Friday: After bailing on a camping trip at the last minute, I suddenly got it into my thick little skull that I needed to go to NYC to hang with my Fletcher siblings*, Rock, Slim & Bunny. See, Rock lives in NY now and was getting ready to leave on a comedy tour of Canada and then he was off to camp for the remainder of the summer. Slim had been living in New Orleans with Linda, his wife, but she had recently gotten a job in NY and Slim was in town apartment hunting. Bunny still lives in Van, but was on vacation with friend in NY. And while I was making friends in Montreal, that house did a lot to shape me into the lovable neurotic mess I am today and the novelty of being able to just jump on a train to see everyone was something I could not pass up. So I purchased a ticket and spent Friday stealing myself up for the 10 hour (one way) trip.
Despite needing to pack and get organized, L and I still managed to fit in our traditional Friday night movie. This week it was Candyman, which I had actually avoided at a slumber party as a teenager, opting instead to play Ouija board with my friend's younger sister upstairs. I did not get into horror movies until much, much later and admittedly I still whine and scream and have to sleep with a light on after watching one to this day. In some ways I am glad I put off watching it until I was an adult because, hot damn, is it ever good. On so many levels. It's exactly the kind of heady, intellectual horror that I didn't think got made in America. But the fact that it was made by an Englishman and was based on a story by an Englishman lends credence to that theory. If you've never seen it, or even if it's been a while, I highly recommend checking it out. You'll be glad you did.
After the movie it was straight to bed since I had to be at the train station by at least 8:30 AM, which meant leaving the house at 7:30 AM.
Saturday: L walked me to the Metro in the morning as I started my epic journey on railed transport. The line was already quite long when I got to the station, but I managed to find a spot on the train next to a polite Brazilian woman. Being that this was my second time taking THE TRAIN TO HELL I made sure that I was properly prepared. Blanket to protect me from the freezing air conditioning? Check. Variety of foods and liquids to avoid having to buy a hotdog microwaved in plastic wrapping? Check. An assortment of books and magazines with which to occupy myself? Check. An MP3 player, DS or laptop with DVD player would have also been welcome accessories, but being that I own none of these, I got by alternating between reading and napping.As I should have expected, the train was late, meaning that I had less than 5 minutes to make it to the theater for Rock's comedy show at 9 PM. Luckily, the train let off at Penn Station, a mere 4 blocks from the Magnet. I made it to the theater with two minutes to spare and entered the lobby to hugs from Slim and Bunny. The show seemed to go very well and afterwards we all went to a local bar called Walter's to hang out.
I met lots of nice people at the bar, including a friend of Slim's from DC who lives in NY now and her cousin from California who I got to talk hockey with (go figure, he's a Pittsburgh fan), as well as a nice lady who let me hold her autoharp. Afterwards we caught a cab to Rock's place in Queens and I pretended to strangle a 22 year old wrestling enthusiast with his seatbelt. He'd even shown me picture of him in spandex!
Sunday: Being that it is one of Rock's favourite places in the world and he had yet to make his annual pre-camp pilgrimage, it was decided that Sunday would involve a trip to Coney Island. On our way to the Subway we stopped at a bagel shop to get some nourishment and much to my astonishment I was able to get mine with tofu spread in lieu of cream cheese. My heart seldom knows such joy. While waiting in line a (very) New York cop tapped me on the shoulder to ask about my tattoo and was very disappointed when I told him I had gotten it done in Vancouver as he loved the work and was looking to add some more ink to his collection. I did my best not to squeal, but even Slim was impressed by the genuine coolness of this member of the NYPD.
After an hour and a half on the Subway (the length of the L line, in fact) we made it to Coney Island just in time for the rain to start. Joy. While waiting for Bunny and her friends, Rock, Slim and I rode the Cyclone twice, but opted to put off riding the Wonder Wheel until they arrived. We killed time in a pathetically ill-maintained spook house with a hilarious animatronic vomiting man out front, although I did feel a little bad that Slim had to ride in a car all by himself and thus didn't have anyone to turn to aghast as rubber Halloween decorations held together with duct tape wobbled feebly on their worn-out springs.
After having blown $5 on that mess we wandered up to Cha Cha's for a drink, but there was some sort of post-church luncheon going on so we had to find seats at the bar to watch the assembled five year olds crawl around on the stripped pole by the stage. Slim wisely ordered a White Russian which prompted the woman behind the bar to point at herself, because apparently she was a "White Russian". Rock and I tried to order pina coladas, but they were all out so we got strawberry daqueries and proceeded to get even colder than we already were. Eventually Rock was so chilled that he had leave to buy a hoodie from one of the local crap merchants.
Bunny and her friends finally arrived to join us for a drink and then we all opted to explore the boardwalk a little bit. Sadly, by this point Deno's was closed, meaning no Wonder Wheel, and Slim had left so we opted instead to ride the Cyclone a third time. 
By this point it was pouring, so we found shelter in an arcade and played a bit of skee ball. Then we went back to the subway to pick-up Rock's friend Rosy who had just arrived. While on that side of the amusement area we stopped in at Nathan's for hot dogs and everybody else got ice cream at the candy place next door. Which is where I think I found the single grossest confection possible: candy glossed marshmallows. My fillings hurt just thinking about it.
After that the plan had been to hit the Freakshow, but it was also closed. So Rosy and Louie rode the carousel for what seemed like half-an hour while a small Latino child hollered his guts out before the guy selling tickets was able to yell at the guy operating the thing to shut it off. Then we decided to leave.Back in Manhattan, Rock went back to the Magnet to prepare for his Buckshot and Benny show and I got some decent cheap Indian food across the street. The show was excellent as usual and afterwards we went for a drink with Kaitlin (a.k.a. the other half of BnB) and her boyfriend Alistair and I got to talk about how I hate smoked meat (sacrilege, I know).
After all that Rock and I took the subway back to Queens and I chatted with his roommate briefly about working in the video game industry. In yet another example of the world being too damn small, it turns out his roommate is head of development for a studio loosely affiliated with the company I work for and was on his way to Quebec City to lay down some smack. Being that I am very new to this industry it was really cool to be able to talk shop with someone who'd been immersed in it for some time and it was unfortunate that we both had to get up so damn early the next day for our respective trips as I would have really enjoyed getting more inside dirt. Next time, I supposed.
Monday: Got up before my alarm and wrote a nice note thanking Rock and his roommates for putting me up which I left next to the Caribou and Maple Syrup I'd brought down with me as peace offerings. Then it was on to the bagel shop to grab breakfast and lunch and a bunch of juice smoothies to replenish vitamins.
Back at Penn Station I was surprised at how comforting it was to hear people speaking French all around me in the line to get on the train. While the trip back home was supposed to be shorter than the trip there, we got held up at the border for what seemed like hours and it ended up taking even longer, meaning that in three days I had spent 23 hours on a train. L met me at the station and we had dinner at Nickel's before taking the Metro home.
*Background: Near the end of my last year of University I moved into a shared house in a residential neighborhood near school with a bunch of friends. We called ourselves the Fletcher family and we all had Fletcher names. Mine was Nancy.
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