Day Seventeen – Shoelace Express, the Golden Age; & the Rooftop Ramba

June 20th; Weather is good, I’m good, everything is good. Except my fitness levels. I’ll hit up Wii Fit when I get home, I swear.

We went for the hike down to the bike rental place, next to Loeb boathouse. I navigated, since I’m so good at it. Half the time I’ve been using the sun in the Park to figure out which way to go. It works very well.

We all jumped on our Cruisers and set off. I hate hills. I’m going to come right out and say it. I loved riding on the flat ground and speeding downhill, but hills stump me. I can walk or run up them, but bring wheels into the equation and I’m done. We rode for a while, did the bike dance from Flight of the Conchords’ Mutha Uckas, cruised down the hills and came to an uphill. I got off about five seconds into it and walked it up. We did the whole big loop anyway, took some photos back by the boathouse and eventually returned the bikes. We spent about an hour and a half on them all up, though I say that a little loosely as I was taking the shoelace express for a quarter of the time.

We hung around the fountain with the bikes for a bit. We were going to a party that night at my brother’s friends house, and Hendo wanted to put on some make up or something so he walked back to the hostel. The rest of us stayed there. I wanted to go on the boats. Ryan and Ben didn’t. They went and sat on a rock, possibly under it. Kate and I jumped in a boat and did some tandem paddling, photo taking and talking. It was all a bit rushed though, since we had to meet up with Hendo in something like half an hour. It was also quite packed, so even though it was in a really nice location we kept running into people. It was like putting a New York highway in the middle of the Amazon or something. There were these two girls taking photos of each other non stop. There rhythm was something like ‘paddle-photo-paddle-photo-photo-paddle’. When we were heading back to shore they had made it maybe a fifth as far as us. Vanity!

Time to meet Hendo. I pretty much knew the way to where we needed to be but I let Ben and Ryan take charge, since I was sick of navigating and wanted to see how they went. We did end up on the wrong side of Central Park which surprised me. We were about to make it back when they were going to take a completely wrong turn. I gently nudged us towards the road. All good, and Hendo was also running an hour late so we arrived perfectly on time. Must have been getting a perm.

We met up with Hugh and Kev and headed for the party. Stacey’s twenty fourth birthday, to take place on the roof and in her room. It started raining. I thought the roof would be off. We actually got there at about one in the morning. I’m not entirely sure what happened between the Park and then. I headed up to the fifth floor and went on in, started saying hello to strangers before my brother says ‘not in there mate!’ I thought it was rather awkward. I thought I had walked into another party. It turns out he meant Stacey was on the roof, but I had one of those red faced moments anyway. The roof was cool. It felt paper thin and there were no rails, except for a bit of a curved lip on one side, but we didn’t care. I had some cider and stole a bit of the vino Kate had acquired. We started to talking to some people. Natasha, Sora, Gabriel and Andy. They were all very nice. By the end of the night it was basically just us, Natasha and Gabriel. Andy drifted around. He is like a more laid back but talkative version of Ryan. Gabriel is a bit of a character, but a very nice fellow. His roommate, Nathasha, just seems like a live wire – in a more literal metaphorical sense. Her rooster crest mohawk and apparent love of energy drinks makes her look kind of jumpy and intense all the time. She’s always peeking everywhere, which makes the hair sway and wave with it, like the stomach of a spinning fat guy, wobbling around and back when he stops. They are both hilarious.

I have more reason to like Gabriel as well. I drank a bit too fast and whatnot, and for the second time in my life had a good chunder blunder from alcohol. I did it in style though. How, you ask? Off the side of a six story building, of course! At first I just strode to the edge and blundered, but before long I was lounging over the side, occassionally opening the floodgates and letting forth a great barrage of goo, hitting the ground with a residing slap. That was when Gabriel came down to me (from standing height) with a glass of water and a pat on the back. I wasn’t feeling too bad, but water always helps. He got me about glasses in fact. What a nice fellow.

I’m not entirely sure when to end this entry, since we didn’t leave that roof until the sun came up. Kate, Ben and I walked around the corner to get breakfast from a deli and were met by two off-their-face-on-something Sydney-siders. ‘The river rave, the river rave!’ they yelled, as they clumsily danced around the store. They’d been at a rave all night. None of us knew what the river rave was, but we found out later. Apparently they put a water taxi up on a dry dock or something and you go and dance and get wasted and whatever else goes on at a rave. Not my thing. ‘You gotta go to the river rave when you’re in New York, mateee!’ They spoke in an enthusiastic whisper. We got our breakfast muffins. They asked for a bite of Kate’s. They took two huge ones, basically ate half her muffin. They gave her two dollars though, and it cost less than three, so I guess she won out.

We got in a taxi back to the hotel. We ate some poptarts and whatever else we still had lying around. We went to bed. No rush to get up in the morning, I think. We promised Gabriel and Natasha we would meet them for the best pancakes in New York at some point. They live in Brooklyn. They might show us Coney Island too. What a lovely crew.