I'll always love you though, New York

I just returned from yet another fun weekend up in the big apple. This trip was a little crazier than my usual ones, as I tried to juggle my time between three different groups of people in three different areas of the city. In the end, I vastly underestimated the difficulty of doing so and had a few commuting issues and a bit of stress, but it was all worth it in the end. I stayed with Lo in her upper west apartment this time, instead of with my usual hosts Kim & Natty, in their lovable west village pad.

I got in around lunchtime on Friday and was able to stop in to see Lo in her temporary office at work. That's right, a whole office, not a cube. She even has a window. And, it's in the Flatiron building. What could be cooler? Look for pics of all this to come. I had a little giddy touristy moment with my camera as we strolled around outside to lunch. After a nice restaurant-week-lunch treat at Eleven Madison Park (a "Sex and the City" locale, unbeknownst to me until after the fact), I headed further downtown to hang out with John at his pad, as well as Becca & Pepper who were also up visiting. We killed a few hours watching Food network and breaking down the mannerisms of Giada De Laurentiis and trying to figure out just how Rachael Ray went from tapered jeans to FHM (still so shocking!). Then it was back up to Laura's place for dinner and eventually passing out in front of the TV.

Saturday there was more jumping around the city. I went to meet Kim & Nathaniel at Crif Dogs, another specialty hot dog joint in the East Village. This had me traveling quite a ways, like a giant diagonal across the city. It was worth it, though, for some good chili cheese waffle cut fries, and a couple very satisfying and well-topped hot dogs.

Then, in a surprising tourist moment for all of us, we went to Central Park to go ice skating at "The Donald's" rink. At first it was one of those moments where Kim and I were like, wait, why do people do this? Going around in circles on ice with this ridiculous crowd of people while wearing cheap plastic rental skates that are somehow already moist when you put them on? But after a little while we were having fun and forgot about all that silliness.

We went back to the apartment and enjoyed some TV time on the couch. Then we enjoyed dinner at this lovely italian restaurant just around the bend. I finally had my experience with "The Wheel," a fettucine dish where they take the noodles and spin it around over a big wheel of cheese, so it's all fresh and natural and pure. It was definitely deliciously simple. As the highlight of dinner, we somehow managed to get our drink tab picked up by the table next to us. They were the classic 40-somethings who came in already very inebriated and continued to drink with dinner. They were very loud and often rowdy, and while some other couples in the restaurant actually requested to be moved to a different room, we just went with it and joked and became "dinner friends" with them. I guess that went over well, because when the check came they had insisted on paying for not only our bottle of wine, but a round of after-dinner drinks or dessert for each of us. Not a bad deal at all!

So that's what got the ball rolling on the rest of my evening... I stopped by John's apartment for a couple homemade top shelf vodka-tonics, then we shared a cab as I headed back to the East Village to meet up with Laura and Allison at a bar. This turned out to be a funny experience because all these random UVA people were there, and it was like worlds colliding. Strangechild. After a few hours at this place, a bunch of us walked a block up to meet up with John, which was hilarious because we brought in a party of about 10 girls into this gay bar and definitely felt like we changed the dynamic a bit.

Finally, finally, after some more drinks and some flurries, I headed back to the upper west to crash. Wow, it was almost 4 am by the time I went to bed.. definitely can't remember the last time I had one of those nights, and my body reminded me of this when I woke up this morning. I wasn't feeling too hot, and by the time I mobilized myself out of bed it was close to 2 pm. It was nice to have one of those completely lazy sleeping-off-your-hangover kind of mornings, though.

All told, it was a great weekend, though a little hectic at times. It was just another reminder of how big the city really is, though easily accessible if you have the proper luck. The next few weekends coming up should be pretty exciting-- February looks to be a great month so far.


Current Music: Come Crash, by A.C. Newman
Current Mood: tired/contemplative