It'd been about 5 years I think since I last saw my friend Robin and, although we had fun, we were both aware that our lives had taken us in different directions so it was a little awkward at times. I stayed with her and her 4 roommates in their eccentric artsy loft in Brooklyn. It was once a pickle factory and Robin's room was the elevator shaft...
The part of Brooklyn where she lives is a very trendy part of town and I don't think I've ever seen so many hipsters centrally located in one area. Not necessarily my crowd of choice to hang out with but I had the experience of going to a dinner party where I met a girl with a tampon-firecracker tattoo (explanation: she goes off once a month) and another with her cat's alter ego. So, friends and family, you are no longer ever allowed to give me crap about my tattoos ever again :) I also went to a techno warehouse party where I'm pretty sure I was the only one not on drugs...including the bouncer as I was able to sneak in and not pay the cover (thank god because it was SOOOOO totally not worth it).
Some of my favorite parts of the trip was when we rode bicycles through the city to go eat brunch. It was a really cool way to see the city. And at once point in time I was able to head off on my own and it was in a way liberating to know that I could find my way around the big apple by my self! Robin isn't too keen on the touristy stuff in New York so I got to see the stuff she likes to go to often and she still humored me one day and let me see Central Park, Rockefeller Plaza, Coney Island, Little Italy, Chinatown, museum row, Times Square, Statue of Liberty etc!
As far as the title of this blog goes....the bathroom in Robin's loft was NASTY (like "my name ain't baby - it's Janet. Ms. Jackson if you're nasty" nasty!) Everytime I went in there there was about 4 inches of stagnant water that never drained and had a brownish hue to it (reminiscent of diarrhea water to me - sorry for that visual!). So the first shower I took was on my 3rd day there (Saturday morning) when we spent the night at Robin's guy friends apt and he had a nice place. The 2nd (if you can even call it that) was on the Tuesday morning before I left. I was in desperate need of a good hairwashing (as you can imagine) so I managds to just duck my head under the faucet. After that - I climbed the edge of the tub (with flip flops, mind you!) and straddled the diarrhea water in attempts to wash my body. After the fact I realized that pretty much everyone working out in the gym across the street saw my awkward naked exhibition shower show as there are no curtains in the bathroom.... Sweet.
I met a lot of cool people though, like Robin's friend Steph-who took us to a tenement museum, Nate-who changes the scoreboard at Fenway Park, and Shawn-a sassy australian who is just traveling for the sake of traveling. It never ceases to amaze me all the different kinds of people you meet in the world!
Anyways! Here are some photos of my trip!
The skyline! We didn't have great weather on my trip, but oh well! It's happens!
Steph, Robin, and I after the tenement museum.
Empire State Building at night!
Some of the peeps I met hanging out playing pool at a bar after the odd party.
Eating a cannoli in Little Italy Yum Yum!
Cupcakes outside the famous Magnolia bakery (Featured in Sex and the City is what I'm told!)
Time Square (advertisement overload)
Getting ready to cycle the city!
More food! Eating one of the greatest burgers ever at the Shake Shake! I really need to start working out again after this trip!
Robin, Shawn, Christine, and I killing time at night.
A very sad and run down Coney Island.
Robin's elevator shaft (complete with gears on the wall still!)I have plenty more pictures so let me know if you want to see anything else! In addition to this trip I've been keeping busy. Before I left I went to a Tiki party with friends (where I ended up gracefully breaking a screen door by running face first into it!) and since I've been back, one of my friends took me to see a Cirque du Soleil show here! If you haven't heard yet, I'll be back in Michigan July 3-13 so I'll see you all soon! Bye!
