Painting the town red.

As you probably know by now, I'm a sucker for all things free and fancy. So, when I learned that Yelp Indy was hosting a Paint the Town Red party, I promptly forced Wheat to create an account and attend with me. Have I mentioned how much I love him?

We had high expectations, thanks to the awesome Yelp Cincy riverboat party we attended last year, and it didn't disappoint. The event took place in Union Station, an incredible, historic train station that hosts events downtown. It was absolutely gorgeous and we couldn't get over the architecture and beautiful windows throughout the place.

Although it was tough to maneuver through the scarlet-clad crowd, we spent over an hour sampling food and drinks from several local businesses, including Broad Ripple Chip Company, Soupremacy (chicken velvet soup dyed a bizarre pink color - A for effort!), Greek Islands Restaurant, Punch Burger, Salsa Me Krazy, Wildwood Market, and Wyliepalooza Ice Cream Emporium. Our personal favorites were the amazing s'mores bar provided by 240sweet, which included creme brulee and salted caramel marshmallows dipped in chocolate or graham crackers, and the Asian pork dumplings from Taggart's. So delicious.

Other highlights included professional massages, photo booths, painting classes, live DJs, the cutest handpress for making postcards, and tons of free drinks, which was evident by all the inebriated attendees. Downstairs, Bloomington businesses set up shop for Bloomington Bar, complete with more drinks, a speakeasy vibe, free water bottles, and my personal favorite, Bea's Soda Bar. Their strawberry lavender soda float with goat cheese ice cream was the biggest surprise of the night for me.

Once we had our fill, we made our way to Circle Centre mall for a little shopping, some more food, and college basketball action. Much to our delight, the games were being projected onto a sheet for the entire food court to see. Seriously, this city never ceases to amaze me with its coolness.