bars....

We are getting ready to go on vacation. I having been looking forward to this trip since August! We will be married 8 years in 2008 and so we thought that was as good as any reason to go somewhere.... without the kids!

I am not sure how we were able to con my parents into watching them for 6 days but I know we won't be able to do it again any time soon... so we are planning to make this vacation count.

We are going to Key West. Neither of us have been before. I have been busy planning for the past few weeks. I have been reading guide books and reviews online (all that jazz). There are a few things we have scheduled... a snorkel trip and a drag show... but pretty much everything else is going to be done on a whim.

But this is Julia Stewart's whim, which means that although nothing is official I have spent many hours researching the best places to go, when to go, what to get, what to avoid.... blah blah blah.

All this brought me to the subject of my post. Bars. Apparently there are a lot of bars in Key West, and although Mason and I use to be professional drinkers we are now retired from that business.

So as I read through review after review and looked at websites after websites I asked myself.
"What do I want out of a bar?" or "What does this bar say about me"

Silly questions I know... but an essential one nonetheless. It helped me focu.

This is what I have so far:

1. NO Irish pubs... had my share of that in Charleston
2. NO dueling piano bars (those guys are only funny if you're wasted)
3. NO boom boom skinny bitch bar (for obvious reasons)
4. NO smoking (as if I had a choice)
5. NO rock n' roll bars - live or otherwise (can't dance to that kind of stuff)
6. NO Jimmy Buffet bars (they are a dime a dozen down there DUH!)
7. NO bars with loud guys on microphones yelling into the crowd "are you having a good time? I said ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME?" (no... not anymore)
8. NO COUNTRY BARS (would explain but this is a family blog)
9. NO COUNTRY BARS (see previous)
10. NO cigar bars (see number 4)

Okay - so that leaves me with
1.Live music if it is jazz or swing or any sort of 80's cover band
2.Martini bars (which sometimes are too close to the skinny boom boom bars for my taste)
3. any Gay bar

Anyone been to Key West? Care to help a lady out?