Story #25 - Night Out in NYC

Hi everybody! Here's this week's story. It's a memoir about a recent experience I had. I hope you enjoy it! Oh, and I'm still traveling, but when I get back I'll add some pictures. :)

Title: Night Out in NYC
Warnings: none
Summary: A fun night I had a few weeks ago.
Length: ~2,100 words
Notes: First person point of view, past tense. Genre is memoir.


A Night Out in NYC

New York City. The Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps. I was there just about a week ago at a summer program at Columbia University.
I had a lot of memorable and fun moments during the three weeks of the program. But one night stands out in my mind as a good story - a night of pure fun.
It was the second Friday in the program, and two of my suitemates and I had a plan for an outing. We were going to see the Harvard Sailing Team, a comedy group that some of our other suitemates had seen the previous Friday. They had recommended the group, so we were planning on going.
8:30 pm that Friday night found us killing time until the 9:30 show. I was reading the newest Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book while my suitemates watched Glee. The two suitemates coming with me that night were Jimena and Zoe. Jimena (pronounced Hee-men-a) was my roommate. She's from Peru. We got along very well. The other girl, Zoe, is Canadian, but she lives in Shanghai. She was really fun and nice.
At about 8:40, Zoe said, "Guys, are we still planning on going to see the Harvard Sailing Team? Because if we are, we should probably get going now."
We all agreed that we still wanted to go, so Jimena looked up the location  of the show on her computer. We found out that the show actually began at 9:00, not 9:30 like we had thought. We had about twenty minutes to get there, and the subway ride would take about that long by itself. We had to hurry!
We quickly grabbed our stuff, locked our doors, signed out, and took the elevator down to the front of the dorm. The elevator ride seemed to take forever. And then, when we made it downstairs, we found that it was raining, something none of us had known.
"Should we still go?" I wondered, staring out at the dark, wet night. It seemed a bit silly to rush out there when we'd probably be late and it was raining, but we had told everyone we were going and we had gotten ourselves into the mindset of going, so we were going to go.
So we rushed back into the elevator, took it up to our suite, opened our doors, and grabbed various jackets and umbrellas. Jimena was the only one of us with an umbrella, but Zoe had a poncho and I had a jacket with a hood. It was mostly drizzling, so we'd be okay.
We rushed downstairs, finally on our way. It was about 8:50. We walked/ran to the subway stop, which was thankfully just outside the main entrance to the Columbia campus. We got onto the subway with no issues, and then it was just waiting. We had to transfer cars, though. While rushing to catch the transfer train, I saw a poem that seemed to relate to our current situation (at least the first line). Each line was written in mosiac on the passageway in the subway station. It proclaimed,

"You're tired
If you're late you're fired
Why bother?
Why the pain?
In the morning
Do it again"

- Author unknown

We got to 23rd street, where the show was located. It was at this club that no one seemed to know, and we had to walk around a lot in the drizzle trying to find it. It was dark, but beautiful. New York City in the rain during the night is a truly stunning sight, especially 23rd street. There were taxis all over, skyscrapers all lit up, streetlamps and people and restaurants. Zoe and I were soaking it all in and trying to take pictures (which was difficult in the rain).
But Jimena brought us back to our original purpose when she said, "We have to go! It's 9:13!"
At this point I think we were all feeling like we didn't have much of a chance, but we picked up the pace anyway. Jimena walked really fast, partly to get to the show and partly because she felt we weren't in the best neighborhood. Zoe and I tried our best to keep up, but we couldn't help gawking at the beauty of the city.
We made it to the show at about 9:20. It was located in this kind of seedy club. We tentatively walked in, and found someone official.
"Where is the Harvard Sailing Team performing?" Jimena asked him.
The man pointed at a door to his right. "There," he said. "But I'm afraid the tickets are all sold out. I'm sorry."
Zoe, Jimena, and I exchanged looks. Sold out! Well, that sucked. We thanked the man and left the weird club, regrouping near the entrance to decide what to do.
None of us were really that crushed about our lost chance to see the Harvard Sailing Team. It would have been fun, but we knew we didn't have much of a chance coming to see it twenty minutes late. We hadn't known they were so popular that you'd need to reserve tickets, though.
The question now was what to do. "I don't really want to go back to our dorm," I said. "I feel like we should do something, since we're out."
Zoe nodded. "Yeah, let's do something."
Jimena suggested, "Let's get to Penn Station. I want to get out of here. And then we can decide what to do."
All agreed, we set out for the long walk. Jimena walked very fast, and Zoe and I lagged behind a bit, admiring the street scape. One building I was admiring turned out to be the New York Times building, which I thought was cool.
The rain had pretty much stopped for our walk, thankfully. However, everything was still wet and there was a light mist in the air. On that walk I made up the word "slippy" on accident. I said to Zoe, "This ground is really slippy!" before realizing that I meant to say 'slippery'.
"That should be a word," Zoe said.
I agreed, and slippy was coined. At least for me. I have yet to introduce it to the greater world. Eventually I will.
It was a warm, humid night, and soon we were all hot and sweating. We made it to Penn Station eventually. Jimena's sister goes to college in New York and lived around the area, so we headed toward her apartment. I'm not sure what the plan was - meet her sister, decide what to do, something. I think Jimena just wanted to feel safe.
It turned out that her sister was going to the movies with a friend, so she couldn't do anything with us. Jimena, Zoe, and I once more had to decide what to do.
"Let's go to Times Square," Jimena said. "There's always something to do there."
"Ooh, can we get that Peach Fanta you were talking about?" Zoe asked. "That sounded really good."
She was talking about this one story Jimena had told us. She had gone to a movie theater at Times Square and found a bonanza of drinks. They had all different types of Coca-Cola, and many types of Fanta. She mentioned Peach Fanta, and Zoe really liked the idea of it.
Jimena nodded. "Sure, we can go there."
"Sounds good!" I said. "Maybe we can go to M&M world or something too."
We were decided. Times Square it was. This, of course, meant more walking. By the time we made it to Times Square, I had discarded the idea of M&Ms and was fondly thinking of ice cream. I was pretty sure the movie theater would have ice cream. At least it would be air conditioned. (It had "air con" as Zoe called it.)
We made it to the movie theater, an AMC, and a nice employee let us in to buy food and drinks even though we weren't going to watch a movie. I bought a hot dog and Dibs. Zoe got her Peach Fanta. Jimena got a hot dog as well, and a Cherry Coke. I didn't order any drink, because I figured the Dibs would be thirst-quenching enough. We sat down on a plastic bench in the corner of the movie area, looking out onto Times Square. It was a nice view.
About halfway through my Dibs, I reconsidered the whole thirst-quenching idea. "I'm going to go get water," I said, getting up to go into the line.
"You can share my Fanta if you want," Zoe offered.
I hesitated. I don't really like soda, but I like peaches and I was curious about the Peach Fanta. Plus, I was really thirsty and I didn't want to wait in line to buy water (they didn't give you free cups of water at that theater).
"Sure," I decided. "Thanks!"
The Peach Fanta was actually quite good. It did have the sparkling burn that I don't really like about soda, but the peach flavor was good and the burn wasn't that bad. Also, it was cold.
We were finished with our food when Zoe had an idea. "Let's have a 'drink ing contest'," she said. "Let's try to finish the rest of this in one go."
I stared at the Fanta apprehensively. There was a little less than half left, and the cup was big. "I don't think I can do that," I said.
"Aw, c'mon! Try it!" Zoe urged me, Jimena joining in.
"Okay, I'll try," I conceded. "But don't blame me when it doesn't work out."
We had Jimena take a video of us and began on the count of three. The reason why I was so unsure was that I didn't think about swallowing and continuing to drink through the straw. So on the first try, I just took a HUGE sip without swallowing. I had to stop because the burn was intense and I was nearly gagging, but laughing at the same time (along with Jimena and Zoe). Eventually I managed to swallow it down.
"Okay, let's try that again," I gasped. "I didn't think about swallowing."
We had Jimena get the camera ready again and successfully finished it the second time. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, but also knew I'd have to go to the bathroom pretty soon after that.
Still, we decided to go to the bathroom when we got back to Columbia. Jimena handed me back my camera, saying, "Sorry, Julianna, I don't think I got the video."
"That's okay," I said with a grin. "I'm not sure I would want a video of that anyway."
After leaving the "movie restaurant" (another accidental coinage of a word - well, phrase - by yours truly) we got onto the subway, not having any time to do anything else. It was about 11:20 and we had to be back in our suite by 12:00. We didn't want to take any chances, because curfew was strict.
On the subway ride back, Jimena said, "I think we should get ingredients for baking. We can bake cookies back at the dorm."
Even after all that soda, I was hungry for cookies. But still... "Do you think we have enough time?"
Jimena checked her watch. "If we run, we can make it."
So we did. There's a grocery store directly across from Columbia, so when we got off the subway at about 11:40 we ran to the store and picked up some ingredients (my accidental coinages during this period were "ice cream dough" instead of cookie dough and "Crescent glands" instead of Crescent rolls - I think the soda was getting to me). Then we literally ran back to the campus. Somehow, this short distance of running was way more exhausting than all the walking we had been doing. (Jimena calculated how much walking we did later, because she's an Economics and Business girl, and it was 3.4 miles, from 23rd Street to Times Square, or 42nd Street. That's a lot of walking!) The Columbia campus is really beautiful at night, and I enjoyed the ambiance even as we raced to our dorm.
We made it to our suite at 11:54, neatly before curfew. Then there was a bit of a struggle for the bathrooms (there were only two and all of us had to pee really badly, but Zoe and I got priority because of the Fanta). Next, we all took showers, to wash away the rain and sweat. And finally, we baked our cookies, which turned out a bit burnt but were still good.
I will always remember that night as a very fun night, full of laughter and friendship and unique experiences. But mostly I'll remember the feeling I voiced as we raced through the Columbia campus: "Yay we survived a night out in New York City! And had fun too!"

THE END :)