worth trying if you ever get the chance. We also got to look at a potential neighborhood to live in called Dilworth. Its got a mix of young 20-somethings living in low-rise apartments that have pools and gyms and lounges and of late 20s/early 30s people who are recently married and buy really cute houses. So I'm definitely a fan of the area.
After lunch we went on our second tour of the day-- a "relocation tour" billed towards people who are moving to Charlotte. It points out the different neighborhoods and tells you about the types of people that live in each area. Honestly, my dad and I thought it sounded like a repackaging of the tour we took in the morning, but we humored my mom. It made her happy.

We went to eat dinner at this sports bar/grill called the Blackfinn in City Center/Uptown because the Final Four games were on. As we expected, every place was packed because Duke was playing that night and, like it or not, we were in North Carolina where many a Duke fan can be found. For the record, let me state my complete and utter hatred of Duke with every fiber of my being. I was raised a Red Storm fan in the days of head coach Mike Jarvis, when the team routinely made the NCAA tournament and Big East championship.  Growing up with a hatred of Duke, Syracuse and UConn, I attended the Lou Carnesecca basketball camp on St. John's campus and had an autographed Jayson Williams poster hanging in my room. To this day, my mom will tell you that one of the best birthday presents she ever got was when my dad took her to the St. John's-Duke game at the Garden (Madison Square, that is) and they somehow ended up sitting in the Duke fan's section. The Red Storm made a huge comeback late in the second half and the section, including one annoying man who had been banging a metal cup most of the game, were stunned into silence. It goes without saying that come this fall, I will be coming down on the UNC side of the rivalry that splits the state.
But I digress. We went to eat at the Blackfinn where, sitting directly across the room, with his back to us, was a man who looked exactly like my father. This isn't really unusual for me because I see people who look exactly like my dad wherever I go. New Orleans? Saw him down by the streetcars along the banks of the Mississippi. Virginia? Saw him at Costco. Inside the District? There have been numerous sightings. What was really interesting to me was the guy sitting across the table from the guy who looked like my dad. With him I'm pretty sure I was seeing through a rift in the space-time continuum to a future version of my friend Mike. This guy was him in like 15/20 years. I contemplated taking a creepy stalker pic with my blackberry from my seat but that would require me explaining to my parents what exactly I was doing. So I chose not to do that.
After spending the entire meal trying not to stare at the guy who looked like Mike, and watching Baylor win and the first half of the Duke game, my parents decided they were tired and wanted to go back to the hotel and go to bed. And thats what we did. It was 10:00. womp -___-
SUNDAY: Happy Easter! My dad was fairly convinced that he saw the face of Jesus in the off-the-cuff drawing of North and South Carolina that I had done to illustrate to my mother where exactly we were in the state. When my mom saw it, she decided it was next Shroud of Turin and took the piece of paper with her when we left the hotel. We spent the entire day driving. Like Thursday/Friday, my dad drove slow and it took us the entire day to get back to DC. Although we did stop to eat at the Cracker Barrel at one point and I proceeded to kick ass on that little triangle peg game that they have on the table. According to the instructions printed on the triangle, I'm a genius. Like I really needed confirmation of that.

All things considered, I think this is a fairly accurate summary/description of my trip to Charlotte. I'll leave you now with a few highlights of what I learned on this trip:
1. driving slow drags out trips to make them much longer than they need to be
2. don't stop at fast food places in the boonies unless you want to meet scary, country versions of yourself
3. spending Friday and Saturday night with your parents is NOT exciting or advisable
4. taking a side in the UNC-Duke debate alienates you from half the state
5. demand a pool and a fitness center wherever you live. It is affordable!
6. if you don't want to be labeled a "northern yankee" start speaking slowly and possibly throw in a bit of a drawl
7. people in the South love to deep fry everything. e.g. fried pickles