I am writing all of this on the train back to Boston. New York was a blast. I saw a lot of awesome friends and met a few new awesome people.

Day 4

Friday, was pretty uneventful. I was working during the day until 6:00 or so and I spent some time walking around the West Village (see photo below of Waverly Place and Waverly Place).

My friend Shane came to town around 11:00 and I met up with him to crash with him at his hotel. We got something small to eat at an Irish place that was open late and then got it in our heads to wander around the Central Park area until 3:00 in the morning. Neither of us had anything to drink.

Here’s a photo of us cramming the hotel-provided cot into Shane’s already pretty small room:

Day 5

Saturday, we slept in until noon (probably because of the late night on Friday) and had breakfast at the hotel. At this point I explained my experiment to Shane.

Shane drinks very rarely - mostly when on vacation - so I was interested to get his perspective. He thought it was interesting and he didn’t offer his opinion one way or another as to whether he thought it was a bad idea. You can always count on Shane to just sort of roll with the punches.

He did observe that things hadn’t been very interesting yesterday and asked if I wanted to find something to drink today. I agreed that in the interest of science it was probably a good idea.

We decided to go to the Empire State Building and leave the drinking for later in the evening. The weather wasn’t so great on Saturday so we were turned away.

Both Shane and myself have an interest in card tricks, sleight of hand, and illusions, so we stopped by a store dealing in this called Fantasmo. We met a man named Magic who showed us a thing or two. After this, we headed to little Italy for some Italian food.

We finally made our way back towards Times Square where the hotel was and Shane declared that we needed dessert. TGI Friday’s seemed like a decent enough idea.

We both ordered an ice cream chocolate brownie dessert concoction and Shane suggested I try a strawberry daiquiri.

I called his manhood into question, as I’m told that those sorts of drinks are for girls only, but he countered that he was confident in himself and having something that doesn’t taste like gasoline can be refreshing sometimes.

Hard to argue with that. So Shane got a mojito and I got a strawberry daiquiri.

Doom:

I could barely taste the rum at all. It was like someone handed you a Slush Puppie with the vaguest hint of a secret ingredient but they aren’t telling what it was.

That seems extremely dangerous.

I decided that fruity drinks were bad news. This was quickly confirmed after I got a brain-freeze from taking a few sips too quickly.

I no longer question Shane’s choice. Real men like to get blasted like everyone else, and a fruit drink seems a great way to do this. It’s like fooling yourself into thinking you’re just having a nice dinner until you wake up the next day and don’t really want to even say the word strawberry. I think daiquiri is Cuban for “suicide”. Strawberry suicide doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, though.

I had a sip of Shane’s mojito, which tasted like a liquid sour patch kid. I don’t know why the Cubans seems to want to kill us all with sugary drinks but it seems like they’re doing an excellent job. Hats off to them!

Conclusion: If you immediately are reminded of candy or ice cream when you take a sip, you shouldn’t probably only have one.

I have to wonder if there’s a drink that one takes straight-up that doesn’t taste like WD-40. I shall continue to explore this.

Just like on Thursday, I got that dull ache in the back of my head after drinking the daiquiri. Does my noggin not like alcohol?

After finishing our desserts and drinks, we headed to the New York Comedy Club. Shane has a friend that knows the bartender, Rosa, so we were allowed inside early and treated like kings.

New York Comedy Club:

Rosa asked Shane what he wanted to drink and he asked if she had any flavored Vodka.

She grinned at him in what I thought was a sort of sadistic manner and started pulling items off the shelf behind her as she said “No, but you can have a margarita”.

Now, margarita’s are from Mexico and not Cuba, but it still sounded like bad news. Plus it has tequila and people have told me to avoid tequila more than even whiskey. Still, I was tempted. But I felt like I ate way too much ice cream and cake and my stomach wasn’t having any of it.

Rosa asked me what I wanted and I replied that a simple water would suffice. As she added items to the blender for the impending margaritas, she slid a bottle of water over to me and made a face at Shane as if to say “Is this kid for real?”

I think this was my first encounter with this. When getting the VIP treatment, is it impolite to decline a drink? Is it worse to decline a drink, or to accept it and not drink it or finish it? I’ll have to look into this more.

Drinking daiquiris will make you feel like this:

We spent the night there until 1AM or so and saw a lot of very funny comedians. I was hoping to work up the courage to try a margarita but my stomach was still angry at me for consuming the ~2000 calories of the ice cream and daiquiri. We thanked Rosa profusely for her hospitality and went on our way back to the hotel to get some sleep.

Day 6.

We slept in again, and decided that our main goal for the day was to go up Empire State Building. My train was leaving in the early evening, so we knew the day would be short. Most of the day was spent walking around the city.

I told Shane that if there was a bar at the top of the Observatory at the Empire State Building that I’d have to have a drink up there because it would be pretty cool. He agreed but was skeptical that they’d have a bar up there. He was unfortunately correct.

Here’s a photo of the Empire State Building lobby:

While in line for the observatory, we met the amazing Mark Zacharia - magician extraordinaire. He overheard Shane and I discussing card tricks and introduced himself. Mark was an extremely nice guy and he spent a lot of time in the line discussing various stuff with us. Shane and I later remarked on the odds of us ending up in the same line with such a man given the chain of events to put us in the line at that exact spot at that exact time. Pretty amazing. Maybe that’s magic in and of itself?

Mark had some great stories and tips and treated us as equals despite neither Shane nor myself being what either of us would even call an amateur. We parted ways after taking some notes on advice he suggested and then we both remarked that we’d be quite fortunate if all members of the magic community were this friendly and welcoming.

86th floor of the Empire State Building looking up to the spire:

After the Empire State Building we grabbed some food and headed back to the hotel to pick up my things and say farewell.

My trip to New York was truly excellent and I think it was a unique way to kick off the 30 days. I spent some time with friends I would otherwise not be able to see and got some good insight and advice on the world of bars and alcohol in a city that prides itself on both.

Now back to home in Boston, certainly no slouch in the drinking department as my Irish heritage will be quit to point out. What’s in store for the next 24 days?

I leave you with a photo of Times Square: