Team Tony + The Gold Dust Gals

What’s stranger than 350 people from all over the world gathered in San Francisco and taking pictures of their food together? A scavenger hunt full of hostess cakes, bow ties, Goldschlager, and dancing with a stranger! Wait…actually, I’m going to guess that most people would say that whole 350-people-taking-photos-of-their-food-thing is weirder.

But whether one was one bizarre than the other or not, I participated in both. Yes, I went to the Foodbuzz Festival with roughly 350 other food bloggers…and yes…I took tons and tons of photos of my food. I estimate I took close to 2,000 photos over the weekend with most photos being of food? I know….fuh-reak! lol The festival brought all 350 people together on Saturday night for a fancy-schmacy dinner at the famous Ferry building right on the bay. But the night didn’t end there. No, at the end of the gala, we were challenged to a scavenger hunt. Now, I’ve never shared with you dear readers, but I happen to be a HUGE fan of scavenger hunts. In fact, when I was a kiddo, I used to set up scavenger hunts all around my house for my friends to do in teams. It used to be almost a hobby for me, I loved it so much. So, when they mentioned scavenger hunt, I was hooked immediately. My fatigue almost had me turning in the towel early and skipping the scavenger hunt, but after catching a second wind, I was off with the rest of the party who had been sitting at my dinner table at the gala. I told myself, “You can sleep when you’re dead.” So off we went to hit up San Francisco at night, and it was time to get all Mission-Impossibly up on some b*tches.

Our team: Me, Julie, Laura, Tsz, Madalina, Sandy, a couple people who we lost along the way, and of course…Tony!

Our team name – Team Tony + The Gold Dust Gals

Our mission, which we chose to accept:

• Exchange 10 business cards with new acquaintances
• Take a photo of your team making a toast
• Get a photo of at least 1 team member “noshing on a late night delight”
• Take a picture of the hippest person you can find and 2 team members
• 4 Team members must perform 10 synchronized jumping jacks
• Dance with a stranger (1 team member)

The business card thing was knocked out almost instantaneously. Boom. (Dramatic photo re-enactment)

And before I knew it, we were already onto the jumping jacks…and we hadn’t even left the gala!

And we hadn’t left Ferry Building property before Julie had grabbed a stranger for some serious tango. I did my best to provide some music in the form of Shakira’s Objection song, which is tango-ish. Sadly, my little iPhone couldn’t play the music very loud…and the intro of the song was reeeally slow.

Anywho, we were halway done and we hadn’t even left the gala property! I mean, if we don’t win money for Foodbuzz next year, we should at least win brownie points for efficiency. 😉

Next up, I tried to get the team to find a stranger to pole dance on the trolley with us (you guys know I “love” dancing on poles and all). However, I settled for doing more synchronized jumping jacks in front of the trolley instead. Why repeat a task you ask? Well, I ask you, “Why ask why, try bud…I mean…why not?”

We searched high and low for the hippest person we know and found this too-cool-for-school-dood with a bow tie who was willing to pose with us crazies for a photo. I wonder if we even told him what we were doing with his photo? Hmm…

And then we made it for a quick pit stop at The Gold Dust (hence the team name) for team drinks…

…and a toast with Goldschlagers, cosmos and…ok maybe water.

Aaand…ok, one more hip person photos.

Of course, the night wasn’t over yet. No, Team Tony + The Gold Dust Gals had one more item on our agenda. We had to end the night the way every night of drinking 5+ drinks, spastically running around a strange town, asking randoms for bizarro favors, and hanging out at the Gold Dust lounge should end – with late night delights. So, we hit up the closest store we could find for some Hostess sweets. Ok, so I didn’t technically partake of the Hostess goodies, but hey…we only needed one person to and there are clearly half-eaten Hostess eats in this photo. 😉

Go Team Tony + The Gold Dust Girls!

***

Ticket to Foodbuzz: $350

Dance with Stranger: Free!

Festival Registration Fee: $35

Scavenger Hunt with New Foodbuzz Friends: Priceless

Kudos to Laura Flowers for being our official photographer of the evening.