After making a stop at the Yale campus, we make our way into New York City. We drop off our stuff at my friend Brett’s place and head into town for dinner. We walk around the lower east side, hitting a couple happy hours and trying some sweet potato sushi. FYI: “2-4-1” beer deals at Asian fusion restaurants in NYC only apply to when you drink both beers yourself. So we’re a few beers deep when we meet Amy and Johnny, Steve’s college friends, for dinner at Lombardi’s in little Italy.
As I’m writing this in the car on the way to Philly, Steve brings up how unimpressive New York pizza was, and I agree. So it turns out Chicago style is not only my preference in terms of life, but also pizza. But the dinner is a lot of fun, and I manage to embarrass Steve multiple times—a surefire sign of a good outing. As we leave the restaurant, Amy points out a “famous” dessert place, so I immediately run over and grab something. By the time Steve comes out, I have already returned with an ‘Epic’ sized dessert from this place, which is basically a super sweet rice pudding with chocolate chips and cherries. We share it as we walk to the Continental, a bar that we have chosen for its any 5 shots for $10 deal. It is extremely divey—very dark interior, black & white cartoons projected onto the back wall—but we make the most of it. We take advantage of the deal twice for a few ill-advised rounds of tequila, then decide to leave the bar on an upswing of drunkenness. On the subway ride back home, Steve and I have a discussion on a new kind of prenuptial agreement: if either person gains >40 pounds within the first year of a relationship, the other person has the right to end the relationship without feeling bad about it. Everyone else on the subway hates us.
The next day we lazily wake up and head into town for a day of basketball. Not playing basketball, silly! College basketball! Michigan played at 2:30, so we hit a Michigan bar called Professor Thom’s to watch the glorious and decisive win. We stayed there till about 7, then headed next door to Finnegan’s to play pool. A long lost friend from high school, Jenelle, met us there and showed us how much we sucked at pool. A random 40-some year old dude joined in for a few games, and he told stories of hitchhiking cross country when we told him what we were up to. Steve kept referring to him as his uncle. I bought us all a round of tequila. It was weird but great.
On our final day in NYC, we drove to my friend Mo’s place in Brooklyn to pick up 144 custom-made shot glasses. Steve & I bought these as gifts for all the people that we run into, and especially those that we stay with, along the trip. They’re amazing. You want one, I know. Well, let us stay with you then. Then we hit another sports bar called the Village Lantern for the Michigan game at 6:30 (which didn’t go as well as the previous day’s game) and some beer pong. Steve & I tear it up and won 3 games in a row. My superb beer pong abilities attracted the attention of a little lady named Lauren, who I talked with for a while. When I brought up my future job at BigMachines, I was astounded—she had actually heard of them! My little 100 person industry specific enterprise had contacted her for PR, as she works for an industry magazine. Amazing! We all went to a club for a little while, but eventually the night must end. I walked her to a cab, and as Steve & I walked to the subway I picked up a thoroughly unimpressive Big Mac.
It’s Saturday morning, and we’re driving to Philly to pick up a Philly cheesesteak at Pat’s, where the cheesesteak was invented. Then we’ll continue down to Washington D.C., where American democracy and independence were invented. Then we’ll go to a bar, where bad decisions are invented.
