After doing a few warm-up punches, Milan introduced me to Mass beers and pretzels, and regaled me with stories of flying over to Munich for the weekend to enjoy Oktoberfest.
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14 years ago
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Saturday afternoon.
Milo and I went for a walk across the Williamsburg bridge to Brooklyn, and Williamsburg. Was supposed to rain, but turned out to be a beautiful day.
After doing a few warm-up punches, Milan introduced me to Mass beers and pretzels, and regaled me with stories of flying over to Munich for the weekend to enjoy Oktoberfest.
After doing a few warm-up punches, Milan introduced me to Mass beers and pretzels, and regaled me with stories of flying over to Munich for the weekend to enjoy Oktoberfest.
5 Boro Bike Tour!
The centrepiece of the weekend, it ended up raining the entire ride.
Click on pic to enlarge.
So yeah, absolutely wonderful ride, but really, really wet. I was planning to start at 6:30am, but didn't get up until 8, which turned out perfect. I didn't receive my tour jersey in the mail (must have gone to the other house) so I had to bike down to Battery park and the start of the ride to register properly. Getting down there at 8:30am had the unfortunate result of having approximately 30,000 people riding in front of me. And yeah, not really ride, but more standing around on Broadway, all jammed up. After about 5 minutes, I realized that what I was doing was stupid (it sometimes takes a while to click in) and jumped on my bike to ride up East Broadway. After some good fast riding I caught up to the tour around 3rd or 4th street where the traffic was finally flowing.
You can see the route in the map above and the pictures below.
The highway in Brooklyn was the worst part; nothing to see for a few miles and poor roads. Also, very exposed to the weather.
mmmm... so wet.
After a hot shower back at Milan's, we met up with Amy-Claire for some dinner at Caracas, an arepas / tapas restaurant. We had some kick ass pulled pork, avocado chicken, chorizo, and micheladas. We then proceeded to down a Mass of Aventinus on the covered patio outside Zum Schneider, where they were celebrating something or other with a roast pig. After a short walk through a few parks (the weather did clear for a bit), I left Darko and AC to go to the Seeger 90 concert at MSG (where I collected a souvenir glass), which was fantastic and worth the trip in its own right. Baez, Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger, among a mountain of others, all on one stage at several points. Concert ended around 10:30, and met up again with the crew at Great Jones for some live music, excellent chili, jambalaya and gumbo... all sampled and really delicious!
Yeah, and then we went home and I passed out.
Click on pic to enlarge.
So yeah, absolutely wonderful ride, but really, really wet. I was planning to start at 6:30am, but didn't get up until 8, which turned out perfect. I didn't receive my tour jersey in the mail (must have gone to the other house) so I had to bike down to Battery park and the start of the ride to register properly. Getting down there at 8:30am had the unfortunate result of having approximately 30,000 people riding in front of me. And yeah, not really ride, but more standing around on Broadway, all jammed up. After about 5 minutes, I realized that what I was doing was stupid (it sometimes takes a while to click in) and jumped on my bike to ride up East Broadway. After some good fast riding I caught up to the tour around 3rd or 4th street where the traffic was finally flowing.
You can see the route in the map above and the pictures below.
The highway in Brooklyn was the worst part; nothing to see for a few miles and poor roads. Also, very exposed to the weather.
mmmm... so wet.
After a hot shower back at Milan's, we met up with Amy-Claire for some dinner at Caracas, an arepas / tapas restaurant. We had some kick ass pulled pork, avocado chicken, chorizo, and micheladas. We then proceeded to down a Mass of Aventinus on the covered patio outside Zum Schneider, where they were celebrating something or other with a roast pig. After a short walk through a few parks (the weather did clear for a bit), I left Darko and AC to go to the Seeger 90 concert at MSG (where I collected a souvenir glass), which was fantastic and worth the trip in its own right. Baez, Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger, among a mountain of others, all on one stage at several points. Concert ended around 10:30, and met up again with the crew at Great Jones for some live music, excellent chili, jambalaya and gumbo... all sampled and really delicious!
Yeah, and then we went home and I passed out.
The last, long, leg...
So I mentioned how we were planning to bring back a vehicle from Newburgh, NY, right? I really didn't want to bring the trailer on the island cuz that would make getting around and parking that much harder. We ended up finding a garage on the way in Totawa, New Jersey, to store it for us, and the dudes allowed us for free; it worked out great!
Picked up the trailer on the way back out, spent a few hours at Copart getting everything sorted out (long, long story) and we got back on the road. The car was a lot larger than we initially anticipated back in Toronto, so the trailer was definitely a little overloaded. Needless to say, after scaring my passengers with some good swaying every now and then, a tire went on the trailer!
Anyway, everything got sorted out, we ended up getting back home around 4am. After about 16 hours in the car together the mood of all was still really great! I got to know Jowi and Sarah that much better, definitely learned a thing or two about music, and really had a great experience, despite what a fucking mess it all was!
I wanna thank Milo, Jowi and Sarah for making this such a great trip, and although I'd change one or two things (weather, not picking up a freaking car on the way back!), it was an experience I'll not soon forget.
Picked up the trailer on the way back out, spent a few hours at Copart getting everything sorted out (long, long story) and we got back on the road. The car was a lot larger than we initially anticipated back in Toronto, so the trailer was definitely a little overloaded. Needless to say, after scaring my passengers with some good swaying every now and then, a tire went on the trailer!
Anyway, everything got sorted out, we ended up getting back home around 4am. After about 16 hours in the car together the mood of all was still really great! I got to know Jowi and Sarah that much better, definitely learned a thing or two about music, and really had a great experience, despite what a fucking mess it all was!
I wanna thank Milo, Jowi and Sarah for making this such a great trip, and although I'd change one or two things (weather, not picking up a freaking car on the way back!), it was an experience I'll not soon forget.
In the meantime...
Just organizing some photos from NYC, but in the meantime I ran into this on the internet!
http://gbadmin.garageband.com/artist/sometimes_why/songs
Yeah, back in the day I posted this on the 'original' garageband, and apparently it's still hanging out on the internet...
http://gbadmin.garageband.com/artist/sometimes_why/songs
Yeah, back in the day I posted this on the 'original' garageband, and apparently it's still hanging out on the internet...
Back from New York!
I promise tons of pictures and stories in the next day or two. Needless to say, a wonderful trip I'll never forget...
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