Trip to New York City

I got back last night from a fun trip to New York City for New Year's. I drove with Chris and Nate in my car on Thursday, arriving at about 8:30 PM to our hotel which was right off of Times Square. The drive was great until we had to wait in traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel. Thursday night we hung out in Chelsea after meeting our friend Will in the hotel. We ate at an Italian restaurant and then had dessert at another place called Rafaella's with two of Chris' friends. On the way we passed by Sarah Jessica Parker's brownstone apartment, so that was cool. We got to bed early at around 2:00 AM since we had had a long day of driving and knew that Friday would be a long day.

On Friday we ate lunch at a pizza place with some of Chris' blogging buddies. Then Chris, Will and I headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Van Gogh drawings. It was fun to see all those works of Van Gogh. I wish we would have had more time to see the rest of the art in the Met, but we had to rush off to meet our other friends from Columbus(Rob, Aaron, Sanjida, Amy, Donny and Steve) for dinner. Dinner was at a delicious Cuban restaurant called Havana. No one wanted to split the paella with me but I had to get it even though it was really expensive. Chris and I shared a pitcher of delicious strawberry mojitos. The paella was amazing(as good as I've had in Spain) but I could only eat half of it, but I took the rest back to the hotel. After dinner most of use went to see Avenue Q. It turned out to be a really fun musical. There was especially one song that I really like called "There's a Fine, Fine Line." After the musical we went back to our hotel to get ready to go out. We got our drink on with rum and coke and then headed to Opaline on 39th. It was an awesome club with five floors and lots of people. We had a fun time dancing until we left at about 3:30 AM.

We woke up late on Saturday morning and Will and I rode the subway to meet everyone for lunch at a sushi place on 7th and Christopher St. We sang Sanjida happy birthday and the brought her a cake with a candle on it. The food was delicious. It was snowing/sleeting by the time we left. I stopped at Jamba Juice to get a Mango-a-Go-Go drink while everyone else went to Starbucks. Then Aaron, Chris, Will, Sanjida and I headed to Ground Zero. There's not much to see except for a big hole in the ground, but I'm glad I got to see it and reflect on what happened there on September 11th. We headed back to the hotel to relax and get warm before going out for New Year's Eve. We walked to the end of our street and listened to a band play and saw the crowd at Times Square so we could at least say that we had done that, although Aaron and I and apparently Sanjida wanted to come back to watch the ball drop. We headed out to dinner which ended up being at a tavern with Middle Eastern food. I enjoyed my chicken kebabs. We split from the other group after dinner and headed to a house party of one of Aaron's friends. The party was fine but I didn't know anyone but Aaron, Chris and Will and had no interest in the guys that kept talking to me about stuff I didn't care about. I also wasn't drinking because that morning I had decided to eat the rest of my paella from the night before after it had sat out all night and so my stomach was a little upset(but it was totally worth it because it was so good, even cold). I also knew I had a long drive ahead of me the next day and didn't want to have to do it hungover. One of my goals though was to drink a glass of champagne on New Year's and I did get to do that for the first time ever. I found out that Sanjida and everyone else had gone to Times Square and I regretted not going there to see the ball drop. It was a little ridiculous seeing the ball drop in New York City on a TV screen instead of in Times Square. I got back to the hotel room after an interesting cab ride at about 2:00 AM. I didn't sleep much though because everyone kept coming in and leaving the rest of the night as people arrived home, packed their bags and left for the airport.

I drove back with just Nate since Chris is going directly to Connecticutt for work. We got lost trying to get on I-76, but other than that we had a nice trip, arriving home at about 7:00 PM. I was glad I got to spend time with my friends in New York City for New Year's. I only wish Mathiew and Kip were there like they were supposed to be and that I had gone to Times Square for New Year's Eve. Time will tell if 2006 is better than Jan 1st was.