Grand Opening

So last wednesday was the Grand Opening of the apartment building I now live in. On the invitation it said that there would be "food and refreshments" and a "drawing will be held". In my mind I see cookies and some punch, with a couple of gift cards to Chili's.

When I got home from work on wednesday, there was a line around the block to get into my building. And these were not starving college students looking for some free food. These people were dressed like they were going to swank club and they were arriving in cars I might be able to afford in 10 years if I don't have kids. There was a bouncer at the door. I was like, "What the hell is going on?" I had to sign in and get a drink bracelet to get to my mailbox. Once I got to my apartment, I looked out from the balconey and saw no less than 400 people hanging out by the pool, sipping cocktails and enjoying the live DJ. Not only was there a DJ, but there was a light show going on with at least 2 dozen projector lenses bouncing patterns off the building walls. There were two photographers, walking through the crowd, taking pictures. I was like, "what in the world did I move into?" I was convinced I was going to see an a camera crew soon, shooting a music video.

Once I made it downstairs I learned that there was catered food from 4 different restaurants and two open bars. The open bars explained the mass of humanity, but this was still an invitation-only crowd. I was finally able to find some people from my hall and I even met some new neighbors. But mostly I was amazed at this culture that I never really knew existed. I mean, who has the free time to go party on a wednesday night and the money to look that good? You'd almost think that people with that kind of cash have better things to do with their time. Maybe they all were involved with the building developer somehow, but 600 people? It was a little surreal.

Yours truly took home second prize during the raffle drawing. The grand prize was a Vespa (see http://www.vespausa.com/), but I took home a $400 gift card to the Apple store. Yup - I'm the new owner of an IPod Touch. Mwahahaha