I know what you're thinking: "WTF!? Jeff, you just made a deal with yourself like two weeks ago to not be worthless, which almost explicitly means not sleeping through Sunday. In fact the only reason you are writing this right now is because of that."
I never said that.
Yes, I did. But I have a good reason for sleeping all day Sunday. Here it is:
I live with six other guys and they (I?) are friends with a bunch of girls that decided to have a "girls night in on Friday". So in a fit of ovary envy, a "dudes night out" was planned. And it just so happened to coincide with a Megabus deal one of my roommates had that meant free bus trips until March 1. So eight of us headed up to New York on Saturday with really no direction other than north.
Naturally, I wake up at about 1pm. I thought that was an accomplishment. Our bus is at 230 from 10th and H. We didn't really check the exact time of the departure until we were at the Gallery Place metro stop at 220. Now I have on my drinking shoes, which happen to be yellow like lightning/Usain Bolt's Olympic shoes. Here is the before picture of said shoes before we left, you know, because what better way to judge the success of a night other than by the filth accumulated on one's shoes:
So they're a little different than Usain Bolt's. But if you were on the other side of the Metro tracks as I was sprinting through to get to the bus on time you probably would have been like "Damn, Usain Bolt must be on rough times training in the DC metro, but he doesn't look like he's lost a step. But that skin bleaching thing that some people, like Sammy Sosa, are doing is really weird. (That picture is not fake--it is that fucking weird.)
Well, we made it on time. And I almost died in the process because that was only second time my body has reached the pace of anything above a brisk walk in like 18 months.
Commence 5 hour bus ride up 95 to New York.
Thank god for Sporcle. It occupied 97% of the ride up there. I said it felt like the trip went by pretty quickly. Thomas said it was worse than he expected--a good indicator of our respective personalities.
"CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW TALL THE BUILDINGS ARE HERE?" is how I monotonely breathed in the New York air as I stepped off the bus. And many times later over the course of the night, "CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW THIN THE STREETS ARE IN THIS CITY?" My roommates got tired of that one I think.
So half of us split up to go to our friend from Tennessee's apartment that lives in the city to eat Pizza 33 and drop stuff off. The others went to a bar somewhere else.
I am going to be honest, this night started off slowly with hardly a mark on my shoes. As I mentioned earlier, we had almost no direction whatsoever. Eventually we decide to head towards the East Village (to Ludlow Street I think). We end up in a hipster bar and the only person that could look even a little bit like they belong/are comfortable is myself, which I am not, because I never am. Well what is the best way to feel better about yourself? Tear others down of course! So some quiet hipster bashing ensued and the thought of "Did we really need to sit on a bus for 5 hours to feel this uncomfortable?" is palpable. We move on.
We find ourselves on another corner wondering where we are going to go next and across the street, which again are remarkably smaller than anything not considered an alley in DC, is a sign on a window for $3 dollar imperial pints. We payed $6.50 for a Brooklyn Lager at the previous bar, which I am pretty sure was made in the same city we were currently in/aka that should only be an acceptable price for noteworthy imports. So we're sold on the $3.
We are about to enter when I hear one of my roommates say "You will give me $68 for jumping the hood of this car?" BOOM. Night started. I enjoy watching people fall as much as next guy so I am rooting hard core for the clipping of the toe on this hood of this car. So Thomas is out in the street holding up traffic and my tall, lanky roommate is running to clear the hood of this car.
He made it, unfortunately. As he lands the guy who owns the Acura he just cleared comes seemingly out of nowhere and high fives him, doubling my wish that he had tripped and fallen.
The $3 imperial pints was no joke, except for Thomas who asked for their specials and gets handed a $7 dollar IPA. Sucker. A roommate then signs us up for a game of beer pong in the bar, which I can't believe is really there, but it is. Morally, I was thinking I couldn't go to New York to play beer pong but I'll play just one. Then we dominate and there is what I perceive to be a free keg sitting next to the table. I fill up and walk away. A roommate later hears someone say that it was the most expensive keg he has ever bought for $500. And it was kicked shortly thereafter.
So I walk to the bathroom and ask this girl if there are separate ones for guys/girls and she says yes. So I walk up to the door and see the two genderly dressed stick figures on the door and there obviously were not separate bathrooms. All the while this girl is looking at me like I'm crazy and so I tell her I thought she said there were separate ones and she's like "No I said yes they are the same." and I say "Well that explains why you were looking at me like I was crazy." "Yea that explains it, " she says. Then I ask her if she's with the private party in the back and she comes off all nervous like "Yea, kind of. It's for a friend of a friend but I am not really with them." Maybe room reservation parties aren't cool in New York. "O, no I was just asking to see about the free beer situation." She laughed and went to the bathroom. Then I was thinking it's probably situations like that that normal people flirt but I am in no way normal/capable of/wanting to flirt. I never did find out about the free beer either. Bummer.
The unintentional bar crawl continues. Eventually we end up at Schillers where we think our New Yorker friend is going to be meeting up with her roommate but it was the wrong bar. Upon entering I know I have seen this bar somewhere. I was convinced it was from Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, but it wasn't and later that I realized it was from the movie Morning Glory, which was much better than expected. My one roommate had just said that he wants to stay for more than 15 minutes at one place. I don't think we made it that long and after one beer we leave.
I had one fear for this idea to wander aimlessly to New York with like 10 people that either everyone or no one would have any idea what to do and it would be frustrating. It was the latter. A couple roommates were smoking $20 cigarettes so I bum one to see past the annoyance of a lack of direction. And it's like 1 am but it feels like 10 and the bars are open until like 4.
Eventually we end up at a bar where there's air hockey and things are a little hazy from there on out. If we took a taxi to get there it was in that one I lost my phone. I am not sure when I realized I lost it but when I do someone answers, which is a good thing. But she's not into the idea of meeting up at 4am to get it back. I think at one point I asked her if she had paypal so I could send her money to send it back. I don't think that was taken seriously.
The only plan that we did have before arriving was chinese food from china town at the end of the night. China town in New York is like a ghost town at 5am. Again, things are hazy at this point but I think we were lucky to find the place we did. I got vegetable lo mein and hot and sour soup, which I was told was awesome.
So after walking the ghost town that was china town at 5am we find a cab. Next thing we know the big buildings are behind us and we're crossing a bridge. My friend lives on the upper east side and there are no bridges between us and china town. Luckily the driver turned off the meter as we reached the bridge.
I pass out on my face at like 530, Thomas wakes us up at 7 to get the 8am bus back to DC. I sleep the entire way back and when we get back to the house I sleep for another 6 hours.
An there goes Sunday.
And I found single packets of Advil and an ace of spades in my pocket.
It was worth it.
Here are my shoes after all that:
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