Two weekends ago I ventured out on my first ever hen do and I had an absolute ball. I had moved out of my university house the weekend before and was so excited to reunite with my uni friends as we had been on a 12 week placement and I hadn't seen any of them for ages. My friend Charlotte is due to get married in September. With so many people going and with everyone's summer plans this was the only weekend everyone could do. The maid of honour did a fabulous job of organising everything and everyone decided on Newcastle as the location. It seemed logical as Newcastle is the closest big city and there is a direct train to Newcastle from Carlisle.
We got the train on the Friday afternoon to Newcastle. We all brought a bottle of prosecco to drink between us, and Charlotte popped a cork which hit me on the head which made the entire train erupt in laughter. Once we arrived we got straight in a taxi to the hotel to drop our suitcases and bags off as we were staying in Jesmond which was just outside the city centre. That night we had already booked to go to the theatre but Charlotte didn't know, and she was made up when she found out! We got dressed up and headed for some pub grub before going to the theatre where we watched West Side Story. It finished at about 10pm and we wanted to save ourselves for the Saturday plans so we headed back to the hotel which had an outdoor area to chat and drink more wine.
On the Saturday we didn't have anything planned until the afternoon so we chilled and mainly deliberated outfits for that night as know one could decide what to wear. In the afternoon we headed to an amazing restaurant called As You Like It. From the outside it didn't look anything special, however as we arrived there was a wedding reception just about to take place so we thought it must be fancy inside. I was not definitely not disappointed, it was a large traditional restaurant with big wooden beams and lovely vintage decor. It was like a hidden gem and we were all majorly impressed.
Me and my friend Kim shared a pulled pork pancake platter to start and they were amazing. The pulled pork was in a little pot and you were able to build your own pancakes with spring onions, cheese and sauces. It was the perfect starter as it wasn't too much and I love having snacky type starters. For the main I ordered the prosciutto wrapped sage infused chicken breast. When it came it was presented beautifully, it came with mash, carrots, green beans, a pesto dressing and a balsamic glaze. The restaurant was definitely high end as the prices were expensive. The chicken dish cost £13.95 so I had high expectations. Whilst writing this it is making my mouth water thinking about the dish. It was one of the best things for sure which I have eaten this year. You got a good amount of chicken, the mash was buttery and the vegetable choice complemented the meal beautifully. With chicken dishes like this I would usually opt for a sauce of some description e.g peppercorn or mushroom. However, the pesto dressing and balsamic glaze worked perfectly together and it brought everything on the plate together. There was some salad leaves on top and they added an extra element of deliciousness to the dish. As you can tell I can only rave about the food. I will also rave about the cocktails. You can see in the pictures we got a sharing cocktail which came in a popcorn tub with popping candy it was a strawberry daiquiri and was so much fun! I also had a pornstar martini was which lovely and it was starting to get us all in the mood for what was to come later in the night.
The restaurant was just a 10 minute walk from our hotel so carrying our food babies we headed back to to hotel to start getting ready for the night as we had to leave at 5.30. After swapping between two different outfits approximately 10 times I finally decided on my outfit and we headed back into the city centre. The maid of honour had booked for us to go for a cocktail masterclass at a cocktail bar called Madame Koos. I felt like I was on a Geordie Shore night out as we were in all the bars and clubs where they film. In Madame Koos we were greeted by two barman who explained we were going to be making a lot of cocktails, play lots of games and there goal was to get everyone hammered. The bride to be is known to get pretty drunk quite easily so I was hoping she would make it to the end. Although she is the best kind of drunk and makes everyone laugh! We were split into two teams and played lots of games. The first one was that each team was showed how to make a particular cocktail by the barman, we then chose a member of each team to make the cocktail. Then another member of the audience was blind folded and tasted both drinks and chose the nicest. Let's just say we lost the first three rounds. Every time you lost you had to drink a shot. The first one was a 64% rum shot which to this day still burns my insides. We decided we couldn't loose another round so we did some tactical coughing when it was Charlotte's turn and surprise surprise we won! They informed us that every drink which was made we could drink so we were constantly drinking. There was a few other games we played and we finished up playing a team game of who can drink the most shots and keep a straight poker face. I must of been a little bit dazed when the instructions were being given as I didn't realise the later on you went they added on another shot. These shots were the lovely rum shots from the beginning. I kept my head down and cheered everyone else on. Thankfully they only chose three people from each team. My friend Hannah won for us I don't know how she didn't throw up but she did it for the team! That wrapped up our masterclass. Charlotte ensured that we had every drink which we had made and we headed back to the club. You can imagine we were all merry but we didn't realise it was only 8pm! We played a dare card game, drank the drinks and danced away.
We then headed to Floritas which is a bar I have been in before and really liked. The drinks were not cheap but they never are in a city centre. I changed onto vodka lemonade which is my go to drink. I really liked Floritas as they have an outdoor heated area where we sat, relaxed and chatted. To finish the night we headed to House of Smiths which was house music mixed with some RnB. Charlotte had a fabulous time which was what the weekend was about. Everyone's feet were hurting and some people were very drunk. We decided to head to the pizza shop and head home as we had been drinking since 6pm and it was now 1am.
Sunday morning we headed to Wetherspoons for a fry up breakfast as we were feeling a little fragile and then we got the train back home midday. I had an amazing weekend and the only thing I wished we had done was to make time to do a spot of shopping as Newcastle has some amazing shops. The weekend was very organised and structured though so I'm not sure where we would have fitted it in. All in all, I had an amazing weekend and I would definitely recommend Newcastle as a great city to have a hen do in.
Lucy
xoxo