nyc trip

Finally an update about the trip to NY (three days after I got back, of course):

Friday night I flew out of Syracuse. The plane was delayed. Annoying. The guy next to me on the plane was a sophomore from SUNY Oswego, and would not SHUT UP the whole way. Like 15 minutes before we landed, he finally overheard the girls behind us talking about smoking pot, and they turned out to be from the same college, so he started talking to them instead. I got to NY around 9:30ish and it took about an hour to take the Air Train to Jamaica and then the subway to the club where I met Susan, along with her sisters and some other people she knew. Susan and I chatted and such and eventually I ended up talking to her friend Anthony for most of the night. He was okay, but kind of aggravating because he was drunk and kept whining about how he's fat, bald, and old (none of which were actually true) and kept bringing up awkward conversation topics (like body hair) and also kept talking about all these art exhibits I should see. Pretentious drunks are tiring, especially when they bring up obscure modern artists and expect me to know every name they mention. Remind me not to tell artsy NY people what my field of study is anymore. I ended up practically falling asleep around 2 a.m., so I went back to Susan's sister Jackie's apartment and fell asleep, while Sus and Jackie stayed out until something like 5 a.m. even though Susan had class Saturday morning at 9 a.m.

So Saturday I slept really late for the first time in weeks, then went to the International Photography Museum for three hours. The museum is only two big rooms, but there was so much stuff there. It was organized really well, because even though there was a ton of stuff, it was all spread way out, so it didn't feel cramped. I'm really mad at myself for not writing down the name of this one artist... his (or her, I don't even remember that much) piece was these two MASSIVE (I'm talking like seven feet tall by nine feet wide) crystal clear photographs of a forest at night. But there was no flash, so it was really, really dark, and all you could see was the few tree trunks right in front, and even those were dark grey from the lack of light, with complete black emptiness behind them. It was so ghostly and beautiful. And I was really impressed with the quality, considering how big these were. You could see every little wrinkle in the bark. It was incredible.

Saturday night Susan and I went to a sushi restaurant with Sus' friend Erica. The restaurant was actually pretty cheap. My meal was only $15. The place was interesting... there were disco balls and weird stuff painted on the walls, and a DJ. It was set up like a club, basically. Then we went club/bar-hopping on the lower East Side (I think) with Erica's friend Rachel. First we went to some bar where there happened to be a burlesque show. The show itself was kind of lame because one of the dancers really sucked, but the host was hilarious. He was this monstrously tall gay guy in clear plastic stripper heels and a sparkly bright blue spandex suit from head to toe that had bunny ears and a tail. And he kept making fun of the people sitting in front because apparently they were acting prude. We eventually sauntered over to a couple other places. The first one seemed cool, but Erica and Rachel didn't like it, so they insisted on leaving. Then we found some place called "The Annex," which ended up being unexpectedly cool. They played kind of punk music, but stuff you could dance to, and at one point played "Under Pressure" by David Bowie and Queen. Unfortunately it was a tad too dark, so it was hard to tell if people were cute or not, but nobody really paid us any attention there anyways, so it didn't so much matter.

Sunday Susan and I went to Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, and hung out with her friends Jason and Brad. We went to this "artists' show," which turned out to be people selling homemade clothes and buttons, and old records and stuff. Hipster stuff, basically. Then ended up at a park and later got cheap dinner in a Mexican restaurant. I want to move there SO BAD.

Monday I hung out with Jon Hansen, and was going to hang out with Brad again, but didn't so much feel like it later and preferred to hang out with Jon, considering we haven't seen eachother in months. So we walked all over the city for like six hours and talked and talked. It was really cathartic. And we must have walked something like 10 miles. We ended up in Chinatown, South Street Seaport, Union Square, the East Village, walked all the way down Broadway until we reached some sketchy area... it was a lot of walking, needless to say.

Monday night I caught a 9:00 plane back. It was delayed. Again. So I got home late and was totally exhausted. Good times.