Busy (fun) Weekend!

Natalie and I ended up parking the U-haul overnight on the street Thursday night. We woke up early to move it out of the street sweeping zone, and luckily didn't get a ticket (we were told by my roommate that it's illegal to park a commercial vehicle on the street). Oops! We moved the truck to another part of the Upper East Side, and waited around for the street sweeper to come. When it did, we circled the block and re-parked it until Saturday morning. Two nights of parking for free? Yes ma'am, I'll take it!

Late Friday, Natalie's apartment finally gave her approval on her lease, and permission to move in. We met at the truck, and drove over to her place. We had everything moved in very quickly (she didn't have much to move).

The next big task was to find a gas station, fill up the truck, and return it. It was quite a task to find one, but after driving through Times Square (and not hitting any tourists, thank you very much), we finally found one, returned the truck, and had completed our first of three major goals.

Saturday night we went out for Natalie's birthday at a cute tapas bar called Pipa (19th btwn Park and Bway). It was a bit pricey for the amount of food, but we had fun. A lot of sangria, cheese plate, asparagus, mushroom croquettes, mini paella, chocolate something rather with a candle, apple cobbler, and a couple hours later, we headed off to the next locale. Union Bar is pretty much 18-21 year olds, or so it seemed, so we tried again. We took a cab to a club in midtown, but it had a ridiculous cover, so we walked into Times Square, and after the W hotel bar was closed, we decided to call it a night.

Yesterday, Natalie, Julie, and I went to a free concert in Central Park at the SummerStage. There were three bands, the third of which was the one we set out to see. The Brazilian Girls put on a great show. Sort of avant-garde world music, we really enjoyed it, despite the hot temperature.

I headed home, and my roommate told me our upstairs neighbors were throwing a dinner party on the rooftop. It was so fabulous. They had a long table low to the ground, candles, blankets laid out, pillows to sit on, white Christmas lights, and a lot of great food. It was nice to meet more people in the building and make some other friends as well. Since our building is only four stories high, it's even height with the Manhattan bridge. It was really funny when the tour buses went across and were waving at us and taking pictures.

After dinner, I headed out to meet Julie for a little more going out. We went to a place called NuBlu (Ave C btwn 4th and 5th), which is an intimate bar/club that is owned by a record label of the same name - a little gem of a place, that hasn't quite been discovered yet. There was a band with a Brazilian front-woman, a tuba, keyboards, and drums. It was really great music, and we enjoyed dancing and talking to people (including the guitar player from the Brazilan Girls, whose hat I wore for a while). It was also the first time Julie and I hung out just the two of us, and we had a really nice time catching up. I'm very excited for more fun times with all the great people I know in the city. Not to mention the ones I'm sure to meet...