This was Niko's, a friend of Alex's who I met here in NYC, last weekend in the city, so we decided to do something special for him. Or, rather, I was looking for an excuse to host a gathering of sorts at my house this weekend. I guess it was partially a knee-jerk reaction to being pissed about not living in the East Village and trying to convince myself that I could still have some fun up here on the Upper-East-Side, even if I know the truth deep down in my heart ;o) ! Earlier in the week I had invited some people that I'd met the previous weekend up to my place on Saturday for Pisco Sours and some other cocktails.
With this event in mind, I was planning for a mellow Friday evening so I went to yoga for the extended session and felt great afterwards. Niko and I decided to meet up and have a beer down at Zum Schneider, an authentic Bavarian beer garden in the heart of the East Village. It was quite authentic, down to the weiss-wurst breakfast sausages they served and the Oktoberfest-style beer they served in quantities of up to one liter. We were on a budget (cash only!), so we had a drink and some sausages before heading out. We were going to meet up with Sean afterwards at the hookah bar next to his apartment, but he was nowhere to be found. They wouldn't let us into the place because, as usual, we were two guys. We decided to wander down towards the Lower East Side instead of waiting around and we dropped into various places to see if we could find something interesting. Eventually, we came across Welcome to the Johnsons, which was serving $2 PBRs and had a pool table and an interesting crowd. The place was totally retro and we played some pool while chatting it up with the crowd there. After we left there, we headed home and made an extended pit stop at a place to use their restrooms. We ended up hanging out with some people there for a bit before they closed. By this time, the sausages had worn off, so we had breakfast at a great all-night place that I've had brunch at before called 7A-Cafe. Lots of good food at really cheap prices!
Back in March, The Peruvian girls brought a bit of their culture up when they came to visit. It was called "Pisco", and it's used to make the classic South American drink called Pisco Sours, which are similar to a frozen margarita with lots of sugar, limes, ice, and egg whites. I had a bit of Pisco left over, so I invited people over to help me finish it off.
You know the Six Degrees of Seperation rule? Well, based on my calculations, I think we broke that rule on Saturday, unless there's another route to some of the people that were here. D know Cathy. Cathy knows me. I know Sean. Sean knows Melissa. Melissa grew up with Sarah. Sarah is roommates with Karen. Karen is sisters with Cindy. Cindy knows Francis. Francis was friends in college with Jeff. That's nine degrees right there. Sweet!
The party was epic. iTunes was providing our music, I provided the Pisco Sours, Melissa
provided some rum, and the young Germans provided....Natty Ice :o| . That's okay, there were enough alternatives that I didn't have to drink any of that stuff. They're young kids, what else do you expect?After hanging out here for a few hours, Karen had a birthday party to go to for her former boss down in the LES, so we saddled up in the cabs and headed down to a new Austrian (!!) place called Thor. I hadn't been there before, but some of us had seen them building the place a while back and when we asked what kind of place it was going to be, they didn't even know at the time because they'd just hired a chef and hadn't figured out what it was going to be yet. Ultra-modern places don't really belong in the LES, but I guess eventually everything gets modernized at one time or another in the city.
Once the bar was ready for everyone to leave, they started playing classical waltz music. Little did they know that we had Germans and Bavarians (important distinction!) among us! Do they know how to waltz? Of course! Wait, uhhh...Niko. THAT'S not the waltz! I think that was invented sometime during the movie....Dirty Dancing.
Niko was quite the entertainment that night. At one point he used the restroom, where he was smiled at by the pretty lady that cleans the bathrooms. As usual, he didn't have any cash so he ran upstairs to borrow some cash from his Bavarian friend Marcus. He ran back downstairs and got a really big smile from the bathroom lady. He came back up and Marcus said "did you give her the whole thing?" Marcus gave him a $5 bill and he thought it was a single dollar. With no shame, he walked back down to the bathrooms and asked for $4 back. Oh Niko....
After Thor closed up, we went over to this guy Jeff's house. Turns out that he brews his own
beer and ciders in his small apartment in the East Village. On the walk over there, Niko discovered an abandoned Power Wheels jeep on the side of the rode. So he pushed Cindy down the First Avenue, across Houston, all the way until the car swerved out of control and crashed into a tree :-\ . RIP!Jeff does a really good job with his brewing, I might add. I tasted his Brown Ale and it was tasty with a hint of chocolate and hazlenut. He had quite a big selection to choose from and even had a few on tap in his apartment. But alas, people started to drift off and the night was due to end sometime before sunset.
Everyone headed home at about 5:15 in the morning and I got to bed by 5:30. My sleep schedule was all messed up by this point. My body was thinking that I must have gotten on a plane and landed in Europe six hours ahead at some point in the last 48 hours. I woke up at 1:30 on Sunday, fell asleep watching a movie at about 8:00, woke up at 11:00 and couldn't sleep until 3:00am. Monday it was more of the same, not being able to sleep until after midnight despite the limited amount of sleep the night before. It was an epic weekend, though.
J. Riley, I like the word "Epic". My least favorite is "insomnia"...
No comments:
Post a Comment