new york, the long version

(there is no short version. it's just that this is decidedly long, and there are no pictures because i didn't take any.)

i hate the actual traveling part of travel... the airports and such that make you just flat out road ugly. (if you've not been exposed to the condition known as road ugly, you've obviously not spent enough time with my family. so get in a car. stay there for sixteen hours. voila, road ugliness!). but i like to be new places and old places and pretty much anywhere that is "not here." therefore, my little spur-of-the-moment decision to run away to ny this weekend made me quite happy. and i shall now recount the tale for those who care and those who are too lazy to switch the page.

friday i finally made it to stereoette's cute little manhattan apartment and got to wash my face (this was crucial; see "road ugliness" above). i was then introduced to her fabric in much the same way that one is introduced to family members and pets that one does not yet know; it sounds silly, but it makes sense if you know us (we have sewing machines). then we decided it was food time -- real italian, hooray for ny! we had SUCH amazing food all weekend; made me laugh because i might as well have been with my other diamond, the patently food obsessed one. but it was really, really, really good. and you all missed it. and i want to eat in ny every day. for like a third of the price...

anyways, after dinner we went to her favorite nightspot, the belgian beer bar. nice place, yummy beer (and i don't even normally like the stuff), french fries. a very "grown up" sort of going out, which i love. austinites, think ginger man, only new yorkier. the randomness of life will never cease to amaze me, as we managed to run into a southwestern alumna. granted, we knew she'd moved to the city (or, now, jersey), but she hadn't even talked to stereoette in like a year and i hadn't seen her since our econ capstone. she about freaked out when she finally recognized me. amusing. i also, at long long last, got to meet the fabled ex-boy. we were always going to either hit it off or hit each other, so the addition of alcohol was probably a wise decision, as it tilted the scales toward option #1. it's so nice to talk to smart people. you forget until you find them again, but it reeeeally is. and when you can make fun of each other and make bad (but subtle) jokes for hours on end, it's just flat out enjoyable. yay for life, etc. poor boy was subjected to more than his share of sorority gossip, but he can deal with it, we had to catch up and it was after all that weekend. at some point we switched bars to another little place i like quite well but can't remember the name of to save my life. they had an espresso bar, too, and i must admit i spent a little too much time distracted by my desire to clean and play with it. but whatever, i'm a coffee dork, i can't help it. eventually we decided we'd had "oh my god!" too much wine (not in quantity so much as in that's what ex-boy exclaimed on seeing the tab) and headed off to find drunken falafel. now, i miss my drunken whataburger "taquitas," but i heart falafel. especially since we managed to get yoghurt ALL OVER all of us to an extent that no adults, not even drunk ones, should be able to manage any more. front, back, top and bottom. completely hilarious. and then we talked (and possibly sang) loudly in bad spanish all the way home. see previous post for my favorite quote of the night. there were more, but that's the one we managed to save. ;)

saturday we slept in, of course, before finally deciding that it was once again food time. we went to spice, which just might be my favorite of all the places we ate, despite their retardedly huge chopsticks that i couldn't keep in my hands for the life of me. and i'm decent with chopsticks now. it was seriously pathetic. the table by the window had the added benefit of allowing for some good people watching, which is completely one of the best things about the city. that and looking up, because the buildings are usually awesome. we spent the afternoon poking around in h&m, because i miss it, and wandered into fao schwartz and tiffany's. yay for tiffany's. i love to be surrounded by expensive beautiful like that. must say, though, i don't think the nice little man was quite expecting the reaction he got when he informed us that the engagement rings were on the third floor if we cared to go dream. *angel face.* besides, who needs that when you can design your own tiffany ring online and then save it to send to the clueless (i.e. males)? hopefully my friends' boys know enough to ask me for hints about what they should buy, because i'm keeping files especially for that purpose. personally, i think i want something along the lines of the tiffany diamond...

and then it was time for the ballet! hooray for ballet, especially in a city like that. we saw the new york city ballet perform several pieces, most of which were choreographed by ballanchine (for those of you not in the know, think famous, famous, famous). i must admit to having fallen asleep in the first one; i'm just not that interested in pieces with no plot choreographed for the female chorus. and i was sleepy. but the romeo and juliet pas de deux woke me right up; it was the only non-ballanchine piece, but definitely held its own. the next, the tchaikovsky pas de deux, was one of the most AMAZING works i've ever seen. i love that people have the ability to leap and turn like that. totally phenomenal. besides which, i happen to love tchaikovsky. the last, symphony in c, was really pretty amazing as well, but nothing could beat that pas de deux. it still makes me smile to think about.

sunday was all about traditions. we had breakfast at rue des crepes (in honor of the little crepe place in vancouver, and because yummy!) and then went to the museum of natural history for the dinosaurs (because there are always dinosaurs). besides "even gangstas love dinosaurs" (people watching again). my favorite part was the little models of the dinos next to the skeletons, just in case you couldn't tell what it was supposed to look like. and, of course, the sign explaining how the negotiation for one fossil involved "a 'six shooter' and $250." we decided the six-shooter was probably aimed rather than traded. spending one's life digging through the sand can lead to disgruntlement, you know. we also popped up to the hall of minerals, because that's always my favorite part. i saw the star of india (gorgeous star sapphire) and other assorted amazingness, and stereoette had her ass grabbed by a random foreign kid. all in a day, i guess. i managed to pry myself out of the gift shop without spending $350 on a completely amazing amber bracelet, and am still impressed at myself for it. i loooove gems. especially the enormous uncut kind.

dinner that night resulted in the most frustrating fortune cookie message ever: "you think it is a secret, but it has never been one." how on earth do i disentangle that one, i ask you? then i guess we chilled at the apartment for a while, watching murder by death (so funny!) and collecting cds. i was about to say we did this without incident, until i remembered the ice cream. we got ice cream for dessert, only neither of us put it in the fridge when we got home despite both looking through the grocery sack at least once. super special. we finally remembered a couple hours later and rushed it to the freezer for some emergency care. we managed to get it back to the consistency of soft serve before deciding that we couldn't wait any longer and adding amarula liqueur (very yummy, you should try it). please note that the ice cream incident actually occurred before the alcohol. just because such things are worth noting.

i must also point out that monday morning i hailed a cab on fifth avenue all by myself. it just made me feel like a badass. sure, i'd become immune to such things if i spent more time in the city, but i'm currently from a podunk middle state and it was just cool.

all in all, a decidedly worthwhile trip. anything where i can spend that much time laughing and generally enjoying myself is of course always worth doing, especially when it involves my favorite people ever. i'm so glad i went. *gigantic grin* hooray for running away!