Wedding Madness, part one

This weekend I traveled up to Bakersfield for a wedding (clearly the bride and groom did not agree with my suggestion that Bakersfield was a poor locale, and had it there anyway). So we all make it into town on Friday night, and after copious drinking in our hotel rooms, we meandered down to Club Odyssey. We picked this place because all the great reviews it got - "greatest hotspot in Bakersfield" type reviews. Oh, I forgot to mention that this place was also handily located in the Doubletree Hotel, where we were staying. Needless to say, this place was sad. Giant tv screen playing CMT constantly (which was obviously a highlight), tiny bar, weird seating area, dance floor, pool tables, oh, and a dance cage. Plus, on Friday at 11:00 p.m. there were maybe 10 people there.

Saturday, we decided to go get manicures and pedicures so we could look our best for the wedding. We had an experience so horrible and time consuming that we ended up fighting with the manicurists, only getting one service each, and tipping less than 10%. But, there were highlights. There was a woman getting a spa pedicure who brought her two children. One was an obnoxious 4 year old running around the salon, and the other was a baby, maybe weeks old. It was said that this child was a fetus. Either way, it was creepy and kind of gross. There's fumes in these places! And, she could have dropped that miniature thing in the pedicure water, and that would have been bad. Second highlight: there were two elderly Asian people in the salon, basically observing what was going on. The woman hovered over my pedicurist, and the male hovered over R's manicurist, in a creepy way. Finally, an older and very chatty customer asked who they were and was told they were her manicurist's aunt and uncle, and had only recently landing in the US. The woman then said, in a slow and loud voice, "Welcome to America" with a nice shoulder pat. I guess you had to be there.

At this point we hit up a Subway and confirm that every person in Bakersfield is ugly and obese.

We return to our room, only to realize that it was 90 degrees, and that not only was our air conditioner broken, our television was broken. It was actually cooler on our mini patio than in our room, and the whining ensued. Also, when I checked in, I discovered that they had give us a room with one king size bed rather than 2 doubles. When I called, they said we had only "expressed a preference" for doubles, and that they were out. Luckily, we got a FREE roll away cot! Thank you, Doubletree.

The ceremony was lovely, and we proceeded to the Stockdale Country Club for the reception. Country Clubs are always a great wedding choice, and this place was pretty fabulous, as reception locales go. There was a movie theme, and we sat at the When Harry Met Sally table, and our gift was flavored popcorn, which was tasty. Best part: we were served filet minion with a mushroom demi glace, roasted asparagus and garlic red mashed potatoes. It was by FAR the best wedding food I've ever had, and I was basically ill from eating so damn much of it. Also, the slide show was really cute, and I was in it. Thus, I was pleased.

After the reception we re-congregated at Club Odyssey (according to the radio, famous people perform there), laughed at possible prostitutes and this girl from South Carolina in a glittery gold dress very suitable for Las Vegas. We then barely slept through another sweat-soaked night in our non-air conditioned hotel, and proceeded back to our towns not surrounded by cows. We didn't even get our promised free breakfast (for the broken a/c) because we weren't able to get up in time. Oops.