So, as I am wont to do, I shall provide here a list of highlights – these being from the March 2008 New York City Adventure Weekend (which RULED):
Friday: Fung Wah with TTJ. Seats alarmingly close to toilet actually not all that bad. Delightful topics of conversation including U.S. military spending (was proved wrong; lucky TTJ not boastful I-told-you-so sort [unlike his tripmate]).
Friday night: Spamalot with TTJ via late birthday-present tickets (thanks, J?B)! Worshipped (yes, really) (reasons not yet definitively ascertained) by astonishingly inebriated young man at otherwise entirely respectable event.* (Like, whoa.) (Am going to deepest, hottest circle of hell for shortly thereafter suggesting to astonishingly inebriated young man that he join the limbo line, which he did…)
Saturday afternoon: Was first read and then (after facetious suggestion that he memorize the poem during our lunch) recited Shakespearean poem “Who is Silvia?” from Two Gentlemen of Verona by incredibly cheerful and totally hot creperie waiter. (Like, whoa.) Potentially delicate conversation with semi-rabid Yankees fan. Fun stroll through Central Park complete with brief stop so J?B could use laptop and wireless Internet to check/send e-mail about very important event (thought those things happened only in movies; way cool when they happen in real life). Pictures of TTJ practicing mad rock-climbing skillz on Central Park architecture. Long stroll through Met with TTJ included slight overdose on stark somber Dutch portrait and tortured medieval art rooms (depressing) before escape to eighteenth-century-and-later European paintings and stained glass (invigorating).
Saturday night: Totally whacked, totally atmospheric Indian not-quite-boxcar-size restaurant festooned (FESTOONED) with lights (strands of soccer balls, variegated and white Christmas lights, jalapeños, disco balls) for incredibly good incredibly cheap food. (Solved Mystery of Invisible Vegetable Biryani Raisins for TTJ by pointing out raisins not always almost black.) Midnight run/stroll across Brooklyn Bridge in time to see Empire State Building lights extinguished but too late for Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory spoils (actually OK as 34-degree temperature not particularly conducive to ice cream enjoyment). Impromptu 1:00 AM boardwalk swing dancing result of brilliant (BRILLIANT) idea by J?B and accompanying laptop jukebox (YouTube footage to come). 1:30 AM stroll back across Brooklyn Bridge accompanied by a cappella rendition of “We Are the Champions” chorus en route to hot chocolate and pastries courtesy of all-nite Dunkin Donuts (huzzah for City that Never Sleeps!).
Sunday: Fond farewell to belovéd J?B (NYC hostess and guidess extraordinaire!) until next meeting. Efforts to be respectable churchgoers assisted by extraordinary public transit luck but ultimately thwarted by unsuspected Columbus Ave building renovations (infiltrated Catholic mass instead). Attempt to find Fung Wah bus departure point successful after brief impromptu mini-tour of Chinatown and environs. Safe return to Boston followed by blissful reunification with roommates.
Moral of weekend: Want to be more like TTJ and J?B. Unfortunately am mere mortal. Shall keep trying.
*I actually declined his first entreaty, advising him to donate to a charity in my name. However, after multiple subsequent and drunken “Can I worship you? Pleeease?” petitions (his, not mine), I eventually acquiesced (what else could I do?), which led to a somewhat surreal scene involving an astonishingly inebriated young man first kneeling and then kissing my shoe.