We decided getting in the car and winging it was a bad idea after what happened that afternoon with dinner, so we paid more attention to the city guide and picked an Irish-sounding pub (the name of which escapes me). We got directions, jumped in the car and headed off.
It was an easy bar to find, thank goodness, though we missed the turn the first time and passed it by. "We can always turn around," Angie said, and we all snickered. As we walked in the door, we saw that it was actually more restaurant than pub. Angie and i looked at each other and just busted out laughing. "Where the hell was this place four hours ago?!" i demanded. It was also packed with people waiting outside in the vestibule. We decided we'd find some place else.
Jim whipped out his iPhone and pulled up a listing of bars in the area. We picked Shamrock Tavern and hoped it'd be more tavern than restaurant as we set off to find it. It was a little bit farther into the residential area, but still easily located. We pulled up and looked at it in disbelief. It was an old house that had been converted into a bar. Not ones to judge a book by its cover, we got out of the car and went inside.
We were greeted by bright lights, white walls, and blaring country music from the jukebox. "Shamrock my ass," i muttered under my breath. It was exactly what i hoped for, though, in a non-specific kind of way: It was certainly all bar and no restaurant. We politely ordered a drink and got out of there. Remembering some neon beer signs in a window on the way, we decided to backtrack to a bar we passed by to get to the Shamrock. "They should be forced to change the name of that place," Angie remarked, "It's so misleading!"
We parked outside the new destination, and it looked and sounded promising. Lots of neon in the windows and hip-hop style music you could hear from the street. I'm not a huge fan of hip hop, but i like it a lot more than i like country, so we went indoors in high spirits.
. . .only to realize that it was the equivalent of a locally-owned Chuck-E-Cheese. There were kids EVERYWHERE, screaming, playing video games and doing goofy kid things. Fantastic. It was a huge let-down, yet really funny at the same time. Rob remembered spotting another bar next door, so we walked over.
This one was the polar opposite of the last two we'd been to. It was dark, quiet, full of wood paneling and men in dockers and ties. We entered in our jeans-and-tshirts feeling vastly uncomfortable. The guys ordered us some drinks and we took a seat by the piano. It was so quiet that Angie and i were barely talking to each other above a whisper. She said something funny, and we both burst out laughing, the result of which all the Dockers and Ties stopped talking and stared at us. We piped down like a couple of schoolgirls who just got busted talking in class and snickered under our breath. We drank our drinks and were trying to get the hell out of there when the bar tender told us about this metal bar she tends called The Planet. Live music (metal, to boot!) and $2 drinks (our tab for our two drinks at this bar was $20). Score! She gave us directions and we were off once again!
It wasn't very far from where we already were, and we could tell from the music we heard from the street that our sojourn was at an end. We went inside, paid the nominal cover charge, and had a blast. The atmosphere and music were awesome! The bar tenders had sat down earlier in the afternoon and just started pouring stuff together till it tasted good. The result was Planet Punch, which Angie and i drank all night. The main band on stage was Us Against Them (Us Against Them Check em out, they're pretty awesome), which featured a really hot girl on the electric violin. All the fun we had at The Planet made the trek around town SO worth it.
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