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NYC Vacation

This trip to NYC was filled with tourist adventures and celebrities encounters. I think that it would be easiest to just blueprint it:

Day one - arrival:

* I drove listening to “The Lovely Bones.” It is a great book and made the trip easy.

* I got to Jersey City around 7:30pm where I went to Jose’s house and hung out with Nicholas till Jose came home.

* Jose came home beat but took me to the JFK airport. Not with out complaint though.
I found Zakki waiting for his luggage, and then we both waited for it another hour, and Jose got even more irritated driving around the airport the whole time. Jose    drove us to the hotel, which was on 32nd and 5th next the Empire State Building and minutes away from Time Square. It wasn’t a pleasant drive. Jose and Nick didn’t say a word and made us feel very uncomfortable. When I asked him what are they doing next day after work he barked at me that he never does anything during the week, he goes to the gym and than he goes to bed. I realized then that I have made two major mistakes. First making the assumptions that all people have the same understanding of friendship and second that Jose really things of me as a friend.

* We got to the hotel (Grand Union Hotel), which was ok. We dropped our luggage and ran out to seek food. We ended up in a nice Korean restaurant where we ordered one dish each and got at least 12 small pleats with all kinds of weird stuff. As Beccam clarified for me we were in a Korean grill and that’s why they cooked the food on the table for us. It was cool.

Day Two - the celebrity sequence:

* We walked to Time Square to check what’s on Broadway.
* We looked at “Chicago,” “Stomped,” “Mamma Mia,” but then Zakki saw “The Glass Menagerie,” with Jessica Lange so “the Glass Menagerie” it was. Christian Slater was another nice addition to this play too.
* After we bought the tickets we decided that is time for lunch and wanted to have NY pizza. Big warning to everyone who had never had NY pizza - it’s is absolutely awesome but it has to be eaten one piece at the time. Never buy two, because you will eat them, which would cause the effect of a 9monts pregnancy. With bulged out 9 monthers we went to the Statue of Liberty. While waiting in line for the boat we watched for guys, like out of a circus, jumping over people and doing flips and back flips.

* I wasn’t 100 % sure that I wanted to see the statue up close because it is such a big myth that I was afraid to ruin it. But we had to go and have ice cream under the Statue of Liberty! I loved it, it was great - definitely recommended.
* We tried walking back but we had time only for half the walk and then got a cab to the hotel where we changed and ran to the play. While walking however, we heard a concert and stopped by to check it out. For a while we couldn’t figure out who was singing but then I read - on a small hand-written poster - that it was Lisa Marie Presley. Zakki continued wandering and when I went to tell him I blanked on the name and instead of saying Elvis’ daughter or just Presley I blurred “It’s Michael Jackson’s ex-wife” he died laughing and busted my ass for the rest of the time.

* We had underestimated the distance and made it to the theater just minutes before the play started. We weren’t last though - seconds before it started James Bond showed up. Yes, that’s right Pierce Brosnan sat in the audience and he sat on the sit right in front of me - I could count the hairs on his eyebrows. He stood right next to me outside during the break.

* We had dinner in Chelsea at the Dish (love this place)

* Than we went to G where we didn’t walk in, just smoked a cigarette and went home. We felt too full for drinks and hanging out.

Day Three - the shopping day:

* We first went to the Bulgarian embassy so that I can extend my passport. Anything that involves Bulgaria and administrative work is a horror so I’m not going into details.

* This time lunch was conducted in a French restaurant. I loved it. I’ve never been to France so I wouldn’t know but Zakki said it was very close. After lunch, drawn by Chelsea, we went to Circuit City so Zakki can by some electronics.

* In Chelsea we sat outside and did people watch over good coffee. That was a lot of fun.

* I decided that I wanna walk on 5th Avenue (I wanted to walk the street of Carry) and that’s how we bought 5th-Avenue-Jewls for Merry, Kety, and my Mom.

* Meanwhile we met with Peter who inlighted us about all kinds of cool tings to-do in NYC.
* This night (Friday), we went to Krash - a big ass club - and unexpectedly had a blast. I thought that because we are so exhausted we would just have a drink and head back home, but we ended up dancing like crazy till 4:00am.

* Starved to death after the club we ate the one most important and signature food for NYC - a hotdog form a street stand. Delusions I say.

Day Four - departure:

* We got up with big head aches and hung over, packed our bags and went to meet up for lunch with Hwei (Zakki’s friend). The weapon of choice for lunch was the people-watch place in Chelsea from the day before. Lovely view.

* To settle the food we took a walk to Time Square and the Museum of Wax. This Museum was a fair closure of an amazing trip. On the way out we made special crystal cubes with our faces bubbled in by laser for our Moms.

* Than followed a sad separation, I felt like a little kid at the end of a summer camp.

* I met with Peter for coffee and about 7:30 took off.

Of course there was a lot more to the trip but that pretty much sums it up in a nut shell.

Ego Scratch

Everyone needs a little ego boost every once in a while, even me. Well I didn’t ask for it, it was simply there. I’d never, even in a million years, think that something like this would happen to me. Especially now that I’m - what? - 10 years after high school graduation. I suppose it’s never late to have a high-school-like admirer. Here’s what I found on the counter at the bank I work:

LOL
What’s even funnier - this same day I was talking to Kate when this big al, black construction guy approaches and says:
“Boy you look like someone from the movies.”
“Huh?” I say
“You look like you are from a movie.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are so good looking and handsome…”
“Uhhh, thanks, I guess…”

That was really funny. Kate and I laughed for the rest of the day. She was a bit scared because she is afraid that I’m pretty self-confidant the way it is - “Oh, god that’s all you need now,” she said.

A Saturday

Thursday night I went to the Blue Anchor, it’s a Steff’s night. She was a wild girl, mildly said. I guess she had had one too many drinks and she remained me of a dancing tornado. I thing that the next hurricane should be named after her - hurricane Stephanie. If I were dancing as much as her it would be a torrential downpour. I thing I offended her when I told her that she acted as a tramp dancing with everybody…

Friday I worked, studied, worked out and at the end of the day I ended up at “Trasharbellies” where I had a couple of drinks with the gang, and consequently another late night. This night before I went out I performed excessive receptionist skills. A while ago I had invited my friend Jose from NYC to come down for 4th of July, that’s how it all started. We touched bases last week and he said he is coming with his BF and I figured not a big deal I’ll book 2 rooms. Then my friend Ricardo said that he and Peter are coming too. It comes to find out that Gary and Mark want to join us as well as Mark’s friends Michael and Darvel. Uh, almost forgot that Ricardo’s X wanted to come too. Starting with one person coming to visit we ended up being a pack of ten. I know the manager of the Burch House (my favorite guesthouse in Ptown) so I took the initiative to coordinate the whole thing with booking the rooms. It only took me 2 hours calling back and forth Jose, Mark, Peter, Jose, Gary, Ricardo - craziness. At the end I was determent to drive to Ptown so that I can talk to the owner in person.I also wanted to bring back some of Dennis’ shit that I had brought to my house 2 weeks ago when he moved. Said and done.

Saturday was a veeeeeeeryyyyy long day. I got up at 6.30 to finish up some studying for my midterm in Advanced Taxation. Went to class, took the test, learned some more and then home. I ate lunch talked to Zakki on the phone (in my lunch break) trying to rest, but was restless. Since Saturday is a cardio day I decided to run to the gym and back. It is 20 minutes in one direction. Did that worked on abs and shoulders and ran back home to find out that I’ve lost the key for the house. Keyless, phoneless, walletless, carrless, etc. Also exhausted to death had to drag my ass back to the gym to look for my key. Walked and ran, walked and ran to finally not find the key. Advised by Mark had to crawl back home and break into the house. So I did. The main problem still was time. I still had to shower load the car and drive to Mashpee to do brakes.

Miraculously I made it right on time. Cliff helped me jack-up the car and to take the whiles off. In two beers time Tommy showed up and taught me how to do front brakes, he did the driver’s side and I did the passenger’s. We were done in less than an hour and I saved $250. The time was 8:00pm and I headed towards Ptown for negotiations. That went well, and as of today all 10 of us have booked their rooms for 4th of July.

Rapture

Rap ture
n.
1. The state of being transported by a lofty emotion; ecstasy.
2. An expression of ecstatic feeling. Often used in the plural.
3. The transporting of a person from one place to another, especially to heaven.

tr.v. rap tured, rap tur ing, rap tures
To enrapture.

[Obsolete French, abduction, carrying off, from rapt, carried away, from Old French rat, from Latin raptus. See rapt.]

n .
1: a state of being carried away by overwhelming emotion; “listening to sweet music in a perfect rapture”- Charles Dickens [syn: ecstasy, transport, exaltation, raptus]
2: a state of elated bliss [syn: ecstasy]

Complacency

Com pla cen cy
n.
1. A feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger, trouble, or controversy.
2. An instance of contented self-satisfaction.

n :
the feeling you have when you are satisfied with yourself; “his complacency was absolutely disgusting”
[syn:complacence, self-complacency, self-satisfaction]

Precious Little Thing

I first saw it, subconsciously, in a TV commercial but didn’t really registered what it was all about. All I fathomed was the song “big black ‘boobs’, long brown hair”, the dark silhouette of an awesomely dancing girl and the tiny white wires of the headphones - cool commercial. Then I encountered it - live - on 4th of July last year - Ricardo had one - it contained a few thousand songs! My NYC visit, for new years, solidified the importance of it. I realized that “you ain’t no G” if you don’t carry an IPOD in NYC. “I come from the countryside” and my life style doesn’t have room for this expensive toy but I figured that my brother lives in the city and he is always bike riding and music listening so he has to have one.

I got it a week ago and I put it in a nice silicon ipod skin, I held it in my hand I stared at it and the words slipped out of my mouth - “My Preciousssssssss!” I didn’t want to put it down, I wanted it for MEeeeee, I wanted to clutch it, I wanted to just sit and stare at it, I wanted to caress it, I wanted to carry it around. I hadn’t even loaded any music in it…

Emo’s homework is to find 15,000 songs!

Ecstatic

Ecstatic
adj.
1. Marked by or expressing ecstasy.
2. Being in a state of ecstasy; joyful or enraptured.

[French extatique, from Greek ekstatikos, from ekstasis, distraction. See ecstasy.]

Ec stat ic

adj : feeling great rapture or delight [syn: enraptured, rapturous, rhapsodic]

Infatuation

Infatuation
n.
1. A foolish, unreasoning, or extravagant passion or attraction. See Synonyms at love.
2. An object of extravagant, short-lived passion.

in fat u a tion
n 1: foolish and usually extravagant passion or love or admiration
2: temporary love of an adolescent [syn: puppy love, calf love, crush]
3: an object of extravagant short-lived passion

Vanity Affair

The resplendent and un-reflect-able “desperate house wives” are on the cover of Vanity Affair. I Love them, love them, love them! This is my first run-home soap - I make sure that I’m always home by 9pm on Sunday so I can watch the wives. LOL How funny is that?

Speaking of vanity guess who quit smoking, again, and is now running everyday for the last 4 days! That would be me.

As long planned, I’m going to NYC next week and I’m bringing with me as little fat as possible.

Running outside was the best experience I’ve had in years. I can’t believe that I haven’t done it before. Incredible I tell ya.

         All the nature flowing through my body,
          Inhaling fresh, crisp air.
          Smelling the aromas of the neighborhood -
          Fireplaces, dinner, cookies, laundry…
          Breathing the fascinating, spry fragrance of spring -
          The flowers, the bushes, mowed lawns, old trees and pounds.
          The sound of it, the sound of innumerable birds and crickets.
          The thought of youth, health and potentness -
          A hope for a bright and happy morrow.