Lovely People + Amazing Food = Great Weekend

I finished training for this week on Saturday morning.

My energy levels were quite low so in the spirit of taking care of myself, I gave Bootcamp a miss and went home for a snooze.

This turned out to be a very wise thing to do as the rest of the weekend was packed full of Fun and a little bit of The Crazy.

After my refreshing nap I headed uptown to meet my friend Rob at the Hilton where he has scammed a free room (to be fair, he is writing a review of the place) and we wandered about in that area of town, stopping at the Algonquin Hotel for some cheesy pics of us sitting at the Round Table.

I do love Dorothy Parker.
"If you've got nothing nice to say come sit by me".

Then we caught the train out to Coney Island for the sea air and a hot dog; the amusements were closed and the wind was cold but I did get to touch the Atlantic ocean. I know, not exactly a touristy thing, but I'm from an island surrounded by the Pacific and Indian oceans, and I'm strange that way.

After stuffing my face with a hot dog (yet to try some fries) and beer on the boardwalk, we caught the train back into the city and I had my second nap of the day to prepare for the Saturday Night Live "afterparty" I had been invited to. I received the text message of location and password to get in, all very secretive, and the starting time of 3:30 AM!!!

I am old, for me this is not a time to start a party, it is a time to be fast asleep.

Anyway, I set my alarm for 1am and met Rob and his hilarious friends James & Dominic at a bar near where I'm staying, with the intention of going on to the Very Secret Location. which we did.... along with about a zillion other people, all of them in their 20's and looking very fresh-faced for that time of the morning; chemicals may have been involved but I think they were mostly just high on youth. Ugh.

At this point I realised this was not an afterparty at all, just some publicity thing that pretty much anyone could get an invite to.
When the door guy said the club wouldn't be open to 4AM!!!! I was completely over it.

I did not feel special.

So I jumped back in a cab and went home for about 5 hours sleep.
The plan for Sunday was to catch a train to visit Rob's friends JD & Hannah, the hour-long journey was good althought slightly surreal having had limited sleep the night before.

What a great way to top off the weekend!
I met Hannah, a gorgeous american who is just so much fun and her partner JD, who is British, also very funny and made sure my wine glass was never empty; for that he may be my new BFF.

They were so kind and welcoming, it was an absolute pleasure staying with them.
We had a great dinner (thank you Rob) and talked like we'd known each other forever.
Well they had, I was just the random friend of a friend from Australia and I couldn't have felt more at home.

Really good people.

Thank you both so much for your kindness & hospitality.

So here I am, back in the city this morning and ready for my second week of training.

Game on.


xxx