Tapping Into My Inner White Boy

    Hey! I have about 1 week before I leave to Buenos Aires for a couple of weeks, and to fill up my schedule with fun stuff to do, I decided to try out a few risky plans just to see what would happen, and potentially discover a new fun thing to do while I'm down at home for the summer! One of the first things that came to mind was scrolling through the @peakacity Instagram Reels, since they frequently post about different activities to do around South Florida. Sadly the reel is taken down now, but I found a really interesting Country night at a brewery in Homestead!

    Now, I've never been to a country night before. I didn't know jack about line dancing or country songs or anything. So I had to go in with people who were equally clueless so I wouldn't make a fool of myself. I texted my buddies Sebi, Angelo, and Brandon, and once they agreed to the gamble on our Friday nights, we were locked in to experience the whitest, most country-est night of our lives thus far.

    Homestead is about an hour away from where we live, so I went around and collected the boys around 6:00, so we could arrive to the function at 7:00, which is when the Instagram post mentioned the event would really kick off. The drive there was pretty peaceful, filling the time with conversations about music, games, and our expectations for the night. The roads themselves eventually got a little suspect, transitioning from the relatively well-kept state roads onto some winding, zig-zagging country roads that were more pothole than road. Though the landscape was pretty nice, I couldn't help but think about how dark it would get once the sun set. As my mind strayed. a thud hit the windshield and we jumped. Apparently, a chicken flew onto the windshield and went over the car once it hit it. After we made sure the chicken was okay, we continued our drive deeper into country territory.

Picture courtesy of @EnjoyFlorida

    Finally, we arrived to the place our maps were taking us. It was substantially nicer than we had expected, looking more like a destination-wedding-country-club type place than the grungier, livelier setting we had expected. Nevertheless, we got off and walked around, exploring the pristine lawns and waterfalls and dodging the view of the occasional rich-looking patron we ran into. Eventually, we approached an employee and he directed us to this massive thatch-roofed open-air restaurant that was way too expensive for our current financial status, so we all ordered appetizers (that were each as expensive as a full meal anywhere else) and shared the food with one another.

    However, once we finished our food, we started noticing how we were still basically the only ones there. As we paid for our bills ($5 dollar water bottles??) we started grumbling amongst ourselves about how we got scammed. As the other guys went to the bathroom, I stepped back outside into the parking lot to store some complementary jam I received. That's when I noticed a big group of people walking further down the road, past the nice place we just ate at, and into this back lot area. Feeling lucky, I gathered the guys and followed the crowds, only to realize that the Country Night event that we were supposed to go to was, in fact, not hosted by the place we went to, meaning we had an expensive dinner instead of going to the event. Oops.

The only photo that was taken at Country Night

    After a little bit of muttering and remarks about how we did in fact get scammed, we bought our entry into the event and were greeted by a HUGE crowd of country folk (and an unexpected amount of emo people?) all line dancing, drinking beer, and playing pool. Finally, we had arrived at our actual destination. We learned how to line dance (after SEVERAL awkward minutes of stumbling around), played some billiards (after fiddling around with a machine that refused to take our money) and generally soaked in the country atmosphere. I had a lot of fun, but I do wish that we got to the right place earlier, since we missed most of the line dancing tutorial songs and we were being outclassed by everyone else.

Overall, this was a good way to spend a Friday night, and I would totally go to another country night again! Just maybe a little closer to home next time....