I Went On A Vanderpump Rules Bar Crawl And My Life Will Never Be The Same

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This column is dedicated to all of the normal people we met this weekend: Kevin with the lip fillers, Kat and Emily who ditched their friends bachelorette to go to TomTom, middle-aged April and her super salty fabulous gay friend Robert, Rà who complimented my jumpsuit, the Israeli gays who picked me out of a crowd as someone from the tribe, and countless others. You’ll forever be in my prayers.

“I’m here on a girls weekend doing a Vanderpump bar crawl,” I said to the guy sitting next to me at the boho-chic, vegan, anti-war garden establishment. It was Friday afternoon and I was waiting for my friend to arrive and meet me in sunny SoCal. High on Vitamin D and anticipation of the next days’ events, I decided to explore the neighborhood a bit. After passing a girl doing her makeup in a Scooby-Doo van that doubled as her bedroom and potentially bathroom, I found myself at Rose Café, sipping some sort of hibiscus-laden drink and talking to a guy who very clearly had no interest in conversing with me. “That sounds absolutely miserable,” he responded.

I didn’t care. I’d been looking forward to this weekend for the past five months. We carefully crafted our itinerary to hit all of the Vanderpump restaurants and bars in a single day. I’d met Lisa and Pandora three weeks prior at a Rosé tasting in Chicago and “Pandy” (we’re on that level) recommended we start at Villa Blanca, followed by SUR, TomTom, and PUMP – in that order. Little did I know the series of fortunate events that would occur the following day.

To get into the #VeniceVibe, our day started with two large butter coffees and a shared blue algae acai bowl. After a sobering walk along the Venice boardwalk, we felt the need to immediately shower as if we just returned back from a Mud Run. After a quick trip to Drybar and applying the perfect day-to-night makeup look, we were ready. My outfit of choice was a strapless green jumpsuit with gold hoop earrings and tan block heels. I would describe the look as “low-grade Stassi Schroeder meets Gumby.”

The first stop on our crawl was Villa Blanca. No sightings there, but a 12-year-old girl did ask the guy at the table behind us for a picture. She told him she loved his Instagram. We couldn’t place him, so we stopped caring. We had a nice chat with some fabulous gay pair. They had the type of relationship you couldn’t really figure out. Friends? FWB? Ex-FWB? Frenemies? Father-Son? No clue. Either way, they were lovely.

After a quick stop at KYLE by Alene Too (Kyle Richards’ store for those of you who aren’t actual superfans), we were tipsy and on our way to SUR. From Instagram, we had seen that there had been a white party brunch hosted by Billie Lee from 11-3 p.m., so we figured 4 p.m. was the perfect time to possibly catch some of the cast cleaning up from the event. When we arrived, much to our disappointment, Lala wasn’t hosting. We sat down at a bar table thing that was way too low to the ground for any normal sized human and promptly ordered a bottle of Vanderpump Rosé and a pitcher of LVP Sangria (for the two of us). In my everything-is-awesome, I-don’t-have-any-flaws, 6/10 drunkenness state, I made eye contact with Peter. We had a moment. He is as beautiful in person as he is on the show, if not more. Adam was running around like a crazed busboy. I think he half smiled at me, but that was probably just me convincing myself of that.

We made best friends with our waitress named Jessica at SUR, even though I called her Stephanie for the first hour we were there. We bonded over the fact that Scheana needs to find herself, and she laughed when I said I’d pay for Scheana to go to a wellness yoga retreat in Nepal for a few months. (Scheana if you ever read this, I’m a fangirl, not a hater, and my offer still stands). I straight up asked a cute waiter if he was a wannabe actor/model. He responded that he’s not a wannabe actor/model, he IS an actor/model. He also said that words are very powerful, which is why he eliminates the word wannabe from his vocabulary. I could not have felt more guilty in that moment, so after profusely apologizing, I decided to drink more. (Side note: REAL actor/model was named Kyle and he did ask for my number before we left SUR. The amount of pride I have in this is so great that “SUR server asked for her number once” will be written on my tombstone one day.)

From there, we took ourselves to TomTom. And who do we see inside TomTom at the best seat in the house? Our gay friends from Villa Blanca! We cut the whole line and sat with them. Then they told us the news that changed our life from thereon out: they were filming. Sandoval, Stassi, Ariana, Kristen, Adam, they were all there. Stassi and Tom had a heart to heart on the outside patio area, of which I am definitely in the background snapchatting. As I proceeded to get drunker and more confident thanks to the flatteries of our gay friends, I decided it was time to go talk to them. I knew that Stassi was the only one I really cared about, so I made a beeline for her. She looked at me with a “who are you, why are you talking to me” but I didn’t care. This was my moment. She just had to sit there. I told her something along the line of “Thank you for being the satirical bitch that America needs right now. Your honesty and candor are really appreciated.” She flashed a half smile. I went on. “Like when you said that you wanted to wrap a dildo in acid and shove it up someone’s vajay? That was amazing.” “Well,” she said, “that was about a very specific thing.” I agreed with her and then said, “Yes, but everyone feels that way about another person at any point in time.” She said thank you. I said thank you. We were just two women friends having a conversation.

I then saw Adam trying to fiddle with his phone to take a selfie of him, Stassi, Ariana and Kristen. I screamed “ADAM” and offered to take a picture of them. He gave me his phone. I have never felt more pressure in my life than in that moment. Good thing I perform under pressure though, because he posted that picture on Instagram later that night and it was re-grammed by Kristen AND Ariana the next day. As if the night couldn’t get better, it just so happened that Gina from Real Housewives of Orange County was there with her friends for dinner. My life was a real-life Vanderpump Rules-RHOC crossover episode. I didn’t ask to take a picture; she asked to take a picture with me. Honestly the nicest, most down to earth woman you’ll ever meet. I was going to ask her what she thought of Vicki’s latest facelift, but I decided to hold my tongue. The night ended with me screaming to Ariana she walked out of the restaurant “YOUR CHEEKBONES ARE EVERYTHING!” She said thank you with a little shoulder shrug in the most Ariana-way ever. Love her.

To round out our bar crawl, we went to dinner at PUMP. We couldn’t move or breathe or do anything except say, “Oh my God” a million times over. This weekend was everything I’ve ever wanted and more and I don’t think, or want, to ever come down from this Bravo high.

Peace. Love. It’s about the Pasta..

Image via Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

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