Luckily Victor hadn’t drank the night before, so he started out driving – at 6 a.m.! – though he hadn’t slept, either, and he wasn’t even that good of a driver sober, so it probably didn’t make that much of a difference. Meanwhile, after a lot of haircuts and only 3 hours of sleep, I was in no mood to do anything except pass out in the back seat for a few hours. When I drifted back into consciousness periodically I’d hear tire squealing and frequent screaming – “For God’s sake, Victor, keep your hands on the wheel!”, “Stop Rolling Down the Window!”, “For God’s sake, Victor, keep the car on the road!”, things like that. This leg was supposed to take 45 minutes, but it was at least 3 hours before we reached Lafayette, Vic’s college, nestled in the hills of Easton, Pennsylvania. Vic showed us around a little bit, and I imagine it would have looked pretty if it weren’t for all the snow and ice and my desire to pass out again. Imagine my surprise half an hour later when my friends shook me awake & told me what they had just realized – we had four minutes to run down the hill and across town to reach our bus before it left for New York. “Are you ready to run?” Bob asked. I was about as ready to run as I was to land a space shuttle on the sun at this point, but it didn’t matter; by the time we actually got all of our shit together the bus was gone.

We decided to take a later bus to New York City (not that we had much of a choice anyway), where we’d meet Jon’s lady friend Caitlin, who lives on Long Island, where we’d be staying for two days. There was no way in hell we were going to take our car to New York City just to have it wrecked and stolen, so Vic, Jon and I had to pack some small bags with a few changes of clothes, while Bob grabbed his 12-pack of Pibb Xtra and was ready to go (I dare you to find out what exactly makes it ‘Xtra’, by the way). We arrived an hour or so later than we were supposed to in NYC, but hey, we’re used to falling behind schedule.

And who better to welcome us to the Big Apple than Jigglypuff herself? Well, technically it was just a bus with a pokemon ad on it waiting outside the station, but I thought it was cute to see my favorite Smash Brothers character five minutes into the gritty city, nonetheless. Now, Jon and I had never been to New York, so we were wowed by the tall buildings, the throngs of people, the psychotic cabs, the bums pissing on the street and all that. Bob and Vic weren’t virgins to the area so they were somewhat less impressed (later I’d find out that Vic was pretty bored since he’d been there so many times, though it’s pretty hard to entertain him without nubile young women most of the time). But man, New York City is huge in every aspect of the word. The streets, the stores, the ads, even the damn pigeons. Our first order of business was to meet Cait and her friends at the base of the Empire State Building, which we managed after roughly an hour of security checks. We met Cait and her friend Jess, and Jess’s friends from school Sarah, Brianne and Kim (five girls and four guys? I like those odds! But I digress…) We men figured the best course of action would be to wander around the city aimlessly until we found something interesting to do, though the ladies vetoed that, which was probably a good idea. We saw Macy’s, the world’s largest store (have they really measured every store on the planet?) and some bizarre video store that had a million cartoon videos but, oddly enough, did not carry Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!. We visited Times Square, where I had the immense pleasure of flipping the bird at MTV studios – surprisingly I didn’t get shot by anyone misinterpreting my valiant proclamation of countercultural indie rock sensibilities. Following this we went to the Times Square Toys R’ Us, a ridiculously huge store with a 3-story ferris wheel, a motorized Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Pepsi museum (?). We were treated to a dramatic reading of “Peek-a-Boo Zoo” by a staff member, calling out “Who! Eats! The eucalyptus! Leaves!… Who?!… Peek!… A-Boo!” and so on. It was a wholly enriching experience, plus Jon and I got pats on the head.

We lunched at the high-class, one-of-a-kind dining experience known as… McDonald’s. Look, we’re college students, alright? When we’re old and retired we’ll eat at the Peppercorn Duck Club. Vic decided he didn’t want anything to eat right away, so he just stood near the entrance and combed his hair for a while (what hair? I wonder, looking back). Now you have to remember that we were lugging our bags around, and we weren’t exactly dressed to kill – Vic did look kinda homeless. Maybe that’s why one of the employees told him to leave the restaurant, apparently because he was loitering. He said he wanted to go sit with his friends, but the lady wouldn’t believe him and kicked him out (she said his exact words were “I am looking for some friends,” which actually sounds like something he might mumble). Normally we’d say it was racially motivated, but the lady was Latino, and minorities are usually only out to get one another in the white man’s Hollywood, so I chalk that one up to Victor just being Victor, or a really stupid lady. At any rate, Bob raised hell and got a free extra value meal out of it, so it’s all good.

Next came the portion absolutely necessary to any NYC trip but that which we also secretly dreaded: the subway ride. (the other essential NYC experience is to be involved in a hit-and-run accident with a taxi. This never happened.) Tourist guides and the like will tell you not to make eye contact with anyone else on the subway, for your own safety. I thought this was kind of an exaggeration – I stared at everyone and only got dirty looks and a knife in the arm. The best part of the ride was that Bob somehow broke his Metro card but refused to get another (that would require a whole two dollars), and went to complain (for the second time in an hour), though no extra value meal this time. We managed to get through the subway without being mugged or killed, but we were, however, headed in the exact opposite direction of where we wanted to go – I blame Jess, our navigator, who managed to get us lost a bunch of other times that day as well (ha ha, no, just kidding. You did a great job, Jess. Call me sometime, ok?) Anyway, we eventually got to Central Park where we again managed to not die or lose our belongings. Aside from rock climbing, though, there wasn’t much to do around there (being the dead of January) aside from jump around on rocks, so we moved on.

Our last stop for the day was Ground Zero. We couldn’t get on the viewing platform due to the 3 hour wait, but we did sort of see it from the nearest street corner – Jon even took pictures of the street signs to prove it (moron). From where we were, it was pretty difficult to see anything since all that was left was a pit we couldn’t really see into. You could see that some of the buildings behind had been scorched and chipped, and the tallest one was covered in a black shroud displaying the American flag. I don’t really have anything else to say about this, except that it was (obviously) a somber occasion.

The day was about over, so it was time to head for Long Island by train. One of the best parts about Long Islanders is that their accents are more pronounced than most New Yorkers – you’ll recognize someone from West Islip as soon as they speak. Victor, of course, capitalized on this and made sure to repeat anybody as soon as they had said “twock” (talk), “cwal” (call) or “theah” (there), immediately killing the conversation and making it impossible to talk to anyone for more than ten seconds. But it was amusing nonetheless to see him do this even when we got to Cait’s house and met her parents, who were pretty cool people. Her dad told us to make ourselves at home (so Bob and Jon trashed the place and left) and offered us beer, which I think shocked Cait. She said that her dad treated us treated us differently from her other friends, like older college guys. He was also a huge KU fan (their family all had KU sweatshirts, I felt like I’d never left home) and I think would’ve absolutely loved Jon and Bob more than anything if they actually paid attention to KU basketball or went to any games. But, you know, that’s Bob and Jon for you.

After a dinner of genuine New York pizza, we went out on a little drive to the various sights of West Islip, including the library, where all the cool people hang out! Not really, but Cait’s friend Kris works there so we went to say hi. But I guess we said hi a little too loudly since her boss came over and yelled at us for disturbing the peace, and Kris apparently almost got fired later or something, I’m not really sure. Jon and I volunteered to create a distraction at the back of the library (breaking tables, foaming at the mouth) while Kris did her stuff, but sadly our services weren’t needed. After a while Kris got off of work and came over to hang out. Now you can’t have two people named Chris in the same room (even if they were different sexes), so we renamed her Sonya, though I don’t think she liked that too much (“You shouldn’t be able to choose your own name”, Bob reasoned). We went over to Jess’s house, which for some reason is shrouded in perpetual darkness. Jess doesn’t look like a goth or a vampire to me, but hey, different strokes for different folks, I guess. The highlight of the night was seeing Bob eating brownies and watching Bridget Jones’ Diary with five girls, which I’m only writing down here because he told me not to. After much revelry, we went to a diner for a snack and then returned to Cait’s house for sleepy time. It would be our only night of real rest so far so we were looking forward to it, even though Bob and I stayed up for a while reminding Jon Akers how much better homeless people are than he is (“They’re cleaner than you, they’re friendlier, they’re better chemical engineers than you… overall, they’re just better people”). Ha, ha, oh, the fun… tired… so tired…