Throughout our short trip, we had more than a few experiences and interactions with people that were so strange! I'll share some of those as well, just because they were so weird and almost turned us off of the city. I'm blaming it on the moon, because it was a full blue moon Friday night when we were there, so that should explain some of the bizarre behavior (right??) P.S. I promise I'm not sharing the weird occurrences to complain, just to laugh about them now that they're funny stories from a great mini-trip. I'm writing to highlight the fun stuff and capture all the memories!
We left town a little after 8:00am. Nonstop, it takes about four and a half hours to get from Harrisonburg to Charlotte, but of course we made some stops along the way. When we left, we listened to some of the Tati/James Charles drama over the car speakers so that Kenny could get up to date, hahaha.
We got into Charlotte a little before 3:00pm and headed to Southpark Mall first which isn't the most fun and unique thing to do in the city, but I had something to return, and we wanted to get out and stretch our legs and get some lunch. We walked around for a while and then got some food at Gusto Farm to Street. I got my fave Thai crunch salad with tofu, and Kenny got the wild shrooms pizza, which is also amazing.
Random side note: outside of the mall, they have gardenia bushes growing that were in bloom. As soon we got near them we were SPEECHLESS over how amazing they smelled! To me it was like a gorgeous combination of honeysuckle and jasmine. I immediately texted my green-thumb mom about them and she said aside from looking and smelling beautiful, they're evergreen. Kenny and I decided right then and there that our future yard will be home to as many gardenias as possible, ha!
While we were at the mall I realized that I forgot to pack a strapless bra but couldn't find anything I liked, so when we left the mall we went to Target for some good old-fashioned boob tape. It was around 5:30 by then, and doors opened for the concert at 7:00, so I wanted to get checked into our hotel so we could make sure to get there in time to get there before the doors opened. Cue Weird Experience #1: The Hotel.
Kenny and I love Hyatt Place hotels, we've stayed at them at least two times in the past, so we booked one for the night in Uptown Charlotte near the concert venue. When we got there, the valet told us that it would probably be cheaper for us to use the city parking lot next to the hotel than the hotel valet since we were only staying for one night, so we parked, grabbed our stuff, and walked back to the hotel (it wasn't far, the parking lot is basically right in front of the entrance to the hotel). When we got back to the hotel, Kenny realized we never got a ticket from the lot to pay, so he ran back up there to get one while I waited in the "lobby." When he got back, we walked up to the desk to check in and the lady working informed us that the lobby of the hotel was actually on the 10th floor. Weird, but okay.
We went up to the 10th floor, and lo and behold, it was the lobby! We walked up to the REAL front desk, and waited for someone to check us in. There were at least four employees working behind the desk because they also had a little snack/coffee/bar area to serve guests from. We stood there for what felt like five minutes without anyone even acknowledging us, when finally one of the employees asked us what she could help us with. We said we were checking in, she asked our names, typed them in, and stopped. She looked up at Kenny and said "Okay I know this sucks, but you're actually at the Hyatt HOUSE [basically their sister hotel] which is up the street, this is the Hyatt PLACE."
It was irritating because we were on a time crunch, but it was no one's fault, so we hoofed it up the hill the 2-3 blocks to the Hyatt HOUSE. When we got there to check in, the women working the front desk sort of laughed when we said our names, so I have a feeling the Hyatt PLACE had called up and let them know that they had some vagrant guests coming their way, ha. But I have a feeling that a lot of people have had the same issue, so I didn't feel any sort of way about it. We ran upstairs, got our clothes changed, (taped my boobs up, HA), and called a Lyft to take us to the concert venue.
The concert was at Amos Southend which was the smallest of the five venues I've ever seen The Maine at, and it was really cool! It allowed everyone to be pretty close to the band, which was really fun. You never know what kind of people you're gonna be around at a concert, especially in general admission, standing-room-only type venues. Luckily, I was surrounded by respectful people including someone's mom, so we were all having a good time. UNTIL Weird Experience #2: The Drunk Concert-Goer.
About halfway through the show, I sensed a disturbance behind Kenny and me; more disturbing than the regular jumping/dancing/crowded people. I noticed people around us looking back, and when I looked, there was this drunk guy FLAILING MADLY to the point that he had about a 3-foot radius of space around him from people who didn't wanna be involved. He seemed to be alone, and he kept getting crazier and crazier and pushing people in an attempt to get to the front of the stage. All of the guys around were pushing back, and I felt VERY protected by Kenny and the other random guy beside us who wouldn't let Drunk Guy push any further through the crowd, haha. At one point he pushed Kenny so hard that he fell into me, and I fell into the lady in front of us, and felt so bad! Finally, security came for Drunk Guy and
Other than that, the show was so fun! They played popular songs, some new songs from their album that came out a little over a month ago, and some unexpected deeper cuts, which I was really glad about. We left sweaty, exhausted, and partially deaf, which is all you can ask for out of a good concert.
After the show, I wanted to go to City Lights Bar on the rooftop of the Le Méridien hotel per the recommendation of my gorgeous blogger friend and Charlotte resident, Karina of Sunflower Styles. Apparently, it's the only bar in Charlotte with a 360 view of the uptown skyline which is gorgeous from the ground, so I HAD to experience it from 18 stories up.That brings us to Weird Experience #3: The Elevator.
The hotel had four elevators, only two of which seemed to be working. No big deal, other than the fact that a) the elevators took FOREVER to go up and down, kept stopping for extended periods of time on certain floors, and would change directions halfway up or down, and b) a wedding reception at the hotel was had just ended, so basically all of the wedding guests were trying to get up to the roof at the same time we were (we're talking 30 people vying for the same two elevators every time the doors opened). I wasn't in any hurry, so Kenny and I waited through a few elevator cycles before it cleared out enough to be our turn to go up. The longer we waited for the next elevator, the more people showed up to wait, and as soon as the elevator got to the bottom floor, this random man (who had just showed up, and was listening to a sports video on his phone AT FULL VOLUME) pushed through everyone right up to the door of the elevator before the door even opened. He continued to stand there right in the doorway on his phone while the people leaving the elevator tried to get out, so they all had to walk around him. Then he drug two women who he was with up to the front with him. OKAY, DUDE.
(This photo was taken in the entryway of Le Méridien, how cute?! One of the employees rushed up to take a photo of Kenny and I with it which didn't really turn out, but it's the thought that counts!)
When we finally got up to the top, we were greeted by a beautiful (vacant!) lounge overlooking the city. It was such a gorgeous view! Surprisingly, no one was in there because everyone wanted to be in the outside part of the rooftop (which is straight where we headed as well, so we were no different). The bar part was indoors and surrounded by glass walls so that you could still see out over the skyline. In the outdoor portion, they had a DJ playing music, and a bunch of different couches, and chairs ALL of which were occupied, but it was Saturday night, what are you gonna do?
We roamed around for a while and took in the sights and did some people watching until we found a single open chair that we sniped immediately and took turns sitting in, haha. Eventually a pair of couches opened up, so we sat in one of them alongside another older couple. A couple of times, the wife would try and say something to us that either made no sense or we couldn't hear, and when we asked her to repeat herself she would just slowly look away #drunk. They seemed to know one of the waitresses/managers, she kept coming up to talk to them and bringing them drinks. After a while, a little high top table opened up next to the edge of the rooftop and they moved over there.
Once Kenny and I had a THOROUGH read on the place, I was ready to get a drink. I got their signature drink which is called a "sparkle pop," and is made up of your choice of champagne or sparkling rosé with a King of Pops popsicle in raspberry lime, strawberry lemonade, or blackberry ginger lemon. I went with champagne and a strawberry lemonade pop, and it was THE BEST popsicle I've ever had. I wish I could buy them to have around all the time! It reminded me of the Outshine Fruit Bars (which are the best of the best of store bought popsicles as far as I'm concerned), but two times better.
Once I got this adorable drink, of course I needed a photo with it. We headed over to the edge of the rooftop for prime city skyline backdrop next to where our unusual couple acquaintances were sitting with their apparent waitress/manager acquaintance. Kenny and I got some photos/selfies and were standing there taking in the views when we were confronted with Weird Experience #4: The Bordeaux Bomb. From out of nowhere, an absolutely brimming glass of red wine came crashing down on both Kenny AND me. It was everywhere, all down our legs our feet, our clothes, and our shoes. Luckily the wine glass was plastic so there was no glass shatter to deal with, but unluckily, the fact that it was plastic caused it to bounce and cause even more of a mess. We whipped around in shock and lo and behold, it was our weird couple friends and their waitress/manager friend who had caused the commotion. The waitress/manager was frantically picking up glasses and making sure that the couple was okay, and among all of the hubbub you'd think at least one of them would think to apologize to us sad, wine-drenched patrons. Alas, they did not.
Kenny and I were OFFICIALLY done for the night at that point, it was after midnight after all and we had had a long day of driving and dancing. We got back down to the lobby slightly more easily than getting up, called a Lyft, and headed back to the hotel. We wound down with some TV and gas station party mix for dinner (pure class) and got to sleep around 2:30am.
The next morning, we slept in as late as we could to be able to get a bite of hotel breakfast, which ended up being 9:30am. I obviously wanted to get brunch somewhere cute so I skipped the food and just went for coffee. But they did have MINI Nutella packs that were so tempting. I'm weird about showing up at the last minute for hotel breakfast (it makes me feel rude), but luckily it was absolutely PACKED, so we weren't the only ones who waited until the last 20ish minutes to show up.
After breakfast, we went back up to our room, got ready and packed, and headed out in search of the Confetti Hearts wall. It's located in the south end neighborhood, conveniently RIGHT next to Jeni's Ice Cream. Serendipity struck and I had to have some ice cream. Originally, Kenny and I were just going to share a scoop since we were planning on going to brunch, but after seeing how many amazing flavors they had (including a good variety of dairy-free options), we got territorial and both had to have our own, ha! I went with the frosé sorbet flavor (described as "sangria-style frozen rosé with pear, strawberry, and watermelon; refreshing and bright with a tinge of tartness") which was DELICIOUS, and Kenny got brambleberry crisp (described as "oven-toasted oat streusel and a sweet-tart “brambleberry” jam of blackberries and blackcurrants layered throughout vanilla ice cream") which was culinary genius and maybe even better than the frosé. UGH I wanna go back! (Peep Kenny's Astroworld concert tee... He saw the shoe in Raleigh, but it came to Charlotte too in March, and he saw TWO other people wearing it that day, ha! A #coolmom complimented his shirt in Nordstrom. I love her.)
After our ice cream we weren't quite ready for brunch, so we decided to do a little running around. Kenny had found a sneaker store he wanted to check out, so we headed that way. That's when the final and most infuriating weird experience that I'm going to talk about happened... Weird Experience #5: The A$$hole U-Haul Driver. When I describe this scenario, it doesn't really sound as bad as it was, but when I tell you that it's the most livid I've ever been in a traffic experience, just trust me. NOTHING gets me worked up faster than idiots in traffic, I'm telling you I become a whole different person.
We were on a divided highway and needed to make a left turn. At the median break where we were supposed to turn, there was no designated left turn lane, just a straight/turn lane. The intersection had a light which was green, so we stopped to yield to oncoming traffic as we waited to turn left. AS SOON as we stopped, a guy driving a U-Haul behind us just LAID on the horn. For a solid ten seconds. Just laid on it. He was mad that we were blocking him when the light was green, EVEN THOUGH we had our turn signal on and it was all good. Kenny was driving, so after this guy blowing his horn got beyond ridiculous, he didn't know what to do, so he just went straight through the intersection. This guy continued honking and yelling at us and I couldn't even believe it. We hadn't done anything wrong, he was just impatient!
When we reached the next light, it DID have a designated left turn lane which had a green light, while the straight lanes had red lights. We made a u-turn and passed the U-Haul guy who was now stopped at the light CONTINUED to lay on his horn and yell at us. I freaked out. I started screaming at him. Could he hear me? No. Could he even see me? No. But he had released the demon within me and clearly I have not let it go. ENOUGH ON HIM, thanks for letting me rant.
The sneaker store that Kenny wanted to visit ended up being randomly closed that day according to their Insta story, which was disappointing! There were a couple of other guys waiting around for them to open too, so clearly it wasn't a normal thing. After trying the shoe store, we headed back to the south end for brunch. Kenny had asked one of his vegan friends for recommendations and he gave us a few good ones to choose from. Before that though, we stopped by a flower market I had spotted on the way to the sneaker store. It was so cute! They had a big walk-in cooler with a ton of flowers and greenery, I could've spent a fortune on flowers there in no time flat.
After the flower market, we went back to south end for brunch at Living Kitchen. Kenny got the fire and brimstone burger and I got the avocado toast, both of which were delicious. They also had an extensive menu of coffees, juices, smoothies, wellness shots, and other interesting drinks, I wanted to try them all! We got done with brunch around 2:00, and by then we were more than ready to head home. We had about a five-hour trip home, and we needed to stop by Salem to drop something off for Kenny's mom. On the way home, we tried to go to a "Sonic," but it ended up just being an old Sonic location that had been converted into a used car lot, hahaha. We ended up getting home after 9:00, not sure what took so long but we do love road trips together, so neither of us were mad about it!
Overall we had a great 24 hours in Charlotte, a despite all of the weird things that happened, I'm glad we got to spend more time there, and the weather was absolutely perfect! All of the other times we've spent there have just been for an hour or two passing through on the way to Charleston. (Speaking of which, I would LOVE to get another Charleston trip on the books! Soon...)
I hope you have a gorgeous Friday and an even better (long!) Memorial Day weekend!
xoxx, Laura
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