San Fran: I'm Old Gregg!

And so begins my vacation with Little Aussie. And what better way to kick it off then with a classic night of New York binge-drinking. I started with an open bar JM was hosting at a classy little place called Off the Wagon. This hour long open bar turned into me staying for 3 hours. I then met up with Little Aussie at Le Poisson Rouge, to see a dj. The doorman kindly suggested we give him two random names so we did. He checked his list and let us in for free. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (yes that's the dj name) was awesome and I was having so much fun that I agreed to go out after with Little Aussie and her promoter friend that she had met while in New York. He took us to one of the standard Meatpacking clubs, where there was bottle service. This is always my downfall and I indulged heavily. I also gave my number to two different guys, both of whom turned out to be promoters and both still text me every weekend with stupid things that I will never do. Once it was 3AM and I was teetering where I stood I decided it was time to head home. Little Aussie stayed out until 6AM, returning back to my apartment as Atl was leaving for work.

I woke up still drunk and much too late--our flight was in a few hours and I hadn't packed a thing. I also decided that I absolutely had to go pick up my laundry and take a shower and do my hair. I was just taking my time and not realizing the magnitude of the situation. We left entirely too late and of course had to wait forever for the subway. I also sat next to an old pimp in a mustard-colored suit the entire ride to JFK and didn't realize it til halfway through. We arrived to check-in with an hour before the flight left. I thought we had plenty of time but apparently the lovely people at Delta thought otherwise. That is, if they had the ability to think and not be the ghetto pieces of shit that they were. For the first time in my life that I missed a flight. They refused to let us on, and then tried to charge us $800 each to get on another one. After I stood there screaming and slamming my wallet against the counter, they relented and agreed to let us on one at 8pm for $50. We were told these seats were guaranteed but after sitting around the airport for 6 hours, we were then told that we probably were not getting on that flight since they had oversold it by 20 people. Somehow we managed to get on, probably because Little Aussie burst into tears. The result of this was a man giving us all of his free drink tickets.

We arrived in San Fran in the middle of the night and after a cab ride from a crazy woman cabbie, had our reunion with Baby J and Byarr, my two beloved members of Team USA. The four of us had all spent a semester in Hamburg together and hadn't all been together since two summers before. It was a good thing we were excited to see each other since we were all in very close quarters together in our private hostel room. This hostel also featured the oldest elevator in the US, and I was convinced we were going to die every time we got in it. The long weekend was glorious and we all picked up right where we left off, cracking up the entire time. Baby J and Little Aussie appropriately took the role of the children, as they constantly flirted and made fun of each other, and Byarr and I were the parents, since they annoyed us. Byarr cracked us up at one point by telling them that they "shan't have their pudding" if they didn't stop misbehaving during dinner. We also quoted a youtube video that Baby J showed us all the entire weekend--Old Gregg. It is the weirdest British skit about a gay swamp creature named Old Greg who loves Baileys.

We packed in the weekend with sightseeing. We ate clam chowder at Fisherman's wharf, had coffee and truffles in North Beach, walked through Chinatown, shopped in Union square, weirdo-watched in Haight Ashbury and rode on one of the streetcars. We also had an awesome photo shoot at the cliffs and the beach in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, where I got to show off my favorite undies:

                                                                Deutschland meets San Fran

We went out at night obviously, to the Mission and a really cool bar called Elbow Room, which played vintage porn. We also went to some other less cool bars, one of which was filled with annoying college kids bro-ing out. We drank a lot of San Fran craft beer, most of which was good, one of which tasted literally like toilet water. Little Aussie and I were concerned about Byarr, who in Germany had the tendency to get pretty out of control. He was relatively tame this trip, except for one night. Baby J and I were exhausted and went back to the room to go to bed after we returned to the hostel. Little Aussie and Byarr wanted to continue the party with some people from the hostel they had met. Little Aussie met another hot Aussie man and was caught up with him. She didn't notice that Byarr had slipped away and walked to another nearby hostel. He walked in, told the guy at the desk he was in room 4B and went to the kitchen where he drank a bunch of beer out of the fridge. He was finally caught when he started removing food, and was escorted out.

We also took a mini-trip while in San Fran, across the bay to Tiburon. Byarr has family in San Fran, an awesomely hilarious aunt and uncle. They have a second home in Tiburon, which is about a half hour ferry ride away. They were having a party that Saturday afternoon, but due to our lack of planning skills we ended up going without having time to change into nice clothes. We showed up looking like slobs and bringing nothing with us. I wouldn't normally care, but this second home was absolutely amazing and was located on one of the cliffs overlooking the bay.

This view is no big deal

His family was very welcoming, serving us food and drinks and entertaining the slovenly lot of us. We enjoyed our short time there until we had to literally run back down the hill in order to catch the last ferry. Little Aussie also entertained ourselves when the boys got fed up with our silly antics. We were wandering Golden Gate Park one afternoon when we spotted an old carousel. We of course had to go on it, like the children that we are. The carousel operator was about to shut down but when he saw us outside, let us on and gave us 3 free rides. The boys sat waiting for almost a half hour as we jumped around this thing "horse hopping" and taking hilarious photos. I'm still mad that that little girl stole the rooster that I really wanted to ride on though.
And finally the last great moment of the trip occurred on our last morning there. We went to a brunch place nearby before starting our day of sightseeing. We ate quite a bit and after the meal I naturally had to take a poop. We had been out the night before and I had tried to avoid using the bathroom in our room. So off I went to take care of business which was successful. Except for when I went to flush. Nothing. I jiggled the handle and still nothing. My specimen was sitting squarely in the toilet and it looked to be not going anywhere. This was the only bathroom in the restaurant and I started to panic that someone was going to be waiting outside. I washed my hands quickly and ran out. I was relieved to see no one was waiting, but as soon as I sat back down the guy at the table across from us got up and headed there. Baby J was trying to ask me something but I was too distracted to think. I had to interrupt him to explain the situation and tell them we needed to leave immediately. The boys were cracking up at my panicked look, as they have never heard me talk about anything like this. I barely noticed as I was hauling ass to the exit but we must have all kept laughing for the next hour.

A perfect way to end a reunion trip with people I don't see very often. The next morning we said our goodbyes as we were all flying off to our respective destinations. But we made plans to meet up again soon in Denver, which is where Byarr lives. And next stop for Little Aussie and I--Mexico City. To be continued....