#46. Alivia’s, Dain’s Place, and Cook Out (Friday, January 11, 2013)

#46. Alivia’s, Dain’s Place, and Cook Out (Friday, January 11, 2013)

What was your best day…of just going to a whole bunch of different places in the space of a single night?

Just like with the Toronto Blue Jays and Magic: The Gathering, you’re probably starting to get a bit sick of hearing about my alcohol-fueled social activities at Duke (#95, #81, #62, #57, #51). But I promise, this is the last one.

Because it’s the best one. In part because at this point in time, everything in my life seemed to be falling into place. My grades had been great in the past term, I had just come back rested and motivated from a Caribbean cruise, and it looked like whatever I wanted to do – PhD, Wall Street, anything – I had no doubt it would get done.

That Friday we had a total unplanned pub-crawl, in a massive group with fifteen or so of my classmates. It was chaotic, it was awesome, and – most importantly – I stayed until the end (unlike #62, #57).

  • That afternoon we have our basketball game. And today, for some reason, I kill it. I’m rebounding and hitting contested layups like a fiend. And at one point near the end, I make a diving steal in the defensive zone and take it the other way – probably one of my greatest plays that whole year. 
  • That night, we do dinner at Alivia’s, a food truck franchise turned restaurant that’s located right in the middle of foodie-heaven downtown Durham. There are about thirty students in our program there, all seated at this big row of tables. Epic. I end up sitting across from Chenling, and really enjoy chatting with her for an hour – and she seems to enjoy it too… (#81)
  • After Alivia’s, about half of our group heads over to Ninth Street (the hipster street in the Triangle, if there was one) and joins the ongoing pub-crawl in the bars there. We go to a bunch of places: including this smaller spot called Dain’s Place, and this other multi-level bar/club where we run into Jason Simonsen (#95, #57, #51) and he buys rounds of beers for all of us.
  • After many hours of this, we arrive back at the Econ House (#57), where the guys have a table of beers and hard liquor all set up. We drink a bunch more, then decide that now, at about an hour past midnight, is a good time to get some Cook Out.
  • Cook Out, for those that aren’t aware, is this window-serving classic fast food chain based in the Southern U.S. And it is insanely good, plus insanely cheap. So we drive over and order our stuff. Out of all the options, I seem to be overwhelmed and just order a one-dollar corn dog.
  • Then back to the Econ House. More hard liquor, with about seven or so of us left in the living room just chilling and joking around. It’s something like three in the morning when Walter (or maybe Jonathan) drives me home.
  • I get to my apartment, and all I can think of is: Did I seriously do all that in one night?