2012: Red Bull and Belvedere

At the start of 2012, I was able to cross off another one of my 88 life goals and experience New Year's Eve in New York City.

Getting to NYC from Pittsburgh was a bit of an epic adventure.  I took a megabus.  Now, I'm not as snooty as I portray myself...I have no qualms about taking a bus if it saves me a ridiculous amount of money (which it did).  But, the other people that are on the bus don't seem to have the same standards for travel, etiquette, and hygiene that I practice.  The yinzer that sat next to me answered telephone calls all night.


He was a super-masculine dude, so the conversation went like this:

"Wassup? What's good? (pause) Nah.  Nah. Nah.  (pause)  Damn." over and over and over again.

He was nothing compared to the two drunks in front of us, who had snuck on Gatorade and vodka.  They thought they were clever.  I thought they were schmucks.

Anyway, I eventually got into NYC and I was quickly able to meet up with 10 of my closest friends.  Though I have a bunch of friends in New York, I have a group of 3 fraternity brothers that live in the center of Manhattan.  Since they offered me a spot on their couch, I happily made my way to them.  They had offered the same spot to a bunch of other people...so it was a bit crowded for a tiny Manhattan flat.

Most of us.  A few were missing.  Really.

It's strange, but the entire time that I was getting ready...I just had this overwhelming smile on my face.  Moving is tough on friendships, but it is definitely quick and easy to jump back in and see everyone.  To have someone do your hair, borrow a tie from someone, and tell people that they can't wear running shoes to a club is just so lovely.

Asian w/ Asian food.

Before we all went out to the bar, we went to this Korean BBQ restaurant, where we joined by another 15 people.  In total, we had 27 people.  That's a lot of nerds in one little place.

I had never been to have Korean food before, and I had never seen a restaurant so proud of it's one star review rating from the NY Times.  Seriously, they put it on every single menu (front and back), and then blew it up and plastered it all over the store.  Not only was it a one-star rating, but it was really harsh...I think there might have been some translation errors in that decision.

But, whatever, the food was good and I had fun talking to a bunch of people.

After dinner, we walked the half mile to go to The Hill, a NYC bar where we had purchased tickets for an open bar adventure.  We got there right around 9, whenever the open bar started.

The open bar was a real open bar, not a fake open bar that is just wine and beer.  Let's cut to the chase, I got super drunk (so did everyone else though).

I'm not sure who was the first person to notice it, but I know that within 20 minutes of arriving, I had a Red Bull/Belvedere in my hand.  Two after that, and then I was on Patron and pineapple.  At one point, I just asked the bartender to make me something that I wouldn't be able to afford any other night.  It was seriously beautiful.

Old friends

New Friends

Making fun of Theta.

We all walked home and spent the night without any problems.  Nick and I screamed at every restaurant that we wanted to stop and get food, but alas, no one listened.  (I think that my fraternity brothers were just inadvertently holding me accountable to my new year's resolutions.)

I had an amazing time, and once everyone got up, I found a ride back to West Virginia.  (How awesome are my friends to drive me back from New York City all the way to my Daddy's doorstep in West Virginia?)  The trip was fun, and fraught with adventure.  We may have gotten lost, ended up in Maryland and then screamed when we saw a group of Amish people in the road.

2012, definitely had a great start. Let's hope that it will continue!