Day 8 of ‘merica Road Trip:
Oh New York City, if I had more talent I would write and perform a song about you in front of everyone. We woke up ready for another great day. 
I was happy to get out of a king-sized bed that all four of us slept in. I ended up crashing on the floor for part of the night. As we got ready, we all started to realize, this was also our last day together. We had to make it count. All our traveling brought us here. We went down the street to a little deli and had a lunch-flavored breakfast and headed to Time Square. Since the boys had never been here, but Amy and I both had, it actually for the first time felt like we were in control of what we were going to do for the day. The closer we got to Time Square the more we were bombarded with people stopping us to offer us stuff. I made the mistake of making eye-contact with one of them and got roped into a conversation. He wanted to “give us the opportunity” to see this great comedy show, happening later tonight – It was going to be awesome and it would only cost us $10 per person. This sounded fine but then I got more information: it turns out it’s $10 per person plus a 2 drink minimum (the catch). I playfully asked how much the average drinks were and he said, “oh only $8-12.” (Only?) When Amy and the boys heard that they started to walk away. I explained to the guy that it wasn’t worth it. He was really asking us to spend $30 per person which was ridiculous. He made some crack about that this wasn’t Texas and that we weren’t going to find another deal like that. He also started teasing Amy because she said something like “Sorry I can’t commit” and he said, ” is that why you don’t have a 
boyfriend” This was the last we saw of this man.
Time Square has changed since the last time I was here (summer of 2007). They seemed to have closed off a couple of the streets and built these bleachers. It’s more of a pedestrian area now. They also built a big color statue of the famous photo V-Day in Time Square (trust me you’ve seen this photo). It was all very bizarre. Also we had been telling the boys all about Virgin Records in Time Square, which we discovered had closed. I was a little conflicted: change is good and all but I miss the way Time Square use to be. I wanted to show the boys the New York that I know and loved. We didn’t have a ton of time. While the boys were in awe of the size of the buildings, the amounts of people, and the wonderful aromas of street vendors, Amy and I shopped in H&M. I love H&M and don’t understand why they can’t just build one in Texas. We did our thing and I have no idea what the boys were doing. When we finished shopping, we found that the boys had made a friend, a friend trying to sell them tickets to a comedy show. Louis is actually really cool to talk to and his comedy show will only cost us $5 per person with a 2 drink minimum where drinks cost about $5 plus Judah Freidlander was going to be doing stand up. We decide to to do it because we didn’t have any other real plans.
We were all getting a little tired but wanted to keep on truckin’ so we head to Central Park. We manage ourselves through the subway crowds to get to the park. 
I know how much Sam loves John Lennon so we went to Imagine and Strawberry Fields. It had been a few years since I had been there but I still knew where it was. We could have easily spend a couple of days just wandering around the park and checking out the site but again we were on a time crunch. We parked ourselves on a bench at Imagine and watched some mediocre musicians play. I was focused on some NYU film crew illegally filmming people. We walked along The Lake passing Cherry Hill towards Bethesda Fountain where there some street performers and a man making giant bubbles. Amy’s and my friend Allen, who had just recently moved to NYC was planning on meeting us so we walked back down to the more southern part of the park, down The Mall with cool statues, towards The Pond. 
We all laid in the grass as we waited for him, half falling asleep. When he got there we caught up. He told us all about his experiences in New York. Allen does film too. We actually graduated together. It was good to see he was doing pretty well for himself working and living in Williamsburg. Should I move to New York City?
We all headed back to the hotel to clean up for dinner. We were taking the boys to Little Italy for dinner. As a weird turn of events we actually bumped into the Hungarian dishwashers from camp. It was really strange. I didn’t stop and talk to long, mostly because I was starving and really just wanted to eat. Little Italy was busting with things to do. There were all times of shops and merchants. Amy and I bought raffle tickets from some Catholic nuns for a chance to win $2500. I even bought some blessed rosaries from them as souvenirs to give. Finding a restaurant was some what of a challenge. Sam didn’t want to spend any money, I was just impatient to eat anywhere, Amy wanted some place good, on top of the fact that every Italian host to each other restaurants was begging for our business.
The food was good but right after we had sat down I wished we had gone to the other place. It was a lovely meal.
Allen left us and we tried to find out way to the comedy club. We ended up calling Louis a couple of times because we were a little lost in an area we didn’t want to be lost in. The club was small but quaint. I felt like it was an authentic comedy club and not one that you’d see on Comedy Central. It wasn’t super crowded but full enough of people that we had to sit in the back. Sitting in the back is good at a comedy club because then you don’t have to be apart of the act. There was a table of girls in the front who every comedian used for material. They were from Jersey and in town because one of them was celebrating her 22 birthday or something. Judah Freidlander didn’t show up but the other comedians were hilarious so we hardly cared.
We stayed our later than I wanted. We stumbled our way back to the hotel. If this trip were a movie, this would be the climax of the trip but it didn’t feel like it. Yes we had fun but it didn’t feel epic. We had lots of laughs and smiles but really was this it? One of my favorite things about New York City is that I feel at any moment anything can happen. It’s unpredictably beautiful and complex. Even at 2am as we walked through the Village hoping for a subway station there were a good amount of people out to ask for help.
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