Paaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrty Crashers

Have you ever walked into a room and felt like you were in a completely alternate universe? Like you were in the weirdest place you've ever been in your whole life? Almost like you are the new fish on Prison Break being um, er, violated and threatened, because you stole an expensive baseball card? Maybe you have. Maybe you were at a certain bar on Saturday night and went through exactly what I did.

Let me preempt this story. This past weekend marked the visitation of one of my nearest and dearest. I'll refer to her as Katya. She likes cats and laughs when I do my wicked impression of a Russian accent. We became friends for three reasons: 1) We both tend to get ridiculously drunk on delicious English ciders. 2) We both tend to approach boys after imbibing a few pints of delicious English cider. 3) We lived on the same floor in our study abroad dorm and she didn't hate me after I ran screaming down the hallways that it was "Naked Night." (I was fully clothed. No one else participated either.)

I hadn't seen Katya in almost a year due to my travels in London, hectic grad school schedule, her hectic grad school schedule, her work, my work, and a hundred other reasons. Needless to say I was ready to suit up and relive old times. Not that we can ever remember old times. People would have to recap us on our nights out based on the stories we told when we came home. The first week of school we picked up a stick in the street and started hitting people. I don't remember saving it, but we found it the last week of the semester and brought it to the party. It was a hit...literally.

One night we left a bar at the same time as everyone we knew, which was essentially closing time. We didn't make it home until 1 and half hours later. When everyone wanted to know where we had been we had no answers. We can only assume that someone, somewhere, probably still has scars.

On Friday, I promptly picked up Katya from Grand Central Station, or she picked me up really, by coming out of a different exit and scaring the bejeezus out of me. London joined us for dinner and a cocktail and then we started the boozefest. I was proud of Katya. Even though she has since sold out on the single life and gotten her self a cute boytoy, has taken a job teaching, and a result stopped drinking for sport, she hung in for a long night.

Since the weather wasn't on our side Saturday, we decided to go to a museum and gets some culture outside of a bar. The museums weren't on our side either with their ridiculous suggested donations. $14...Good Lord that's a lotta money.

We couldn't come up with any solid game plan on Saturday night. We were cold from walking in the rain, but used two beers from a leftover six- pack to warm our bodies (including our stomachs--hair of the dog!). I know of a little bar that sells our cider of choice, in fact, I think it's the only bar in all of Manhattan that has it. It was a hike in the rain but we went anyway. To our surprise, some friends of mine happened to be there. After pounding two (or was it three or four?) pints we left with them to go to another bar which is separated into rooms and levels. We always hang out in the back room, there's a nice little alley way that you can take cigarette breaks in. Which in NYC is a rare gem.

But for some reason, when we walked into our little sanctuary, we felt, well, kind of like one of that kid on Sesame Street that was doing his own thing. It seemed that most of the people around us were dressed up. Like pirates. I swear, pirates.

It must have been a theme party gone wrong (since there were also a handful of people who missed out on that part of the invite, one idiot was dressed like a sailor). Everyone was looking at us like we were crashers. I felt like a chick Vince Vaughn. So we started dancing around and drinking beers. We ate some of their cupcakes. I flirted with one of their men (who may have been gay, but at least he wanted me as his beard).

And then I realized how funny the whole situation was. They were dressed like pirates, but we were stealing all of their booty (in more ways then one).

So I will tip my glass, and my bandana, pierced ear, pegleg and parrot to Katya, who made last weekend one for the books,

**Note: This post may not be as accurate as others, as some events have been retold to me by others and may be embellished.