I arrived in Charlotte about 10PM and headed straight to my home-girl house to “shit, shower, shave” as my husband puts it.. We got dressed in headed to Club Savoy about 11 something (her co-worker suggested this spot and Rell confirmed it to be a decent club.) We get to the door, show our ID’s and the bouncer’s like, “I can’t let you in.” Turns out, the spot was 25+ (and I’m only 23.) But (I’m guessing) since I had a Maryland ID and she had a Pennsylvania ID (plus the fact that she’s 29) he let us in anyways (once he looked us up and down, checking us out.)

This next section is for my blogger-chat-room folks that feel the need to talk about Baltimore and our style of dress/appearance…. So we goes in the club... hits the bar and then make our way to a spot in the club where we can view the dance floor and the rest of the club. For my Baltimoreans, the crowd was that of a Hammerjacks on a Friday night – come as you are type thing – but the chicks looked a mess! Unless they were damn neared bald… they were tracked up… multi-colored tracks at that. I remember this one girl had on a white shirt that had holes across the breast (they were there intentionally) but chick had on a RED bra!! So you would think that she would’ve tried to hook that up in some way (red accessories somewhere!) but NO!! Then there was this dude... he had on a black t-shirt (it’s seems like they’re big on screen-pressed t-shirts down there) with jeans that had tan patches on the front and back (like the ones that were out when I was in elementary/middle school) and some red & green tennis! There was this dude (had to be in 40’s if not older) that had on a black leather outfit dancing with err’body! I thought he was gay.. but the way he was up in females faces.. I don’t know….

The DJ was whack! He played a lot of old school R&B and Hip Hop.. the current music was mainly down south crap… don’t get me wrong, I like it to party to.. but only when it’s mixed right. He would go from Lil’ John, to Ashanti, to Kanye, to Trilleville, to Biggie (one song at a time) Sorry… my brother & best friend are DJ’s and I’ve always critiqued other DJ’s… he was terrible! I don’t care where you’re from… Jay-Z is hot! At least one (if not 5-10) of his songs should be played in a club… I didn’t hear one!

But we got a lot of compliments throughout the night. How pretty we were, that it’s obvious we weren’t from there b/c we stood out from the crowd. That we look like we got good jobs with benefits (the corniest lines ever!) But one that took the cake was from this dude that had corn-rolls and a bowl in one (if you can imagine that) He kept staring at me and then finally comes over to me and is like “give me your number” I was like, “what?” “Give me your number, I cuts straight to the point” “uh, NO!” He looked at me like he couldn’t believe that I told him no. Who in their right mind would give someone their number off of that line? How about, “Hello, how are you, I’m so-and-so, what’s your name, would you mind if we exchanged numbers?” so I can be more polite when I tell you “no, I have a man… a good one!” So when we’re leaving, my home-girl thanks the bouncer for letting me in and they gets the rapping... exchange numbers and he’s like, I’ll be here tomorrow night if ya’ll want to come back through….

Saturday… We went to the MLK parade. Nice, but could use some better organization. The different bands/drill teams/churches (etc.) had like a 10-15 min lag time b/w the next one. That should never be the case! 5 minutes tops! But overall, it was decent. Then we went to Concord Mills (similar to Arundel Mills) and went to Jeepers with the kids. I’m a big kid too, so it didn’t bother me any… We got on some of the rides with them :o) When I say “this is a small world” I truly mean it… I used to say it in reference to Baltimore, but when we were in Jeepers, I saw this dude that bought me a drink the night before… small world, small world. We drove around just touring the city. Charlotte is crazy with how they name their streets. About 80% of the streets change names at least 5 times within a 20 mile stretch.. that’s crazy! Who would ever know how to get around town without getting lost first?!? After that, we headed back to the crib to take a nap before going out again (a nap? I know.. I’m old!)

So her brother calls and was like, “I don’t know ya’ll plans for tonight, but my homeboys are hanging out and ya’ll can hang with them if you’d like. You don’t have to worry about anything the entire night…” I’m like, “free drinks? Bet! I’m there!” So the deal was, if we didn’t have fun with the brother’s friends, we’ll just leave and go back to Savoy… but if they’re cool, we’ll stay. So we meet them at one bar as they’re about to leave to go to another one… When we walked up to them, after 5 seconds, I was ready to ditch them then. I had a bottle of E&J in the car, so if I didn’t get free drinks off of them, I would have been ok! It was about 5 of them and ALL of them were sizing us up with the look on their face like “I’m going to get some ass tonight!” No b*tch, try again!

So we went to downtown… Kicked out $5 for the parking garage (that wasn’t apart of the deal!) It’s cold as f*ck outside Sat night as we walked 2 blocks to whatever club we went to… I’m freezing and complaining about the walk… one of the dudes is like “as thick as your legs are, you complaining about walking?” No response. Another one is like, “we can walk together and keep each other warm.” Again, no response. By this time, I was peeved by the looks and comments received by these country ass dudes all night and have decided that I was going to be drunk as hell before I left, I was going to get my $5 back, and I wasn’t paying for sh*t! So they paid our admission and supplied our drinks. Two Hennessey & Cokes and 2 shots of Jose (tequila for the non-drinkers) I was nice! I told the one dude he owed me $5, he pulled out a stack of money and I got my money back. If I was a trifling female, I would have took more than $5… but my mother raised me better than that. So we were like, we need some air and dipped! Caught a cab to the garage and laughed about the situation and them country ass n*ggaz all the way to Savoy.

Savoy on a Sat (Baltimoreans again) the crowd is like Club One on a Friday. Dressy jean look. I had more fun with this crowd (or could it have b/c I was drunk prior to entering the club?) Anyways.. the bouncer not only let my underage tail in, he let us in for free :o) Free ALWAYS works for me! Being that when I’m in full party mode as I was in.. Jay-Z must be heard… so I requested to hear a Jay-Z song (I was like, I don’t care what song it was, just play him) My mistake… yo played 1 verse from an old song (I forget the name of the song, but it was Volume 2, the song with Amil and Ja Rule) Disappointed was not the word…. This crowd wasn’t as comical as Friday night’s crowd, but there was this one dude break-dancing on the floor… too funny!

Sunday, we chilled. We made it to the cookout D. It was OK… the burger could use a little more flavoring.. but it was definitely different. A fast food restaurant serving solely cookout food…. She cooked some catfish for me – banged!! Monday was a chill day as well. Both days we basically just tripped, drove around, and relaxed.

I really enjoyed myself, but basically b/c I missed my friend. It doesn’t matter where we are, b/c we always have fun together. But I’m headed back there in March…. And then we’re headed to ATL in June for her birthday. Good times, good times :o)