Poverexic in NYC

I went to Mardi Gras in NOLA this year for the first time, and it was a complete shitshow – definitely better than the last time I visited D in NOLA, when I got held up at gunpoint by two 17-year-old white boys wearing red bandanas while blackout D just left me behind and stumbled away from the muggers, slurring at them to “go fuck themselves” when they demanded our purses.  In the 7 days that I was in NOLA, I didn’t get mugged or held up at gunpoint, so this was already two steps in the right direction.

Given this was my first Mardi Gras, D had laid down the ground rules for me upon my arrival.  Or rather, just one big #1 Mardi Gras rule:  DON’T GET ARRESTED.  Because if you do, we won’t be able to bail you out until the following Wednesday, and then you’ll miss your flight.

That didn’t sound too bad, but then when D listed out what all would get you arrested in NOLA, I got a bit nervous:

1. Don’t pee in public – I did have a history of peeing in public places, both indoor and outdoor
2. Don’t antagonize cops – would be difficult considering I think all cops should die and go to hell
3. Don’t walk around naked – confused since I thought that was the whole point of Mardi Gras

Apparently, though, there were a whole slew of things that would NOT get you in any sort of trouble in NOLA:

1. Drinking in public out of an open container
2. Being very obviously blackout in public, in restaurants, and in bars
3. Littering openly everywhere you go

With these rules in mind, I set out to embark on my adventure.

The first night I got in, KY took me to his “favorite restaurant in NOLA.”  Ironically, it was a Japanese restaurant, although he did claim he didn’t just take me there just because I was Japanese.  Apparently it really was his favorite spot in NOLA, and the minute I walked into this weird hole-in-the-wall restaurant/bar, I knew why.

First, the owner is this young Japanese chick who plays one of those weird Japanese instruments and sings traditional Japanese folk songs in a really loud, high-pitched, really Asian voice.  Second and more interestingly, they’re playing this creepy samurai era disturbing porn in black-and-white up on their brick wall.  The story went something like this, and KY had it all memorized:

This young Japanese girl was widowed and living with her mother-in-law, and it was so hot during the summer time that they always slept next to each other naked; then the daughter started banging her dead husband’s best friend (nothing wrong with that); then the mother-in-law found out about the affair and got really angry and jealous because she wanted to bang him too, so she killed a samurai and crafted this demon samurai scarecrow and planted it in the middle of the fields and told her daughter-in-law that if she had sex in the fields, the demon samurai would come get her.

This story sounded eerily familiar……………

Anyway, it was some quality porn.  Probably the same porn my grandparents used to watch.

The second night (Wed) was Day 1 parade, where I learned that you could catch hundreds and hundreds of beads off the floats without flashing a single tit.  Wed was low key in that there were actually children out at the nighttime parades, and that was apparently allowed (hate).

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were 6 straight days of waking up at 8am to drink, drinking all morning, eating Popeye’s for lunch, drinking all afternoon, eating Popeye’s for dinner, then drinking all night until blackout.  Repeat X 5.

Popeye's

I’m jk.  We only ate Popeye’s 4 times during my trip.  Here’s what other incred meals I consumed:

Diarrhea-inducing yet most incred pulled pork on jalapeno cornbread with fried egg

Huge $1 Oysters

Blackout Port of Call Burger

Jambalaya, or something

My poorest performance was on Friday, when D and I went to Pat O’s and chugged two hurricanes before noon way too quickly, ran into Bradie James of the Dallas Cowboys, blacked out as I walked into Port of Call, then tried to rally for nighttime parades, blacked out again at Miss Mae’s, threw up my pink hurricanes in their bathroom, got put into a cab by D, then threw up some more pink hurricane in D’s bathroom.  Then threw up yellow bile the next morning.

Sunday was Mad Dog Sunday, when we drank Mad Dogs all day on A’s porch that’s right along the parade route and I flabongoed a Mardi Gras Bud Light.

Mardi Gras Bud Light!

That night we went to the Boot, where the bouncer took one look at D’s ID and goes, “1983…?  What are you, 30?”  D took one look at him, punched his balls, and yelled “28 YOU ASSHOLE,” and we left the Boot to go to Bruno’s, where they were friendlier towards the ’83 crowd.

I can’t really remember the rest of the week as the 6 straight days of raging have really started to blur together in my memory.  All I remember is, it was the best time of my life, my friend D can drink any guy under the table and that is why she is my friend and why I am the most proud of her, at one of the parades I got an entire bag of beads thrown directly into my face which left a red splotch on my forehead for the next 24 hours, OH! and I caught a coconut at my first ZULU parade ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I caught a coconut!!!!!!!!

So I’m living out in SF for the next 3 months for work, which is amazing because the weather here is like summer and I get to hang out with K&D every day.  I moved to SF about 2 weeks ago, and it’s been quite the eventful few weeks – I guess I moved here at a good time because my social life has been booming, and I have had stuff going on practically every day since I got here, unlike my sedentary NYC lifestyle of just drinking and watching TV every day.

Week 1:

• Sat 1/28: The night I arrived was D’s 30 on 30 golden bday, so almost straight from the airport I head to pregame with D and friends, followed by Japanese BBQ dinner, followed by karaoke in Japantown, where half the party blacked out and couldn’t remember the rest of the night.

Japanese BBQ

Raw meat mmmm.....

• Sun: D’s bday brunch at Paul K, followed by a relaxing afternoon in the Mission drinking screw cap red wine out of a brown bag and eating Bi-Rite ice cream in front of a liquor store.
• Mon: Homemade pizza by K while watching a great episode of The Bachelor.
• Tues: D got us free tickets to go see the Warriors play the Sacramento Kings, which was fun.
• Wed: Catching up on TV
• Thurs: Catching up on TV
• Fri: D invited us to his Wells Fargo work happy hour at Nectar, where we had several flights of red wine with the most delicious bacon wrapped dates, truffle popcorn and flatbread I had ever had, all on the company.
• Sat: Two back-to-back reunions with the first being a Harvard 06 SF reunion that I crashed and surprised people like ex-college roommate N and others who were like wtf are you doing here.  This interesting reunion was followed by an interesting high school reunion with people I didn’t give a shit about, but I went with K anyway because our wealthy private school was throwing all our tuition money towards an incred happy hour of free-flowing wine, bacon wrapped shrimp, flatbread, cheese platter, hummus platter and chocolate truffles at the Press Club.

Week 2:

• Sun 2/5: Obvs Super Bowl Sunday, which was great fun hanging out with K/D’s friends and having incred BBQ including sausage, steak, tri tip, beer dip galore, and of course, a keg.  More important than the fact that the Giants won was the fact that I secured my SF juice buddy T at this event, whose riveting talks of his big d fascinated me and inspired me to learn more.
• Mon: Catching up on TV
• Tues: Catching up on TV
• Wed: Juicing T
• Thurs: Gatsby party with K for her bday, where we were the only two non-blackout people at this event; seriously, this was supposed to be a networking event, but it reminded me of some sorority party on crack where girls were literally falling all over the floor and humping and accidentally making out with each other in the corner – quite the event.
• Fri: Happy hour again with D’s work friends, same place same food, where I hit on D’s coworker Q for a good hour before I realized he had a vegan, “only eats gluten-free foods” gf – she sounds awful and he should probably break up with her.  He even had my fav Faulkner character’s name – obvs it was meant to be.  Caddy smells like trees.  I got frustrated and juiced T that night instead.
• Sat: Bday dinner for K at Tortilla Heights, where I had the biggest burrito I have ever seen – that thing should be on Man v. Food.

Huge Burrito

• Sun: K’s bday brunch at Park Chalet for all you can eat and all you can drink mimosas, where we spent a lovely afternoon enjoying Sunday Funday and filling up glass after glass of mimosas.

Brunch Buffet

In my very eventful 2 weeks, here are the over-generalizations I’ve decided are 100% truth re: living in SF vs. living in NYC.

Pros:

1. It’s summer here when it’s miserable in NYC – last weekend I literally tanned outside by my apt complex pool in my bikini for 4 hours and wasn’t cold for a second.
2. You can’t beat walking along the bay every morning to work and on the way back – unlike the Hudson River, there aren’t rotting Jersey carcasses in it and it’s a really beautiful walk.
3. Everyone in my office gets in at like 9:30am and literally everyone peaces out by 4:30/5:00pm, so you are pretty much guaranteed to make happy hours on any given day.
4. Everywhere I go I see Marina guys (aka Fiddlesticks/UES d-bag type, which I love), and somehow it is a lot easier to get laid here.
5. I get to hang out with K&D every day!

Cons:

1. Cabs are expensive here because they are everywhere in the US except within Manhattan – I took a cab out somewhere that was 15 mins away and paid $17.  I nearly cried.
2. The delivery situation here is really not ideal.  Seamless has a limited presence, and GrubHub sucks.  My loyalty lies with Seamless, so sometimes I actually have to walk somewhere to go get food vs. having an ethnic guy bring it to me, which I am getting really frustrated with.  Also, the other day, I ordered some Chinese dinner special beef and broccoli, and I swear there was zero MSG in it and they gave me brown rice without me asking for it – I threw it out in disgust.
3. People majorly judge you if you don’t go cycling or recycling, both of which I actively don’t do.

We’ll see if the weather/guy situation outweighs the cab/delivery conundrum, but so far it’s looking ok.

ISTANBUL — Your World Is 360

And the first and final lesson we learned in Istanbul during our lovely trip:  Everyone is an “entrepreneur”

One thing we noticed in Istanbul is that no one seems to have a legit job.  In the one week we were there, not once did we see someone in a suit, not once did we see someone in scrubs, and not once did we see a woman looking like she was going to work.  Given the overabundance of lamb and snake fish in this country, we came to the conclusion that Turkish people were all either shepherds or fishermen, or they owned kabob stands.

This theory was confirmed the only night we actually met locals at a “club.”

Even before we got to Istanbul, this restaurant called 360 was all the talk.  Literally everyone we talked to who had been to Istanbul before was like, YOU MUST GO TO 360, IT IS AMAAAZING.  When we arrived to Istanbul, at least 5 other people told us the same thing – our hotel concierge, our tour guide at Topkapi Palace, our waiter at the meatball shop, the Starbucks lady, and a random dude and his 70-year-old father.  With 360 being literally the hottest spot in town, we agreed it was a must-do on our agenda.

When we get there, I get a serious flashback to NYC circa 2007 when I frequented the meat packing district every weekend.  First of all, let me mention that it took us forever to find this place because it turns out 360 is, naturally, located in the penthouse of an apartment building in the middle of the busiest street of Istanbul.

360 Entrance

We were greeted on the top floor by 3 non-black bouncers and a full-on metal detector, and then the minute we stepped into the restaurant/lounge/ club/apartment, I felt like I was in a coked out 230 Fifth meets Gansevoort (meat packing Gansevoort, not Kim Kardashian Gansevoort).  Because it was NYE, there were decorations out the wazoo, like disco balls, real angel wings, red glittery hearts and silver stars everywhere.  Actually, now that I think about it, it was more like 230 Fifth meets Gansevoort meets 7^th grade Bar Mitzvahs at the Grand Kempinski.

Bar Mitzvah

We sit down, and we’re presented with a menu of “Waters of the World.”  It felt like Bob Sinclair “World, Hold On.”  Seriously, this was ridiculous.  I mean someone just please fucking get me some tap water.

Waters of the World

Then we were presented with literally a book of specialty cocktails in superhero comic book style.  My emotions were so mixed at this point I had no idea how to feel about this place.  I order the yeni raki cocktail with beet and then the duck as my entree because I didn’t want lamb — it was good, but not anywhere near as delicious as the duck breast that roommate L cooks up at home.  At this point I was really confused as to why 360 was all that.

Beet Yeni Raki

360 Duck

Before we even finish dinner, the waiters start hustling us out because they need to convert the restaurant into a pumpin’ night club, and so out of spite, W orders another drink to keep us at the table while the club is quickly filling up with people all around us and our table is just standing there solo with three American girls sitting around it in the middle of the dance floor.  Finally we decide to get up, multiple waiters literally swoop in to take away our table, and we’re left standing with our drinks with a dance floor full of sober people without drinks because everyone is strict Muslim in this country.

We’re awkwardly standing around, and these two Turkish guys approach us – one who speaks impressively good English and wearing a suit, and the other not such a good English speaker and with the worst garlic breath I had ever encountered.  We left W to speak with garlic breath over there, while M and I chatted with the English speaker.  I was mainly interested to hear about his profession since this was the first person we had seen in this entire country wearing a suit.  He must be a banker or a lawyer.

Wrong.  He was a carpet dealer.  He sells magic carpets.  Figures.  And garlic breath supposedly was an “entrepreneur.”  Of course.  Because no one fucking works in this country!!!  The worst slash most amazing part of this exchange is that when we ask his name, he responds “My name is Justine, but you can call me Justin.”  Great, we finally thought we were finally being hit on by some locals, and turns out one is an unemployed Quasimodo and the other is a gender ambiguous Aladdin.

Unfortunately, they totally saw us as their Disney princesses.  When Justine over here learns we’re from NYC, the first question he jumps at us with is “ARE YOU FROM BLEECKER STREET?!?!”  I had never met someone with such enthusiasm for Bleecker Street.  Good street, I guess.  And of course he is also super excited that M works at Christie’s Auction House, and starts trying to talk carpet business.  While we made fun, Justine really was M’s perfect match – world traveler, loves carpets as much as she does, wears suits, has a full head of hair, and takes a keen interest in her both personally and professionally.  I’m still wishing for their magic carpet ride hummus-abundant wedding that will hopefully happen in the near future.

All in all, Istanbul was an incredible holiday trip.  With these key lessons learned, if I ever go back to Istanbul again, I know I will be better prepared.

ISTANBUL — The 360 Experience (continued)

Lesson #2:  Turkish bath houses are not spas.

On New Year’s Eve, M had the brilliant idea of spending a lovely, relaxing spa day at famous Turkish bath house Cagaloglu to pamper ourselves before NYE night out.  We were really excited for spa day, and we all purchased the full service package including exfoliation and massage.

So, we walk into the Turkish bath house in our tiny towels, and we walk into this:

Turkish Bath House

It was literally the gayest thing I had ever seen.

In the female zone the masseuses were all old Turkish women with triple D-cup saggy tits, and so were all the female customers.  It was super awk.  One look at this uncomfortably erotic situation and M immediately went back upstairs to change into her swimsuit.  W didn’t bring a swimsuit, but she very aggressively insisted she keep her bra and underwear on, despite the masseuse’s attempt to rape her undergarments off.  I, on the other hand, with my overly unnatural sense of comfort and joy with nudity, decided to embrace this opportunity to get a full tit scrub like I’d never gotten before (or rather, like I’d never gotten since the first year I moved to NYC and got seriously tat slapped by some dude who very wrongfully thought he was pleasing my boobs).

The exfoliation treatment was an interesting one.  It wasn’t so much a treatment as the old Turkish lady taking a rough cloth and seriously rubbing my entire body down.  Even though it was supposed to be a full body exfoliation, she sure did seem to be concentrating hard on my chest area and neglecting other areas that needed some dead skin cell sloughing …

… like the BOTTOMS OF MY FEET you sick fucks.

After she rubbed off the entire top layer of my entire body, she moved on to the “massage,” which was not so much a massage as a rubbing of my body with lukewarm soap water.  Apparently massage oil doesn’t exist in this country.  So that was awk too, and once again my flat chest got significantly more attention than the rest of my body did.  The soap water dried out my skin so badly that I had to completely lube up post-spa to bring the moisture back into my body.

I’m not sure this experience was the “spa day” we were looking for, but we sure were sparkling clean and raw.

ISTANBUL — The 360 Experience (continued)

Lesson #3:  You won’t ever find anything you’re looking for.

I’m not going to lie – Istanbul was a nightmare to sight-see on foot.  The streets are impossible to navigate, the street signs are all hidden, and none of the locals know anything.  We would get lost, so we would ask a local where X was – he would tell us, “Oh really close!  200 meters, just straight ahead!”  Oh great!  We would walk 200m, still no sign of X, walk a little further, still no sign of X, walk 30 minutes further, still no sign of X.  So then we would ask someone else.  “Oh really close!  200 meters, just straight ahead!”  Ok………  We would walk 200m, still no sign of X, I’m about to kill someone, still no sign of X, so W asks someone else.  “Oh really close!  200 meters, just straight ahe—“  BANG.  And that is how homicides happen in Istanbul.

I’m just kidding, they don’t let you bring guns on planes.

Needless to say, I got more exercise during this trip than I had in the past 10 years, we literally were not able to find about 1/3 of the items on our Istanbul to-do list, and we ended up spending half our budget on cabs.  I may or may not have missed NYC terribly.

ISTANBUL — The 360 Experience (continued)

Lesson #4:  Never leave anything up to the waiter.

One of the nights, we went to this restaurant where M&W both really wanted chicken curry.  M orders chicken curry, and our waiter is like “Ohhhh so sorry, no curry today.”  And M’s like, “Oh, do you have lamb curry instead?”  Waiter’s like, “No curry, sorry.”  But M was insistent and persistent, as she had learned on Day 1 that Turkish men respond well (i.e., fear) aggressive women with a strong voice – and M really wanted her fucking curry.  So the waiter feels bad and finally agrees, “Ok, ok I make curry, I go get curry for you.”

Sound sketchy?  It was.  Where was he going to “get this curry.”  I looked at M and shook my head.  What came out was definitely not chicken curry.  It was something like chicken skewers with some weird mustard sauce drizzled on top.  Improvising off the menu is not the way to go in this city.

That same night, I also made the mistake of leaving my menu up to the waiter.  I had been wanting to try some seafood for a few days now since apparently it’s amazing in Istanbul – really fresh, etc.  I asked the waiter which fish he recommended, and he told me either #105 or #111, which were turbot and lagos.  The English translation was there, but I had never heard of turbot or lagos before, so I told him that as long as it was white fish, I would be ok with it.

When my dinner comes out, along with M’s weird mustard chicken, the waiter goes, “This is SNAKE FISH” and makes a snake motion (elongated motion with his hands, that’s what she said).  The minute he said that, I nearly threw up.  What the fuck was snake fish, and why did I order this.  I look down at my plate, and not even Poverexia can get the image of a snake out of my head.  The fish just looks like one huge, fat eel, fried and chopped up into disgusting chunks.

Snake Fish

I took one bite out of courtesy, then immediately ordered some more yeni raki, which is the traditional Turkish ouzo-like, very strong licorice liquor, and drank that for my meal instead.

That night when we were back at our hotel, M&W were curious as to what exactly turbot and lagos were and which one was the snake fish.  We Googled it, only to find that turbot is a kind of flounder, and lagos is a type of grouper.  What?  I was confused.  So which one was snake fish???

After group contemplating for about 30 minutes, M&W and I came to the conclusion that basically the waiter gave me neither #105 nor #111 – instead, he was just fucking with me and gave me something totally different and disgusting instead.  M Googled snake fish, and here’s what I apparently ate:

Snakehead Fish

Lesson learned.  Never trust your waiters.

ISTANBUL — The 360 Experience

I got into Istanbul in the middle of the night after taking a late flight from Amsterdam, to find that the hotel that we had found on hotels.com was apparently located right in the middle of the clubbing district and directly on top of a night club booming with loud techno music.  A chill of excitement ran through me – I felt at home.  It took me back to my middle school days when I first fell in love with clubbing in Mexico City.  My college roommates know techno is my comfort music – I used to study to techno, go running to techno, and sleep to techno.  I slept like a baby that night, with the lively Turkish nightlife booming through our hotel windows.

I was greeted by M&W the next morning, who hated the techno music and hated our hotel.  They got zero sleep.  Sleep deprived or not, we were all ready to start our day early with a full itinerary of activities during our 6 days in Istanbul.  We had so much on our agenda – Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Basilica Cistern, Topkapi Palace, Dolmabahce Palace, Taksim Square, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Market, etc etc etc.  Honestly, how did one city have so many tourist sites.

To summarize our Istanbul trip, M&W and I compiled a list of 5 key learnings.

Let’s start with #5: People only eat lamb here.

We soon found out after Day 2 that in Istanbul, people eat one thing, and one thing only: LAMB.  Lamb kebob, lamb chops, lamb stew, lamb curry, lamb meatballs.  Literally every single restaurant in the entire city carries the exact same lunch and dinner menu – the same set of mezes, or appetizers, which included things like hummus, tzatziki , eggplant, etc, and then lamb 4 ways with the exact same side of 1 grilled green pepper, 1/2 slice of grilled tomato, and 5 french fries.  Yes, exactly 5 french fries.  Everywhere we went.

Mezes #1

Mezes #2

Mezes #3

Mezes #4

Lamb Curry

Lamb Meatballs

Lamb Meatballs Again

Lamb Chops

Lamb Stew

I thought this was some dream come true when I first arrived.  W literally ate lamb meatballs for every single meal for the first 4 days of the trip.  But after Day 5, all we wanted was a fucking salad.  Seriously.  I thought I would never say that.  I mean does anyone in this entire country eat anything other than lamb jesus fucking christ.

On our last day, we even tried to go to an American diner to get a burger or something different, and what came out on our plates was a lamb burger.

Lamb Burger

Sick.

Lesson #5 learned.  And lessons #4 through #1 to come.

Well it’s been a month since the holidays and I’m finally getting around to blogging about my interesting/amazing trip to Amsterdam and Istanbul over Christmas and New Year’s.

Every year my company gives us the entire week off between Christmas and New Year’s, so naturally I go somewhere that’s the opposite of home since obviously I’d rather spend $500 to go somewhere awesome than spend it to go home to Dallas.  Last year I went back to Rio by myself, but this year friends M&W were up for some international love as well – so after brainstorming a few warm vacation spots that made sense like Belize and the Caribbean, we somehow ended up deciding to go somewhere totally not beachy like Istanbul.  Since M&W actually care about quality family time for the holidays, our Istanbul trip was to start post-Christmas and go through New Year’s.  I, however, wasn’t about to waste Dec 24, 25, 26 just sitting around jerking off by myself, so I decided that this year I would spend Christmas by myself in Amsterdam, a sensible choice since they’re not uber Christian and they party all year long, unlike somewhere like Greece where the entire country shuts down for Jesus.

After taking an overnight flight, I arrived in Amsterdam on Christmas morning, excited to start my Christmas day stoned alone and visiting Jewish places like the Anne Frank Huis.  After reading several websites talking about how Amsterdam for Christmas gets “so lively” and there are “numerous Christmas markets open for tourists,” I was a bit caught off guard to find literally no one in the streets on this dreary Christmas morning until well past noon, when maybe a few people started showing their faces in the streets and I guess there was one stand in one of the squares selling hot chocolate.  So on my first day, I just ended up aimlessly wandering the streets of Amsterdam, eating a rum raisin pancake and getting drunk off that for breakfast (which was actually really amazing), eating some Dutch fries, poffertjes and bitterballen throughout the afternoon, then doing things I hated like going to museums because those were the only things open.

Rum Raisin Pancake

Dutch Fries

Poffertjes

Bitterballen aka fried mashed potatoes and gravy

After a day filled with staring at art I didn’t give a shit about at Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum and not being impressed, followed by visiting the Anne Frank Huis (which I did in fact find fascinating, reinforcing my love for Judaism over Christianity), I had planned to meet a friend’s friends at a bar called Durty Nelly in the Red Light District for a nice Christmas dinner.  The dinner was, in fact, very nice, especially after hitting up a few coffeeshops, where you can just walk in and order any kind of weed or hash or pre-rolled joint you want.  Here was my Christmas dinner, and my Christmas pot menu.

Christmas Dinner

Coffee Shop

Day 2 was a little better once I decided the kind of museum I needed to visit was somewhere like House of Bols, which is a museum showcasing the history of Bols, the #1 brand of jenever liquor.  Jenever is a junipery gin-like liquor, which I thought would be disgusting since gin is my least favorite liquor, but it’s actually really good.  I absolutely loved this museum – there was a taste testing station, a scent tasting station, and then at the end of the self-guided tour, you’re led into a bar where you can choose your own Bols cocktail that the bartender will shake up for you,  and you also get two shots of any flavor Bols you want to taste.  Given my love for Disney, I picked the Little Mermaid as my Bols cocktail, and Lychee Bols and Yoghurt Bols as my two shots.  They were all maybe the best gin drinks I’d ever had in my life.  The Yoghurt Bols sounded repulsive, but one sip and I was hooked.  It tasted just like really fresh drinkable yogurt injected with booze.  If I actually ate breakfast, this is what I would want to have every morning with my cereal.

Little Mermaid

After I got a nice buzz going after my morning museum trip, I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city, got high by myself again at a different coffeeshop, then enjoyed some great Indonesian rijsttafel (rice table), which is a must-do in Amsterdam.  I was starving (duh) so I ordered the rijsttafel for myself, but got turned down by the waiter who told me that dish was “for two people only, too big for one person.”  I glared at him, told him “that’s what she said,” “does it look like I have someone else with me,” and then demanded he bring me the fucking rice dish because I can most certainly eat for two people.  I sure showed him.

Before

After

On Day 3 I continued my trend of visiting alcoholic museums only and spent the morning at the Heineken Brewery, which is an interactive museum where you learn all about the history of Heineken, go on a simulation ride where you experience what it’s like to be brewed like beer, then end the self-guided tour with the freshest glass of Heineken I’ve ever had in my life.

Heineken

I loved it all.  I ended my Amsterdam trip at the Pancake Bakery with a delicious split pea soup with huge slices of bacon and an Egyptian-style pancake with minced lamb inside.

Split Pea Soup with Bacon

Egyptian-style Pancake with Lamb

Now on to Istanbul to go meet M&W.  Little did I know my next 6 consecutive days would also be filled with lamb.

The past few weekends have been overwhelmingly eventful with all the holiday shit going on.

Last Friday, J’s twin sisters M&M were in town visiting the Big Apple for the first time in their lives.  I was excited they were in town and wanted to show them a fun time in NYC.  The night had gotten off to a rocky start earlier when roommates and I went to Hane for 2 for 1 drinks, and roommate K blacked out by 10pm and started screaming to random people that I was the devil incarnate (not far from the truth — I do lack a heart, although this all came out of nowhere).  In order to avoid conflict I broke off from the roommate crowd with SP to go to this hole in the wall/speakeasy next to Niagara on 7th and A called Lovers of Today, where I invited M&M to join us.  Apparently this was M&M’s lucky weekend to visit NYC because 2 seconds later, we run into Kristen Wiig and Aziz Ansari at the bar WHAAAAAA!  I try to keep my cool and casually approach them, tap them on their shoulder, and tell them “I love your work,” followed by “Tom Haverford and Ron Swanson are the 2 best characters on Parks & Recreation.”  Kristen Wiig smiles and thanks me, while Aziz Ansari asks me if I’ve seen Steven Seagal around in the bar since he’s supposed to meet up with him.  I told him no.  One of the better celeb sightings/interactions I’ve had in my life.  Kristen Wiig was even tinier and much shorter than she looks on TV, and Tom Haverfor was… well, he’s a small Indian.

Then Saturday was the annual Santacon, the one day out of the year where all young NYCers dress up like slutty Santas or dreidels and bar hop around all of Manhattan.  I of course partake every year since I partake in anything having to do with an all day drink fest.  F and G host the 8am pregame every year right before the start of Santacon, and this is the timely invitation I received this year:

Big news: Next Saturday, Hurricane Claus will directly hit the NYC metro area. Preparing for Santas flooding the streets is not a trivial matter. Over the past years, Hurricane Claus has been picking up remarkable speed and experts believe this year SantaCon will officially overrun the city. News reports call for extended showers of adult beverages combined with gale force holiday cheer spreading through the city beginning early morning on through the evening. Head to the store now to stock up on milk and cookies before the shelves are cleared and the Santas get the best of you. Bloomberg is yet to post the evacuation zones but I’m fairly certain my apartment is in the clear.

For those of you brave enough to ride out the storm, I encourage you to join me beforehand to prepare for one of the best days of the year. We’ll have a tasty breakfast sammich, a delicious beverage or two, maybe dance to some Mariah Carey, then head out into the fray. While you’re definitely going to make new friends during the day, you’re better off heading out actually with friends so do the smart thing and join the Santamob before taking on Hurricane Claus head first.

After pregaming for about 4 hours at F/G’s place on free mimosas, beer, a can full of alcohol infused whipped cream, and delicious breakfast sausage-and-muenster sandwiches, I braved Hurricane Claus… except this year one of the first stops was South Street Seaport, so I lost my entire crowd within seconds.  Before I knew it, it was just me, M and SP drinking by ourselves and making new weird friends, until we found our friends hours later.  After drinking for an entire day, we moved on to S’s second annual 4loko party, where there was some aggressive dancing all night long and some aggressive puking happening in the elevator post-party by B.

Finally, this past weekend was M & W’s holiday daytime party, or more properly called Jesus’s (89th) birthday.  Why 89?  Because according to Melissa Gorga of Real Housewives of New Jersey: “How old is Jesus?  He is 89 years old.”  This was going to be the birthday party of the century.  M was in charge of baking all the sweets, while W was in charge of cooking all the savories.  I attempted to help them out in the kitchen with the hors d’oeuvres, but my lack of culinary skills led me to being asked to just do what I do best — prepare the booze.  So I heated up the spiked apple cider instead, and let me just say, spiking apple cider with Jack Daniels Honey = best holiday invention discovered by woman.

Here’s everything that M&W handcrafted for Christ’s birthday — I consumed all of it like bread and wine:

Savories

More Savories

Sweets

And the ultimate dessert — crown of thorns cake, red velvet to symbolize Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Savior, with chocolate covered pretzels, hand-adorned by M:

Crown of Thorns

All the food was incred and I had a totally foodgasm.  Joy to the world, the Lord has cum!  Happy Hanukkah everyone.

Thanksgiving weekend went by in a blur, and in four days I think I ate enough food to feed all of Africa and consumed enough booze to fill a frat house.  For the past 5 years my tradition has been spending Thanksgiving with S, and so on Wednesday night we ran our usual routine of him buying groceries at Food Emporium, him starting to do the cooking prep work, and I sat on my ass and watched TV and ate his leftovers.  Since I don’t cook or bake or do anything productive in life, my contribution to this year’s Thanksgiving feast was purchasing $100 worth of wine and beer, since I knew I couldn’t go wrong there.  Although I did wake up at 8am to help S cook, and by cook I mean I mashed some yams, crumbled bacon on top of green beans and poured chicken broth into the sausage stuffing — so I was pretty proud of myself for that.  Meanwhile S seriously fingered the shit out of the turkey with some duck fat:

Duck Fat in Turkey

Thanksgiving was quite the feast with a humongoid turkey, green bean casserole, candied yams, two kinds of stuffing, courtesy of S.  Here’s what other people brought:

• AC, who is also quite the chef, made bacon mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts hash, chocolate mousse pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and boiled custard
• G, who apparently loves making ice cream, brought homemade vanilla and butter pecan ice cream
• AP, who is black, of course made collard greens
• M, who is S’s lady friend, brought a cheap bouquet of flowers that no one knew what to do with
• F, who loves to party, brought one bottle of wine
• AB, who somehow got blackout at dinner on 2 glasses of wine, brought a bag of rolls

The feast was incred:

Turkey

Candied Yams

Sausage Stuffing

Green Bean Casserole

Thanksgiving Buffet

Pies

Here was my plate #1:

Plate #1

Here was my plate #2:

Plate #2

Ok that was the same picture, but I did in fact have 2 identical plates of Thanksgiving feast.  And then a dessert sampler plate of all 3 pies, ice cream and boiled custard, which is maybe one of the most delicious things I’ve ever had in my entire life.  I’m pretty sure it’s just heavy cream and eggs, and I could literally feel my left arm getting tingly and a stroke coming on, but I couldn’t stop drinking it.  I drank half the Nalgene bottle of boiled custard for dessert, then the other half for breakfast the next morning.  I still have a tingly sensation in my left forearm from my arteries clogging up.

Boiled Custard

I was feeling great during Thursday’s dinner until all the food suddenly hit me, and I desperately needed to go start World War III in S’s bathroom, but I just held it in painfully out of respect for all the guests in the living room.  In order to assuage my abdominal discomfort, I just continued to chug glass after glass of red wine, and by the end of the night, AC and I had gone through 4 bottles of red wine by ourselves — a Layer Cake wine, a Malbec, a Chilean wine, and a Rioja.  I looked in the mirror and I had a striking resemblance to a character out of Twilight with this purple/black ring all around my inner mouth.  At least I had scared everyone off with my gothic looks instead of with my Thanksgiving bowel movements.

Friday afternoon I think everyone woke up with the worst tryptophan hangover.  I couldn’t do anything all day except continue to drink more booze and boiled custard and eat Thanksgiving leftovers.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

After some motivation, S, G, AC and I headed to the bars later that afternoon for some day drinking and football watching that I didn’t give a shit about, followed by some more drinking and dancing at Bro J’s and Solas.

Saturday afternoon I think everyone woke up with the worst booze hangover.  I couldn’t do anything all day except continue to drink more booze and watch the Iron Bowl at Bar 515.  I didn’t necessarily keep track of how many pitchers of Miller Lite we went through, but I was feeling pretty good all afternoon.  After one of the teams I didn’t give a shit about lost, S, G, B and I headed to Rodeo Bar, where I had one long island ice tea, and I was still feeling pretty good.

It was only when I left Rodeo Bar around 8pm that all the booze suddenly hit me.  I was just a block away from home, but all of the sudden I desperately needed to pee and I knew I couldn’t make the extra block to my apartment.  Not again.  Over the past year, public urination had become more and more of a frequent occurrence for me, but I just couldn’t help it.  I looked around to make sure no one was looking, pulled down my tights, and peed on the sidewalk right in front of one of those really beautiful $4M apartments on 18th Street between 1st and 2nd Ave.  I instantly felt 10 times better, until I got home and suddenly needed to rush to the bathroom to puke up all the chicken nachos and quesadillas and one too many pitchers of Miller Lite that I had consumed earlier in the afternoon.  I couldn’t even remember the last time I had thrown up food day-of, but I was really upset with myself.

S, B and I were supposed to meet up again at 9:30pm to start pregaming, but clearly that didn’t happen since I was completely blacked out on my couch until I woke up at 1:30am to find 5 missed calls from S, B and M.  I felt like dying but knew I had to rally, and somehow made it out to DBA Bar to meet up with them 15 minutes later at 1:45am.  I threw up some more liquid on 3rd Street on my way to the bar, ordered some water at the bar, then immediately threw up the full glass of water I had consumed 10 minutes later in the bar bathroom.  My projectile liquid vomit was truly impressive.  I was a mess.

I knew I needed to leave, but B convinced me to stay, and he was quickly becoming 10 times more blackout than I already was.  While I sat there trying to keep down a glass of water, B was sitting there taking shot after shot of Jameson with the bartender.  By 3:30am, B had taken about a dozen shots of Jameson and then tried to close out his tab but drew boobs on his credit card slip instead of writing in the tip.  Given his blackout state, for a split second I contemplated how easy it would be to take advantage of him, but I decided tonight was not the night to become a 4-time friend rapist.  Instead, I put him in a cab, tried to stop him as he too urinated on the streets of Manhattan, then gave up and walked the 2 blocks home.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.