Birthday Party World Part 2: Dinner at Roast, Ghost Hunting (and dessert) at the Whitney!

We went downtown to celebrate on my actual birthday, March 2nd.  3/2 is a great birthday to have, since I get to share it with Mikhail Gorbechov, Jon Bon Jovi and my favorite, Dr. Seuss!

Two great Detroit institutions, one new and one old, were the spots we went to have dinner and dessert.

HERE...

...AND HERE!

But, beforehand, I stopped by my mom's for some birthday love (aka, presents)!

This greeted me at the door...

...and these were waiting for me inside.

An El Camino & a crown- she knows me well.

Then, it was time to head downtown.  And since we were going out on the town, we had to get a little fancy!

Black and white clad robots.

We started with dinner at Roast, which is in the historic Book Cadillac Hotel (or as it's called now, the Westin).  Roast is a great place if you are a carnivore and love you some meat.  Which makes it not the greatest spot for vegetarians...especially cause of stuff like this.

My mom was as little scared of of the pig, but Jaclyn and Kara didn't seem to mind!

Neither did we!

Shot inside the gorgeous lobby of the Book Cadillac.

After dinner, it was on to dessert at the Whitney.  It was my first time there, and I really, really loved it.  The house is that compelling combination of very beautiful, very historic, and very creepy.  It's definitely one of those places where you can actually feel the age of the house when you are inside.

If you look very closely, you can see a mural above the mantel of a child shooting another child.  Weird.

More on exploring the Whitney later, but first- dessert!

Carrot cake

Some delicious strawberry thing.

Peanut butter chocolate cake.

It was delicious and it made us really happy!

After we ate, we did some exploring.  At the Whitney, you can pretty much go anywhere inside the house.  The first floor is the restaurant area, but almost all the rooms on the second and third floors are open to the public.

It was really fun to walk around, open doors, look inside the rooms and take photos.  However, it also made me a little worried, like how would the staff know if people were doing stuff they weren't supposed to be doing- like smoking cigarettes in Mrs. Whitney's former bedroom (which is what happened when we were there).

I'm not trying to be the fun police or anything, but the Whitney is one of the few truly beautiful and historic houses left in the city that hasn't fallen to ruin and has been somewhat able to retain it's grandure.  I just hope that people realize and respect what a rare treasure it is and how lucky the city is that the house is still standing.

To learn more about the Whitney, go HERE.

We spent a lot of time on the second and third floors, trying not to run into any ghosts.  There was interesting stuff everywhere we looked...

...some of it was a little creepy.

Check out the reflection of this painting in the mirror.

We found this in a closet.  It probably wants to kill you in your sleep.

But the majority of what we saw was just unbelievably beautiful.

My mom said that when she was touring the house, she really felt like she could see flashes of how it looked back at the turn of the century.*
*Kind of like in Titanic, when they intersperse shots of the ship sunk at the bottom of the ocean with shots of the ship when it was first built and all beautiful.  Yes, a Titanic reference.  What can I say- I love that movie!  I was 17 when it came out.  I really didn't have a choice!

Thanks to CJ, my Mom, my sister Kara, my SIL Jaclyn and of course, Detroit, for making my birthday truly special.  I love you guys! xo