That was a longer absence than I had planned, my apologies. I felt like I was catching a cold for a few days but it never quite progressed to a full on cold so I'm not sure if it is just allergies or what. On top of that I have what feels like a kidney infection, so yeah it has been a rough week and half.

Last Monday my roommate Dawn, her step-sister Amanda, and I had my Monkey drive us to the D.C bus terminal. As always with D.C. we got lost at first and ended up at a creepy place (vacant parking lot). Luckily the actual terminal was only down the street and around the corner but you know the GPS wanted us to panic first. We were all a bit surprised by the long line for the 12:25AM bus. We were some of the last few people in line to board but luckily Dawn and I got seats next to each other and Amanda sat a few seats in front us next to a guy. Once we stopped in Baltimore, Amanda turned around with a huge smile on her face and exclaimed "Hi guys, This is Eddie. He's from Australia" and proceeded to have him wave. It was the cutest thing.

I made the huge mistake of only sleeping an hour the day before our trip (I had so many errands I had to run and I was too excited and nervous to sleep) but I somehow thought I'd be able to get quality sleep on the bus, yes you might be thinking "not likely" and you'd be pretty much right. I attempted to sleep the entire rest of the way to New York City and I definitely snoozed but kept waking up in the oddest positions - head against chair in front of me, dangled over the arm rest in the aisle, etc. I also noticed that I kept waking up and everything looked like New Jersey for what felt like 3 years. Felt like we were in a time warp - don't start singing.

We finally arrived in New York City at 5ish AM. We had no idea what to do so we quickly decided we would take the subway as far South as we could go and then work our way up. While we were waiting for the subway we started talking to a dude who just moved to NYC from Texas. He asked if he could join us for awhile and we agreed.


We started off in the Financial District where many people were in a hurry to start their day of work. Many important people breezed by us with briefcases and what seemed like hundreds of construction workers surrounded us in every direction were there to work on the new World Trade Center buildings. I had not been to this part of Manhattan since my very first trip to NYC in 2004, it looks a lot different now, then the WTC area was just a massive concrete hole. I didn't take many pictures of the buildings in progress because I didn't want to hold up the foot traffic.




We walked along the Hudson River with the Statue of Liberty in the distance and tried to keep out of the way of the joggers. It was so beautiful there and because we were there so early in the morning there weren't many people just tons of over-friendly squirrels whom we fed graham crackers. We spent time at a schmacy market called Battery Place Market where I made mistake number 2 of not getting breakfast, I was still too nervous to eat.




 They all wanted to take the ferry over to the Statue of Liberty but I really didn't want to because you wait forever and also you can't get that close to the Statue, you can just walk around it but I went along anyway. We waited for like 2 hours and then after all that, I stepped one foot on the boat and remembered "I get really sea sick" so I opted to get off and meet up with them later. I'm really glad I did that because I was only on the boat for maybe 5 minutes and was already feeling nauseous and if I get nauseous the whole day is shot. I just wish I had remembered that fact earlier instead of waiting 2 hours and paying $13.00 but oh well.



I sat on a bench surrounded by flowers (and huge bees) sucking in the cool air to help the bout of sea sickness I was feeling. I love the way the top picture turned out with the dude looking out at the Statue, it almost looks like a picture from the past.


After I started to feel better I decided to take the subway to Brooklyn to visit Re/Dress. I was so excited that I waited outside for about 45 minutes because the store didn't open till noon. I meant to take more pictures but because I was the first person to go inside I felt silly taking any. I did however try on a heap of clothes and shoes, I made sure to look through almost everything twice and spent a good two hours in there.

I saw 2-3 things there that I actually own already, isn't that weird? My, what good taste you have Re/Dress =P. There was this one dress I tried on, it was a leopard print halter dress with a black band and gold accents at the waist, but it was a size too big so I put it back. I'm kicking myself now because the more I think about the more I like the dress despite it being too big and having a few accents falling off. I had very limited money so I guess it was for the best.

I wasn't going to share this but it is too funny not to, while I was waiting for Re/Dress to open I sat on the sidewalk (yes I know, you shouldn't sit on city streets) because my feet were already very achy. It wasn't until I had been sitting for a good ten minutes that I realized "Oh there is glass everywhere around me" so I got up and moved. While I was in Re/Dress I kept panicking thinking "what if I sat on glass? what if I don't notice till later that a shard of glass has found its way onto my clothing?" So I'm shopping and fooling with my clothes trying to shake out any glass that I'm now convinced is there. While I'm checking out at the register the lady ringing me up gives me a confused look and I explain to her I think I might have sat on glass. She is like "Well you weren't sitting on the streets or anything were you?" and I was like ... "No, that would be stupid..." *shifts eyes* because I felt so silly lol. This is how great the girls were, she even offered to check for me, I politely thanked her and then scurried off to the dressing room to check - turns out it was all in my head. It was such a great shop and the ladies working there were so fabulous.



After Re/Dress, Dawn texted me and said they were waiting for the boat back and that we should meet up to get lunch. I agreed lunch sounded good and she said it was my pick so I decided to go to Katz Deli. I could not find the right subway anywhere, I kept walking around in circles and getting further away, so I caught a pricey cab. I was just dying to sit down and I knew I couldn't walk it although I would have loved to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge for the views.



My attempts to get good pictures in the cab were rather unsuccessful, especially considering my phone was already almost completely dead. Stupid short lived battery, I have to stop using my phone as my camera but my phone takes better pictures than my actual camera does (usually). The cab driver was really great though, he even turned off the meter and drove me right in front of the restaurant after missing the turn. It was crazy busy in Katz, when I walked in I was handed a ticket and then I went up to the stations to order. It was so packed in there and I was so relieved to turn around with my food and see an empty table.


I was about four tables away from the infamous scene where 'When Harry met Sally' was filmed. I got a plain pastrami sandwich for $15.75 (expensive and I feel bad for snapping a picture of this woman in mid-sentence).



It was so yum, the meat just melts in your mouth and has fantastic flavor. I was so relieved to see Dawn and Amanda and even admittedly a little more relieved that the dude from Texas wasn't with them because he was a bit much to handle. I had no idea Amanda was a vegetarian until after she ordered a cheese sandwich and felt so bad for dragging her to essentially a meat market. But we all sat and enjoyed our lunches and shared some of Amanda's fries. It's about this time when I stopped taking pictures, I'm not sure why, I think it's because I was so sleepy.

Afterwards we decided to head over to Canal Street in Chinatown to do some shopping. We walked past some skeevy men having disturbing conversations and making crude comments about us. I felt a little uncomfortable in Chinatown, I must say, there were some shady characters and I did my best to look angry and walk past them, Amanda is from Wisconsin so she was a lot friendlier than Dawn and I. It was around this point that I toyed with the idea of taking an earlier bus home, I was so exhausted and afraid I'd keep the two of them from having all the fun they wanted to have. Words to the wise, don't take an almost 24-hour all walking trip on 1 hour of sleep haha. When I told Dawn and Amanda I was thinking of taking an earlier bus home they both were so kind about it and convinced me to stay. While we were standing there having this conversation about me potentially going home early, I spotted these great scarves behind us. I ended up buying one that was white with black skulls and I haggled! The woman at the shop said $18 at first and we settled on $13.00. Look at my haggle skills. After that we decided to head over to Starbucks where I found a table to charge my phone and chill out for awhile and they decided to go check out a tattoo shop.

Found this on Ami James blog.

They came back after stopping by the Wooster Street Social Club and were thinking of going back but had to sign releases if they did because they were filming (Wooster Street Social Club is where they film NY Ink with Ami James). I decided to hang back at Starbucks while they went because I didn't want even the faint possibility of being on TV. They said they would come back after they were done. About 2 hours went by and I was falling asleep in my book at Starbucks so I texted Dawn to see how it was going. She said they should be done filming soon and that I should head over. I really didn't want to be kicked out of Starbucks for sleeping so I decided to head over.


When I got there they were still filming so I had to sign a release, all I could think about at this point was "maybe they have a comfy leather couch?!" seriously that was my big desire at that point lol. So I sign the release and walk inside, it was so quiet in there you could have heard a pin drop, I sheepishly walked down the hallway to where I saw Amanda leaning on the receptionist desk with a look of complete boredom. They were filming one of the guys (Billy I believe) asking him questions and everyone else was just kind of standing around. Dawn came out from a changing room and said she was going to have her tattoo retouched by Tommy.

I don't know if you watch the show, I've only seen a few episodes myself but Tim, Tommy (obviously), Jessica, and Billy were there. Jessica walked past me and I was taken back by how gorgeous and tiny she was. I guess Megan had been there earlier and both Dawn and Amanda said she was delightful, I was bummed I didn't get to see her. Tim smiled at Amanda and I when I walked in. Tim seemed like a silly guy, at one point he was laying on one of the tattoo tables with his leg pulled up to his face. It wasn't very comfortable in there and we weren't allowed to move from our little corner so Amanda and I went outside and talked on the stairs in front of the shop. We were talking about what else had gone on while she was there, guys, and possibly getting a drink somewhere near by. There were some crew outside who overheard our conversation and suggested a bar around the corner and I talked to them about D.C. briefly. As Jessica was leaving she smiled at us and said "Good Night" which I thought was sweet.

So then we are sitting there and who approaches us but Eddie the Australian from the bus. I was like "Oooh Amanda, you sly fox" and she played it off like "Oh, what is he doing here?"

Then the three of us decided to check out this bar that was suggested to us but when we stepped inside it was packed so we decided to go a few doors down to a different bar (of which I have tried to search out on yelp for a good 30 minutes now and still can't find, its like it has picked itself up and moved just to stop me from figuring out what it was calllled). I found it, yay! I had to find it, it was driving me nuts.


It was called Papatzul. I had one margarita, chatted a little bit with Eddie and Amanda, and slept on my book bag the rest of the time. Dawn joined us a little while after, they charged her $400.00 for a touch up which seemed a bit steep.

I was so tired and kinda in heaven to be sitting down for a few hours, I would sit up for awhile and chat and then put my head back down. I got yelled at for sleeping in the bar by the bartender but I couldn't help myself, even with all the loud chatting and music I was falling asleep. After we left the bar (several hours and several drinks for everyone but sleeping beauty later) Eddie took the subway with us back to Port Authority, the three of them walked over to Times Square and I planted myself in line waiting for the bus. The bus came about 30 (our bus wasn't until 1:30AM) minutes early and I was frantically texting them making sure they didn't miss it. It was so cute when Amanda boarded the bus she had this big grin on her face and I was like "Looks like someone had fun" and she was like "Oh yeah I did."

It was a super long day and I had a really good time despite the fact that I fell asleep anywhere I sat longer then 30 minutes (I felt like a grandpa). I was really glad I hit it off so well with Amanda, that neither of them got annoyed with my sleepiness, and I was really glad we met some nice people like Eddie, who was a joy to talk to. I have to say, I can't tell you how happy I was to come home to shower and lay in bed with my fiance and kitties. Next time I go back I will make sure to get plenty of sleep and actually eat more than once to keep my energy up!

This is one long-winded entry, I appreciate anyone who actually takes the time to read all of this (and ignore how poorly written it is). I'm going to leave you with pictures of my tiny amount of loot from Re/Dress and a store in Chinatown.