Rugby weekend sans Rugby.

I’d been doing the weight thing downstairs for a bit before I made my way back to the apartment. Stepping in, I saw an already dressed roommate and his girlfriend, sitting on the couch.

“We’re going to roll out in about a half hour,” Adrian said, seeing I would probably need a shower and a few minutes of grooming before we left.

We were going to a place in town to see the Rugby World Cup. New Zealand was playing, and, since Adrian was part Kiwi, he wanted to cheer up his All Blacks properly at one of D.C.’s Irish pubs (appropriate since his other part is Irish).

We stopped off first at Sarah’s place so she could grab her running attire. She’d scored a ticket to run in the Army 10 miler—an annual race held in the D.C. area. I thought it was funny that the Army sponsored a 10-mile run, seeing as how a good 60% or more of the Army itself probably couldn’t run 10 miles.

After dousing myself with some soap and water, I put on some threads and joined Adrian and Sarah for the trip to the Metro. We picked a spot on the platform and took in the afternoon’s gathered attendees. The College Park Metro always had a mix of students ready to head into town. Even though it was still late afternoon—too early for the night owls, there was still a diffused gaggle across the waiting area.

The trip in was nondescript. The sun sat lower in the sky than I’d expected. Winter was upon us, I suppose, and the sun’s enthusiasm for the Southern Hemisphere in these months left us to harbor evenings somewhat suddenly after a the mid-afternoon turn of the clock.

One stop three stop, red stop green stop; and we’d arrived at Chinatown—our destination for the Irish pub in which to witness the game of rugby. Outside of the pub were signs for Guinness—not surprisingly, and one last door before we could enjoy the game…

Which, when opened, showed a completely full house and a woman standing near the opening, ready to check IDs and take money.

“You here for the game?” she asked, above the cheers and shouts from the gathered throng.

“Yeah!” Adrian shouted back.

“We’re a little full. You might want to try the *inaudible* down the street. They have *inaudible*… Cover is $20.”

Jesus. Twenty bucks?

“Okay, I’ve got us two,” Adrian said, pointing to he and Sarah. I took out my wallet and took stock of my financial status. The rugby viewing was the opening act of the evening. We were meeting up later with friends at a favorite club to celebrate my birthday. I had plastic, but still…$20?

Sarah and I gave each other a wide-eyed shrug at the cover before Adrian did a double take, “Wait how much?”

“Twenty. Two zero,” the door lady said.

“Oh, never mind,” he said and headed out.

We stood outside for a few minutes, amazed that they’d charge so much just to jockey for standing space among the bar, to say nothing about how much the beer and food normally was. Still, they had a full house so any debate on the price point was probably moot—why lower prices when the place is packed?

A little miffed and a bit put off, we walked down the street for a minute before deciding on a Spanish tapas restaurant. They had tortilla, which was a dish I’d recently learned how to make. I was in. That, a few other dishes and a hefty portion of paella, another dish I’d recently cooked, and we had lain a significant sponge for the remaining evening’s alcohol consumption.

Eventually, after burning through the original time allotted for the rugby viewing, we headed to DuPont Circle toward our mark for the evening. That in itself was a great time; but I’ve kept you all from work long enough!

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