8. A night out on the tiles...

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After a bout of freezing-get-your-coats-out-folks-we're-snowed-in-til-March weather, it's suddenly turned really warm again. I can wander freely around the city wearing a jumper and still be warm (note: yes, this is in addition to other clothes. No silly comments please!). This was of course remarkably handy when it was decided that Saturday was going to be a night out on the town, venturing out to 40-40, the favourite haunt of my flatmate Lydia. I'd heard rumours of ghetto-like suuroundings and that I would be the whitest person there, but after having survived the Kings Pharmacy Ball earlier on this year, I thought I'd give it my best shot (after all, I did learn how to dance to bhangra).

That didn't really happed though. The plan was that Kate, Jenny, myself, Kate's friend Cecily from school (she was at school in the US), their RA Sam and our token boy Rich were going to leave the flat at about 9:30 and head out from there. By 10:30 I was sat on Jenny's bed sewing her shoes back together as Rich began raving about the excellent qualities of Laguna Beach and Sam is nowhere in sight. We were at the station about 11pm. From the Manhattan station at the other end, it was a fairly short walk to the club. Not that it mattered though - we'd decided on a sensible shoes night, hence encouraging a greater degree of boogie-ing than if we crippled ourselves by merely getting the train there.

NYC clubs are big proponents of a door policy. It doesn't really matter what the policy is, as long as they have one. You can't just let all the riff-raff in at once, only the selected riff-raff. With good hair. 40-40 is very particular about shoes apparently. We'd already warned Rich to change out of his trainers, and so wandered off on our merry way, thinking that was the end of the problem. But seemingly not. Heels are a big issue. You'd think high heels in a club are fairly normal, obviously a bit of a death-trap if you teeter on the tips of your toes but standard none the less. However at no point had I thought they might be the ONLY shoes acceptable. The bouncer took objection to Jenny's sparkly turquoise indian slippers because the heel wasn't big enough. The logic behind this completely eludes me. If he'd said "no, they're fabric" or perhaps "the sole isn't solid, what about glass?" then perhaps I might have concurred. But apparently 40-40 is a no-go unless you're in crippling pain. Always attractive.

Not to worry. I'd scouted the area round about the club earlier on in the day (see the next journal entry) and just so happened to have spotted a bar which looked pretty cool. Handy eh? So we wandered in there and had a gorgeous cocktail called Strawberry Shortcake (inclusive of amaretto, sooo nice). The bar is called Apple and is round about 7th Street and University Place just off Broadway (quick plug there, but the cocktail was THAT good).

After a quick warm-up drink there, we decided nostalgia was the way forward. After all, we'd been stood up by the rest of the guys - Shash and Gordy had instead meandered off en route to meet us and we'd been ditched in favour of American girls and a house party. Chuh! Comfort was the way forward. In our first Pickwick week more than 7 weeks ago (yikes), Jenny had discovered a bar in the Lower East Side (to be fair, we were walking past it at the time) which did happy hour cocktails. No surprises for guessing just how long that decision took. Coopers, Cooper Sqaure and 4th Street. We were there within minutes, cocktails were had by all, including Rich. Actually his was by far the girliest looking. After tasting it, he declared he'd have to order it if only for novelty value - he didn't know cocktails could taste of porridge. Enough said.

There was no excessive drinking, not a lot of dancing (unless jigging in your seat counts) and certainly very little drama. Apart from that moment where Jenny squared up to the bouncer and started jab-punching his kidneys - awesome work Jen! Great night though.

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Photos

Kate & Cecily
Also in the Apple Bar. Not that I'm plugging this place shamelessly or anything (shhh, they might give me free drinks)

Me in Apple Bar
Complete with pretty necklace I bought nearby

Jenny & Rich
Jenny of the bouncer-slapping soft-shoed-feet variety. Oh and Rich...

Rich looking scared
He was worried to begin with, but if the cocktail choices were anything to go by, we made a girl out of him! Oh and I cut his hair too. Earlier on, not to help him be a girl. Oh forget it!

Comments

[Mayrad]

Blibble
I wanna write a comment but i don't know what to say! ahhh! Boo to heels, yey to NY bars, and yay to your artsy necklace! xxxx