New York, New York - part 1

Since I was on a roll with the tango, when E(1) mentioned the Tango A La Turca Festival in NY and he said he could get me a 50% discount and he could arrange for accommodations (find a host) I figured, why the hell not, I've never danced in NY and it's been a while since I've been in THE city anyway. Sure, got bus tickets for Friday at 6PM, and even if the trip takes 4.5-5 hours, I'll still make it in time to the Friday milonga to catch the last 3 hours. Awesome.

Then E2 calls and she says she's driving to NY, why don't I go with her, awesome, I think, first with the car we should get there faster and we didn't get to hang out for a while. Even when she said she could be ready to go by 7PM at the latest, I figured, ehh, we'll make up the time. She called at 5PM to say she's getting out of work, she'll swing by home to get her stuff and we'll on our way.

And this is when stuff started to go wrong. First, she caught bad traffic getting home. Then she caught really bad traffic coming to my place. By the time she got to my house, it was 8:30. Then we had heavy rain and since she was recently in a (minor) accident, we ended up driving 50mph for a while. She was tired since she worked the whole night before and I was cranky, since the evening was going the way it was going so the conversation wasn't quite spectacular. Then since she was really tired, she took a nap as I drove. We made it to Manhattan at around 12:45. During the trip I tried to reach E1 a few times to see if he found someone to host me, but he didn't pick up the phone and he never returned my calls. Awesome. I call a few hostels and I find a bed at Chelsea Hostel on w20th. $38 later I have a bed in an overheated bedroom, it must be 85 degrees here. So I go for a walk around the block, it turns out, it is the gay hangout area so I'm getting a couple of comments from some dudes that obviously had a few more drinks then they can handle. Excellent. Go back to the hostel around two, and try to catch some Zzzzzs. Around 6AM, some dude comes in the room, wheezing and caughing, no doubt the 3 flights of stairs when one's 300 lbs is quite a challenge. He settles down in 10 minutes or so, but as soon as he falls asleep, he starts snoring like a farm tractor with a couple of cylinders randomly misfiring. Great, I was missing some sound effects. I toss and turn for a while and then decide I can't sleep anymore, maybe I should take a shower. As I'm thinking if I brought soap, the other guy in the room gets up, he goes into the bathroom (only a shower and a sink, the toilet is in the hallway) and I hear him peeing. Ewwww. So I guess I'm not taking a shower this morning...

9AM Not that I would've stayed another night, but they don't have any beds for Saturday anyway. So, I'm back on the street, dragging behind me my luggage, kind of tired, kind of stinky and a bit down. I'm thinking this weekend could've started better.

Found a cafe, ordered some breakfast and commandeered an unsecured internet connection to check my mail. The battery is dead. Sigh. Wait, there is a power outlet, we're back in business. Since I'm on w20th st and there is a practica on w19th street at 11am, I'll go check it out. The first couple of workshops are not that interesting (to me), maybe I'll take the waltz workshop at 4:30. If I can figure out where they do it that is.