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Weekend in Bethlehem

No photos! I'm such a slacker.

It was our long-lost friend Diane's wedding this past Saturday, so we flew up on Thursday to spend a long weekend in Bethlehem, PA. We'd first met the groom, Brad, when they came down for New Year's a couple of years ago. A group of us celebrated NY at a Georgia Tech venue just down the street. They had multiple DJs, bands, bars, champagne, etc. Tickets were all-inclusive and the whole affair was actually not sucky like those situations usually are. Brad and I closed out the evening, IIRC, drinking what was left at home and blasting Tales from Topographic Oceans (yes, it can "blast") to the neighbors. Lisa was thrilled.

The wedding was great but it and Bethlehem in general were bracketed by possibly the worst airport delays we'd ever experienced. Leaving on Thursday afternoon should have been uneventful, but we got delayed around 8 hours and had to pass the time with a Gate C Pub Crawl. By departure time at 12:30 that night Gate C had almost kicked our asses. Not to worry: after a quick AirTran Nap we were refreshed and ready for a scavenger hunt through the Newark airport to look for our lost luggage. The seats on our original flight were overbooked, but apparently the luggage compartment wasn't. Luggage found, a Dodge Neon upgraged to a Chrysler 300, and we were on our way.

An hour-and-a-half later, we arrived at the Sayre Mansion Inn. Hello there, 5:30 Friday morning. The B&B was dee-luxe and we were on vacation so it didn't matter how wretched flying on AirTran was (these kind feelings did not return when we had a similar delay on our return flight, getting home around four hours later than expected at 1:30 this morning).

The wedding had some minor dramas involving a DUI, vandalism, and hemorroids (thankfully none of these involved Lisa and I), but the wedding was otherwise perfect and Diane and Brad--apparently favored progeny of the whole of Bethlehem--had a packed reception with enough crazy goings on to last until the next wedding, which is only in a couple of months, but there were still copius crazy goings on all the same.

Some recommended restaurants: we had dinner on Friday night at The Inn of the Falcon, godawful slow service but good food and wine and a great atmosphere; and our last meal was lunch at Billy's Diner, a classic diner with the best breakfast sandwiches and home fries in all of Steeldome. Go Bethlehem!