New York, New York!

Monday, June 8th, we headed down to NY for one hell of a crazy adventure.
I left work at 3pm and myself, Chris and Scottie headed out almost right away.  The ride down to the Poughkeepsie train station was a breeze, and parking was cheap and easy ($5 for 24 hours), and we hopped on our train ($14 one-way for off-peak).  Jen was going to meet us there.

It's always a pleasant ride on the way down, being right on top of the Hudson, and getting cool vistas that you normally don't get to see.  The river gets so wide in some areas, it's practically a bay.

By a happy accident we got on the express train, and our trip had about 1/4 of the stops we would normally have had, and a two hour trip came in at just under an hour and a half.

We exited the station via Grand Central, and I still can't help but look up in wonder at that bad-ass ceiling.  After some minor squabbling about which side street to hail a cab on, we hopped in, and about $10 later we were at our place of lodging.

Due to an excellent tip from my favorite blog All Over Albany, we decided to sublet an actual apartment, rather than pay for an expensive hotel room.  We used the rental service Airbnb.  We found an excellent little apartment right on Carmine Street in Greenwich village for $225 a night, or $70 a person split four ways.  Since Jen was driving up from Philly, she went to pick up the keys in Brooklyn.  Yeah, the company that was subletting the apartment's office was in Brooklyn, which was pain in the ass #1.

We walked into our apartment and it was small, but quite nice.  There was a sizable master bedroom overlooking pretty gardens and patios, a decent living room with a comfy couch, small dining room table and a huge flat screen tv, and just off the living room there was another smaller bedroom, but large enough for a desk and a full sized bed.  The kitchen was minuscule but functional.  Overall, it was very cute.

We were mildly surprised and miffed when we read the literature left on the coffee table by the hotel: there was a $5 fee if we used a towel (wtf?? That's pain in the ass #2), and "curfew" is at 10pm.  I get that you can't be up all night hollering and making noise, but 10 seems a bit early.  It's NYC for chrissakes.  That's pain in the ass #3.  Overall, it was positive experience, but they need to knock it off with the weird extra fees (if you check in after 8pm you have to pay extra. Huh??).


Well, we dropped off our stuff and headed right back out to eat at one of my favorite joints, the Slaughtered Lamb.  It was right around the corner, and I was already salivating over the prospect of diving into their awesome shepherd's pie. It's modeled after the pub in An American Werewolf in London (one of my favorite movies) that they wander into before they get lost on the moor.  Upstairs it is modeled after a British pub, and downstairs is modeled after a dungeon.  The dungeon was closed, but we had a pretty memorable experience anyway.

We met our friend Amanda outside, and in we went.  We got a table in the back and ordered drinks.  I was sad to discover that they no longer carry Full Moon Ale, their own microbrew, which I loved.  I settled for Hoegaarden instead.  I also ordered their oh-so-wonderful shepherd's pie.

DROOL.

Our server was a rather interesting cool-yet-scary-dominatrix type, and she and Scottie decided to do a car bomb race.  Lets just say, she won by a long shot.  Scottie's punishment was to take a whipping, literally, with his own belt.

After that, we moved on to the Fat Black Pussycat.  We stumbled upon this place by accident on one of our last trips there, and we loved it.  I was fortunate enough to discover that you can actually reserve a table in their lounge, and your tab will be 1/2 off!

Their Moroccan lounge is full of antique furniture, tapestries and all sorts of coolness.  We were seated in a cozy corner next to a full-sized replica of an Egyptian Sarcophagus, of which we took great advantage for photo ops.

The other perk to the lounge is that you have a server at your beck and call.  There was quite a bit of imbibing going on, and that 1/2 price tab really came in handy.

Afterward, we stopped into a late-night college bar.  I can't for the life of me remember the name of the place, but it was cool.  They had great beer specials, a porch swing (yes, a porch swing- inside) and a foozball (sp?) table. Everyone in my group who attempted foozball against the college guys promptly got their asses handed to them, but it was all in good fun.

It turns out, they really don't want you wandering around Washington Square park in the wee hours, and we got yelled at while laying on the ground under the arch.  We scattered, but not before Chris got his picture taken with one of New York's finest.

Next, Jen and I went to move the car to a garage, as she was only in a short term parking spot.  After driving around we finally found one in SoHo practically on top of the river.  Fine, but we had to walk back. Alone. At 3am.  It was a little scary but obviously everything was fine.  We bought two 6 packs and went back to our hotel.  10pm curfew? Suck it.  We finally crashed somewhere in the neighborhood of 6am.  We had to check out by 11am.  In other words, we all had to be up by 9 to pack up, shower and get out of there.  Ugh.

Somehow, I felt okay the next day.  The one who was in the worst shape of all was Scottie.  He looked like he could seriously hurl at any moment.  We found a nice place to have brunch on the sidewalk (it was a beautiful day) and ordered up typical hangover brunch goodness.

YUM.

After lunch we walked around the park a bit, and then we popped into the Plaza Hotel (where they filmed Home Alone 2) and the toy superstore F.A.O. Schwartz (from the movie Big).  The toy store had a kickass Harry Potter display, and I wanted to move in and be happy there forever.  We briefly drooled over the engagement rings at Tiffany, and moved on.

Onward to Comedy Central studios for our taping of the Daily Show!  You see, I "like" the Daily Show on facebook, and I happened to be tooling around on there when what should pop up on my news feed, but an announcement that tickets have opened up!  I jumped on it, scored the tix, and voila! There we were.  The tickets are free, but you still have to show up early to get a good spot.  They overbook the shows to ensure that all the seats are filled, and if you snooze you lose.  

The studio itself was a rather unassuming building, with no signage except for a poster of John Stewart on the one side of the building.  We waited, and waited...for two hours we sat, nursing our hangovers, waiting until the big moment when we would be called into the studio.  Finally that time came, and we filed in, went through security, and walked in.  The studio is surprisingly intimate, with seating for perhaps 300, with wires and microphones everywhere.  Sadly, no photography was allowed inside.

A comedian came out to warm up the crowd, and then John Stewart came out for some Q&A.  He was very funny and engaging, and it was a lot of fun.  Then, it was time to tape the show.  They get right to business very quickly, and it's filmed in real time.  You can look up on the monitor and see exactly what the show will look like when it airs at home.  You can see the teleprompter and the cameras and all that good "production" stuff.  The show relies on the audience to laugh and clap as loud as you can, because there are no phony laugh or applause tracks.  The guest was Christopher Hitchens, and he came out to discuss his new memoir.  He was funny and as dry as a martini.  You can watch the episode here, if you are so inclined.

After that, Jen drove us back.  We hopped right on the West Side Highway, crossed the GW Bridge, and headed toward home.  It was pretty smooth sailing out of NYC and through New Jersey, but right as we were crossing the Mid-Hudson bridge at 11pm to get back to the Poughkeepsie train station (to pick up our car), traffic came to a sudden standstill.  I am not a huge fan of tall bridges, and here I was, stuck smack in the middle of one, for an hour and a half. Why?  Because some asshat poor troubled soul was threatening to jump.  Fortunately, he did not jump, and we were finally able to proceed to the station and pick up the car.  By this point, the combination of hangover, three hours of sleep and the overall drainage you experience on any trip left us fully exhausted.  Chris' and my contact lenses were fogging up, Scottie was unconscious in the back, and Jen (now in front of us) started to fall asleep at the wheel.  We pulled off at the rest stop closer to home (New Baltimore?), let her walk around a bit, and continued home.  We made it in one piece, and slept like we've never slept before.  And had to get up the next morning for work.  Fun!

Overall, it was a fun, crazy trip.  We crammed about a week's worth of living into 36 hours and heck, I'd do it again tomorrow.  I just might not stay up until 6am this time.