E-Pac, E-At, N-Med, W-At -> E-Pac

I am back on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. But before all of you ladies start fainting at my closely looming presence I must inform you I am not on the left coast. I arrived in The Big Apple sometime today. Reality says 1 p.m., my body says it was 7 p.m. That's what I get for going back in time.

Yesterday.... was it yesterday? Yesterday, I was still in Budapest after having spent the weekend in Vienna. We had seen the Fleet Foxes and J. Tillman play at Arena in Vienna as mentioned before. (I apologize if this all starts sounding hazy and disconnected. I'm still somewhat full of the jettiest of lags and wiped) Arena sounds like it would be a gigantic place that some automaton of a band would play... like Tom Petty or something. But then I realized that maybe that using an English word for an Austrian venue was a way of being trendy. Still, max occupancy of the interior would be somewhere around a thousand. So somewhat typical of touring bands of this size.

It was their first show in Vienna, and it was practically sold out. The Foxes have gotten so incredibly tight as a band, and seem so freaking comfortable in front of a crowd. Well... except when the applause wouldn't stop and the singer had to tell them to quit. Seriously felt like twice the applause in between songs than necessary. Those Austrians ate it up.

Back to Budapest. The trip back was fun due to the fact that a couple of the gals that were at our hostel were headed to Buda as well. We all took the train together and got them up to speed on all things Hungarian. Not really, but we did give them a start. Taught them Egyptian War/Rat Screw. They already had a place lined up that night, and we were already familiar with the Aboriginal Hostel... the one we were at the week prior. We split at that point, and we were offered a night out at Morrison's. This pub near the Opera house or something. We inevitably ended up declining, as we needed to nap before getting up at the wee hour of 3 a.m. to get ready for the airport.

Katie was headed back to Seattle around 6:30 yesterday. I on the other hand, wasn't to fly out until 19:30 (7:30 p.m.). Meaning, I was to spent the day sprawled out on some chairs drifting in and out of consciousness for hours upon hours. Eventually I would make it into Dublin for my connecting flight. And again here we had a 12 hour layover. I knew what I was getting myself into when I bought the tickets. But when it saves well over half... it just makes sense. I spent part of my first hour in Ireland knocking back a pint. As is tradition. And then it was back to the drifting consciousness. I had spoken with Nari today about how my sense of personal space in correlation with sleep has drastically changed. Hostels/Couch Surfing/Train and Planes.

Eventually, I touched down at JFK. In my short time in New York (I accidentally typed Jew York just then) I can say it hasn't lived up to its associated stereotypes. People on the metro were not only making eye contact with me, but having conversations. I haven't seen the filth and grime that say PARIS had (sorry, I had to get another in). I can definitely feel some of the life in this place, and it's definitely off season for tourists. Again, first impression, subject to changes.

While waiting for Nari to get off work, I made some calls home from Central Park and proceeded to the Starbucks across the street. It'd been awhile, and I wanted their "Pike Place" drip coffee. It was nice to have inexpensive coffee. It was not nice to have tax on top of the price. I do not miss that.

We went out for Indian food. It was glorious to have free water and ice cubes served at the meal. Large portions and an attentive server. FREE BATHROOMS TOO! Those are things I heavily missed. Conversely, I already miss the fresh bread, being able to order a beer "to go", Tesco, Kinder, Ja!, and other junk I just won't find here.

Anyhow, tomorrow Nari and I will meet up with Zoe for food. During the day, I explore. Oh how I will explore.

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