New York, New Y-Oh crap, it's still raining.

I have just today gotten over a terrible cold that I got last night, one day after returning from my "vacation" to New York City. And by vacation I mean "some old friends were moving a friend into Astoria, so we crammed into a minivan and drove to New York to stay for a weekend." Here is a quick play by play.

THURSDAY NIGHT: Preparing Snacks. I buy a bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos and bake a batch of M&M cookies for the car ride. Both were great decisions.

FRIDAY MORNING: Awaiting pickup in Pittsburgh. While waiting, clean up the garbage outside that some animal got into, clean the litter boxes, pick up some cat vomit, and play with the dog. Finally the ride shows up and I cram into the purple minivan.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON: We make a detour to Delaware to pick up a fifth friend. It rained pretty much the entire drive. Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware...every state looks the same when the sky is gray and shitty. But there's corn in Delaware.

FRIDAY EVENING: We go through New Jersey. As gray as the sky was, it was even grayer in New Jersey. There is no color in New Jersey. Just gray and orange. (That's a tan joke).


We make it to New York. We play "Empire State of Mind" over the car radio as we enter, because we're SO ORIGINAL. It was funny at the time. 12 hours in a car and everything's either hideous or funny.

We finally reach Astoria and move our friend Anielle in. She actually has a pretty nice apartment. Actually, all the apartments we saw that weekend were nice by New York standards. I usually rate apartments based on "how much more comfortable is this apartment than the car?".

We do a bit of driving around. Our team splits up into two separate apartments (one in Brooklyn, one in Astoria) and pass out for the night.

SATURDAY MORNING: Our original plans to rush a Broadway show were scrapped when we realized we just didn't move fast enough. But that was ok, so we went to have brunch instead. We found a nice little restaurant called Five Points that served fantastic brunch. I had the sausage eggs Benedict (as delicious as it looks), my friend Mara had what was essentially egg lasagna, and my friend Jack had a BLT that he raved about for the rest of the trip. A triumphant breakfast, to say the least.

After brunch we set out to find Roni-Sue's candy shoppe, a place I'd read about in a book that has really unique truffles and chocolates. It took us a while to find the place, but it was well worth it when we did. I bought chocolate covered bacon and a truffle with White Russian inside. No regrets!

We then took a brief timeout at a little park. You could do nothing in this park. No skateboarding. No ball playing. And my favorite:

"No Loitering".

In a freaking park. I guess we broke the law?

SATURDAY AFTERNOON: We go to an H&M store so people can shop and I can walk around aimlessly. While there Mara decides she's going to throw up. So I take her outside to find a restroom. We eventually succeed in finding a little shop/Chinese buffet where she makes use of the bathroom and I buy a Vitamin water. Mara decides she wants to take a nap, so we retreat back to our friend Helene's apartment. I read my Kindle, and then also take a nap. That may sound like a waste of vacation, but really we were just happy to be out of our towns.

SATURDAY EVENING: We go to a nice Sushi place, J.J.'s something or other. I never had sushi yet I got a giant box of everything. I like the chicken and the little rolls and the dumplings. The meats were hit and miss, and I actually liked a tiny bit of Wasabi. After dinner Mara, Jack, and I were in charge of fetching the big minivan and bringing it back to Anielle's apartment. It took us at least an hour to find a parking spot. I finished off the Doritos that I rediscovered on the floor.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Jack and I decide we're not done with the day so we go explore the Astoria area. There are a few clubs and bars around, and we eventually decide on a place called Los Margaritas. Upon grabbing a menu, Jack reads the first item and says "Let's just split a pitcher of margaritas and get drunk right here." I agreed.

The waitress dropped this off at the table and then we literally didn't see her again for two hours. It was an awesome time though, just drinking outside in New York City in the middle of the night.

We eventually succeeded. We managed to relocate the apartment and stumbled inside, laughing hysterically and waking up a totally not amused Mara. Whoopsie.

SUNDAY MORNING: Brunch again. I forget the name of this place, but I had an omelet with French Fries in it, so ha.

SUNDAY IN GENERAL: We drove. We drove for hours and hours until it didn't seem possible we'd ever get there. But we did. As long as the car ride was, I was with some of my favorite people in the whole world and that made it so much better.

So that was my little vacation. Monday I was late for work, and then got the beginnings of a cold. Tuesday (this morning) I couldn't get out of bed because I hurt so much. I don't know what happened, I must of touched something gross on the subway and then touched my mouth. Oh well, New York New York!