Jersey

A couple of weekends ago, I travelled to Jersey to attend Mithu and
Steve's wedding reception. They officially got married in January in
Massachusetts, but I was not there. Nor was I at the Indian ceremony
they had the night before the reception. I just came for the party.
It's my philosophy on life, actually:

"Fly into a place just in time for the thing you're trying to go to, have someone pick you up in a car so you don't have to take a cab, and just stay one night in a
hotel room, preferably with the person who picked you up from the airport...also, try to get a lot of really good, free food out of the deal."

Remarkably, it all worked out according to my
philosophy. I flew into Newark on Saturday afternoon and landed just an
hour and a half before the reception. Neil, who had been circling the
airport and drinking coffee for hours, promptly picked me up, and off
we went. The drive was pretty uneventful (Neil, after all, is an
extremely boring individual). We did, however, make it there just in
time, despite having to pull a U-ey (does that make sense? has anyone
ever had to figure out how to actually write the short form of
"U-turn").

The first part of the reception was right in the lobby area, where we had champagne. We went to another room for hors d'o....um, i can't spell that word.....another room for appetizers, and really good ones. I couldn't possibly list them all, but one station I frequented quite a bit was the sushi station. I think I would have been just fine if they had let us stay there all night. But eventually we were ushered into the ballroom, where the parents were introduced, followed by Mithu and Stephen to thunderous applause. They danced, there were speeches, and we got to eat more food. Mithu & Stephen (we'll just call them the Dulinns) did a good job of circulating and seemed to have a good time. The night went by really fast. Before I knew it, it was time for crepes and after dinner drinks and Sweet Caroline was playing.

We got to hang out with the Dulinns more afterwards at the hotel bar, where I caught the tail end of an Irish band. We also saw them again the next day at brunch (more food!). After that, it was pretty much time to go. Neil returned me to the airport and I headed back to STL. All in all, it was a quick visit, but definitely worth it.

P.S. I tried to post some pictures from the reception, but Blogger doesn't want to cooperate. Also, I'm not a very good photographer so they're mostly dark, out of focus, and at a distance. I'll just leave it all up to your imagination.