Happy Anniversary, New York!

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of me moving to New York. Here is my blog from that first day:

I got into NYC about noon on the 14th, and it was hot. I immediately regretted wearing as much clothing as I had for the plane trip, and then after sweating my way through subways and hauling luggage up and down countless stairs, I regretted the amount of luggage I had brought, as well.

After wrangling with my luggage for a few hours and getting to Manhattan (JFK airport is a busride and a metro away), I called my friend in Dallas to look up a luggage storage center where I could drop off my luggage and relax for a spell. I took my laptop to a Starbucks, ordered a Iced Venti Unsweetened Iced Green Tea (the proper way to call the drink, Barista-trained as I am) and started Hostel-calling.

As luck would have it, the first Hostel I called had an opening, and within hours I was trundling with my unwieldy luggage towards Chelsea International Hostel. It was still hot.
This Hostel turned out to be not bad. 4 beds and a bathroom, 32$. I was the only one in my room at first, but then a guy named Daniel from Melbourne, Australia came in and we had a pleasent chat. Another guy from Brazil shared the room, but then he left quickly to go to a 'Mann' concert ... apparently some band he was excited about from Mexico. My apologies that I don't know more Mexican bands that are popular with Brazilians.

Daniel wanted to find a place for us to hang out and drink, but I confessed to him that I was gay (he was cute, but smelly) and I wanted to spend my first night in NYC doing something gay. After a brief goodbye, I made my way to VIEW Bar NYC (in honor of my favorite daytime chat-fest) and had a few drinks while reading the local fag rag to catch up on what the scene is like. I debated making a whirlwind tour of the gay bars in NYC, but I was exhausted from wrasslin' with my luggage so I needed as much sleep as I could muster before fighting with it again the next day.

Thank god for storage lockers, though! Stripping myself of my heaviest stuff and leaving it at my previous hostel, I made my way to Hostelling International, which was uptown on 103rd street central park west. I checked in ... and I would love to say that I did something super-exciting on my second night in NYC, but it started to rain and so I elected to play video games instead on my Nintendo DS. (I know, you can move a boy to NYC, but you can't move the nerd out of the boy.) After calling a couple friends to tell them I was okay and relate my adventures, it was another early night.