“Beertown” not “Beantown”

Say you are a traveler, one who enjoys nightlife worldwide. While you usually get stupid in Washington DC, you’re headed to Boston for your cool international job. You wish your weekend would be free, but you’re going for an all-weekend conference.

You still have Thursday and Friday night though, and you wanna discover something funky. Like when you confirmed its Beer Pong, not Beirut or spent thirty-six hours in Philly checking on cheese steaks.

What would you do? Me, I would have a roaring good time!

First I started with hard core hotel porn. What is “hotel porn”, you ask? Just check out the Hotel Marlowe website or better yet, peruse the “Hotel Marlowe” Flickr tag. Hot, eh?

From the funky rooms to the great service, and of course, the leopard-print robes, Hotel Marlowe is swank-city. Swankiness that includes sex-music CD’s!

Not one to let such opportunity pass me by, I head out, wandering around Harvard Square area, alone and sober. Looking to fix both predicaments quickly, I took an alley option and found myself on Winthrop Street.

Scouting around for a place to play, I first wandered into Grendel’s Restaurant & Bar. There, with everyone seated at a table in small groups, I found myself the lone man out, and so quickly I went out.

Across the street, I saw my nirvana, OM Restaurant and Lounge. There, within minutes, I was seating in one of their lovely couches, sipping the odd Rain Vodka. While it tasted like gin and confused my vodka-only palliate, it did give me a great intro to the hottie German lass next to me.

A flirt here, a wink there, a shot-down and way too many vodkas later, I was solo again, this time headed to a college bar down the block that foolishly served me more drinks.
Whipping out my Nairobi ‘Mad House’ Mojo I started chatting up an American beauty at the bar.

How did it go, you ask? Check out the photo!

The next two days were a blur of – TechLeb 06, the 1st international conference on technology in Lebanon. There to think out how to make Lebanon a vibrant and sustainable technology hub in the Middle East & North Africa region, I asked questions of Fouad Siniora, Prime Minister of the Republic of Lebanon, and Marwan Hamade, Minister of Telecommunications.

They gave pat political answers and I split for real fun – King’s Back Bay. Billed as the leading bowling, billiards, food and cocktails entertainment venue in Boston, it lives up to the hype.

I spent a leisurely afternoon there tossing back bowling balls, billiard balls, and my favorite high ball – vodka gimlets, all in the comfort of black lighted bowling lanes and a spacious pool hall.

I do have one small suggestion. Until they toss the too large and too conspicuous televisions, be sure to bring your handy TV Be Gone. On squeeze of the little magic black box and zap! no more TV’s in my sight. Nice.

Now its time for me to head out again for another night of OM on Winthrop Street.