After my little trip to Central Park I came back and played World of Warcraft. It was really nice to go on a Friday night raid and finish at 6pm with a whole evening ahead of me. I decided to force myself to go out on, leave room service behind and eat in a proper restaurant. I picked the East of Eight bistro that I had walked past a few times.
Completely out of character I had soup to start. Well, a crab bisque but I thought it prudent since Americans really don't do starters very well. You tend to get something of the same size as the main course and it is a bit overwhelming. The restaurant was hardly packed (most people I think had chosen the outside option) and got more and more quiet and soon there was only me and one other table with two women left. My main, duck with strawberries, was delicious but I was somewhat non-plussed when I heard the waiter humming "All By Myself".
I was ready just to slip off home but forced myself to go for one drink. I went back to the Gym bar that I had been to previously. It's a gay sports bar, which means it has lots of TV screens showing football and football news. I actually just wanted one human being to talk to me whom I hadn't paid to bring me food or drinks but it was noisy and everyone was there with friends.
So far it had been a disaster and to try to rescue it I decided I, yes I, would go to a club. I picked Splash since it seemed to be popular. It was hilarious. This is New York but seriously the place looked like it belonged in a small town in the back of beyond. The music was , well it's hard to describe - think Bon Jovi (!!) followed by Lady Gaga. It was early though and once it started to get busy the music turned to the random series of noises that people seem to like. I would have given anything to have Bon Jovi back.
The pole dancers and bar staff were a bunch of refugees from Abercrombie and Fitch, which was good but I decided that I had spent long enough reminding myself why I didn't like this kind of thing. So it was back up fifth avenue and off to bed for four hours sleep before heading out to JFK.
