Ajay, a local Couchsurfer I met the other night at the bar, told me a a few CSers were getting together tonight for "salsa night" at a nearby bar, Mannahatta Lounge (like I said, the hostel was in a good location). So I met up with Ajay at the bar and joined in with his friends that he introduced me to for some salsa dancing! Before I knew it, I was dancing with a girl I had just met (I don't even remember her name hahaha), no clue what I was doing, but I was having a good time! It was a pretty good atmosphere too, nice ambiance and decor, a little packed (it was a small place like most bars in NYC), and everyone was there to enjoy themselves - a really relaxed feeling. I don't know if it's a NY thing, but besides Ajay and the girl I danced with, everyone else he introduced me seemed a bit cold and involved with only they were immediately talking to (I've read that's quite common at clubs in NY).
Some views of the dance floor (the bars in the background of the 2nd and 4th photos).
After dancing for a while, me and Ajay were feeling hungry (since I hadn't eaten dinner...a small bowl of soup doesn't do much haha), so he took me to this Indian restaurant he regularly visits, often with CSers who he hosts. I didn't take any photos of place...all I got to remember it was the business card Ajay picked up for me. I'd recommend Banjara - even though it was completely packed, we were seated eventually, the service was great, and the food was really good. Ajay knew the owner since he'd been here so often, so she gave us both a free glass of house white wine while we waited to be seated (hey, better than nothing right?!). And after splitting the bill, we were off to a club/bar Ajay had in mind.
It was very cold, and it was quite a long walk, so we stopped inside the random bar along the way just to warm up for a minute. It wasn't packed, but then we discovered there was a back room that was hookah lounge. Wanting to remember that we stopped off here, me and Ajay both took a quick pick of the place, and then as we were about to leave, 2 guys from the hookah lounge came out and asked us about the photos...they seemed pretty sketchy and spaced out, so it was pretty easy to talk them down and leave without trouble hahaha.
We finally arrived at the bar/club (the bar/club scene reminds me of the bars in NZ hahaha). To this day, I had no clue where Ajay had taken me, but thanks to the awesome work of Google Maps, remembering there was a McDs we stopped at nearby after clubbing, and my incredible sense of direction (it works even when I'm drinking hahaha), I've discovered we went to La Caverna! Seems like a pretty appropriate name, since the entire place (set downstairs) was designed like a cavern.
I think it was around 11 pm or so when we got there, and it was pretty weak at first: the music sucked, there weren't many people inside... But then it suddenly picked up about a half hour later; the music got really good and the place was jam packed! And so we drank and danced the night away with random people we met. That's me with Ajay in the second photo (it's pretty obvious we were both pretty drunk since we couldn't take a good photo hahaha). The last photo shows how it really looked inside the bar (no camera flash).
My attempts to get a photo of the bar when we finally left sometime after 3 am. Using a compact camera, adding the fact I was shivering from the cold and still drunk, leads to blurry unusable photos hahaha. I edited the 1st photo to get the 2nd photo in an attempt to try to make out the bar name, but it's clearly not usable.
After a quick stop at a nearby McDs to get some food in us (I had a lot of beers that night...no clue how many hahaha), we parted ways, and I made the long cold walk alone back to the hostel. Was I finally going to get some much needed sleep? Nope! I just stopped in to change out of my clubbing clothes into something warmer, and then I headed for the subway. Next stop: Rockefeller Center, outside the NBC Studios entrance. Why deprive myself of sleep?
Well as it turns out, there was going to be a new episode of Saturday Night Live (SNL) that Saturday (Jan. 9th) and being a fan of SNL, I've always wanted to attend a live taping of the show! It was perfect timing for me, because SNL doesn't air a show every week and the schedule always fluctuates each year, so I never really knew until the last minute when new shows were aired. This week's guest host was former NBA star Charles Barkley, with Alicia Keys as musical guest. I didn't really care to see Barkley, but I was pretty excited about the chance to see Keys perform live.
So I went to NBC Studios to join the other SNL fans lining up for possible seats to the show. Without going into too much detail, this is why I had to line up: SNL gives out a limited number of tickets randomly each year in a lottery to each show, and in anticipation not everyone who wins one will be able to go to their assigned show, if you're willing to line up, NBC will give out standby tickets Saturday morning for open seats at either the live taping at 11:30 pm or the dress rehearsal earlier in the night, in order to have packed studio audiences. But a standby ticket doesn't guarantee anything; it's first-come-first-served, so if the audience is already packed, or the people in front of you fill up the remaining seats, then you go home empty handed.
So by the time I got to NBC Studios, it was shortly after 4 am, and there was already a well-established line (there's a lot of dedicated SNL fans). But I figured I was still close enough to the front to have a chance to get a decent standby ticket, so I decided to stay. The night only got worse from here. First, it was bone-chilling cold that night; I was all wrapped up wearing an undershirt, hoody with the hood up, scarf wrapped tight, toque on, winter jacket zippered and buttoned up, and I was still cold! Second, I was feeling really sick from all the drinking. For those of you that don't know, I'm one of those people that feel sicker the more I drink, which is why I never have hangovers in the morning - I get it during the night! Usually after clubbing, I go straight home and then straight for the bed, so I actually sleep through the sick feeling and never feel the worst stuff. Well, since I had to stay awake to line up, and I probably had too much to drink tonight, so I just kept feeling sicker with each passing minute (and the cold sure didn't help).
The next hour was brutal, so bad that I seriously considered just abandoning all this and going back to the hostel to sleep. After an hour or so of trying to endure the incredibly painful headache and to not to puke, I had to leave the line and go to the nearest public restroom still open, the 24-hour McDs all the way in Times Square! Miraculously, I managed to make it all the way there and after waiting a short while for the restroom to become free (one single-use restroom in a McDs in a heavy tourist area?!?), I was finally able to relieve my stomach through my mouth hahaha. And of course, I could now get my hands on the hangover cures: sport drink and greasy food, so I bought a Vitaminwater and a cheeseburger (which I actually never ate and ended up throwing it away at the end of the night since it was freezing cold and probably gone bad by then).
Lucky for me, when I got back to the line over half an hour later the guys behind me respected the water bottle I had left behind to mark my place. They really could have just told me to go to the end since I had been gone for so long and I wasn't having to suffer the cold for as long as they had...most groups rotated their members to go to McDs to stay warm because it was so cold out. By now, the line was quite long stretching down the sidewalk.
All the people in line. These photos were damaged too (taken with my phone), so I've included the big thumbnails I was able to recover. Most of the 2nd photo was saved (so the thumbnail wasn't really necessary), and it clearly shows just how long the lined stretched behind me.
Feeling some relief now and quite drained, my mind was no longer distracted by a constant, throbbing headache, and luckily there were crowd barriers at my position in line. So I sat down on the sidewalk, propped myself up against the barrier, and was finally able to peacefully close my eyes. And I actually managed to fall asleep on the sidewalk (despite the cold - my butt was so cold after)! I woke up just on time, a few minutes before 7 am, to the noise of passing pedestrians and a slightly brightened sky. Then around a quarter after 7, an NBC employee finally came out to hand out the standby tickets (NBC's website says at 7 am)! Now I had to quickly make a decision: whether to go for the dress rehearsal or the live taping ticket; you only get one, and generally there's a better chance to get into the dress rehearsal since the live taping is much more popular. But with my heart set on being a part of the live audience, when I finally got to the front, I chose the live taping ticket, and hoped that everything I just went through would be worth it in the end.
Then I walked as fast as I could back to the subway...I can't even begin to describe how badly I wanted to get into bed and just sleep at that point hahaha. I didn't get into bed until almost 8 am!
The fruits of my labour, my SNL standby ticket! I was #26 in the standby line for an open seat at the live show. I think it's safe to assume I actually took these photos when after waking up on Saturday? Hahaha.
So like I said, this was one long wild night, that actually seemed to fly by during the night (except for the last few hours). I had no clue at the beginning of the day that I would end up hopping through 3 different places later on at night, having Indian food for dinner, and finally partying it up in NY's night scene. I have to give much thanks to Ajay for showing me a good time, because if it weren't for him and his friendly nature, the night wouldn't have been possible, and I would never have went to any of the places by myself (since I didn't even know about them beforehand). Even as the night progressed, I couldn't have even imagined how my night would've ended - puking in McDs in Times Square and then sleeping out in the cold on the sidewalk outside NBC Studios! It may sound bad, but for me, it was a truly unique New York experience!
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