These Streets Made Me Feel Brand New

To continue the saga known as my weekend trip to NYC:

I slept in on Sunday morning.  Can you blame me?  The festivities of the day before made it impossible for me to open my eyes before 11am.  I honestly can't remember the last time I stayed in bed that late... and it was great.  Even then, I had plenty of time to get ready to meet Erin and Will at Grand Central Station.  They took the train in from New Haven partly to hang out with me and partly because there is no Qdoba in the otherwise great state of Connecticut.  And so, we went to Qdoba in Times Square for lunch.  Is that weird??

After lunch, the impending rain thwarted our original plans to go biking in Central Park.  We decided to walk there anyway just to check it out, only to stumble across the Central Park Zoo.  Having never seen the movie Madagascar, I had no idea this place even existed.  Since all three of us are zoo enthusiasts, we absolutely had to stop and go visit.  The place was actually pretty cool, with my favorite exhibits being the polar bears and the rain forest house (not together).

We also checked out the children's zoo across the street from the main zoo, which featured my favorite thing in the world: A PETTING ZOO!  Obviously, we had to go feed the alpacas.

After taking in a few more of the sights and sounds of NYC, the rain finally became unbearable, and we settled upon a sports bar near Cal, Jim, and Kevin's apartment for dinner.  Luckily, a group of ladies was just leaving without finishing their beer tower.  We immediately jumped in on their table and cashed in on their wastefulness.  Our meal actually ended up being pretty reasonably priced, but only because we had gotten free beer and half-priced wings.

I spent the rest of the night watching football with Jim and Allie.  Although, to be honest, it was mostly with Jim, because by halftime during the Redskins vs. Cowboys game, Allie had already zonked out on the couch like she always does.

The next morning, I cleaned up the guys' apartment a little bit as a thank you gesture for letting me crash at their place for three nights in a row.  I had just enough time to head up to the Upper West Side to hang out with Christin one last time before I needed to board my return bus.  We walked around Riverside Park and checked out the Columbia University campus, which I have to admit is a beautiful place.  It's not quite as beautiful cool as the Lawn, but hey, few things in this world are.  Also, the girls at UVA are way more attractive.

And thus ends my epic three-day trip to NYC.  The one lesson I learned?  Don't wear flip flops in the city, or your feet will be black for days no matter how hard you scrub them.