Gretchen, Graham, Ryan and I took a quick getaway to NYC this weekend to celebrate Gretchen’s birthday. We stayed at Hotel 17, which was much nicer than our previous shared bathroom hotel stay at West End Studios. This time Ryan actually agreed to put his jammies on and get under the covers to sleep, instead of staying fully clothed and sleeping above the covers so as not to get bed bugs! The beds were pretty comfy, the room was roomy, had beautiful woodwork and an old fireplace. The windows actually opened and the bathrooms were very clean. We arrived Saturday morning to meet up with G & G, who arrived Friday night. We walked around the Union Square area, drank cider, bought purses (only Gretchen and I), drank raspberry vodka tonics and ate Korean food. I dream that heaven for me will be a place like Veniero’s on 11th Street, and I will be able to eat whatever I want and never gain weight or have to get another root canal. We had cannoli, tiramisu and eclairs – it was absolutely wonderful. We met up with Sharon and Sarmad at the oldest continuously operating saloon in NYC, McSorley’s Old Ale House. The place was a little rowdy for us to start out the night. Graham likened it to jumping on a treadmill going 8 miles an hour, we needed to warm up somewhere else first. So we hit a few other bars, drank some raspberry beer and Brooklyn Brown Ale and eventually ended up at this little dive that has hotdogs with really weird toppings, like Sarmad’s choice of the night – avocado and cream cheese. This place also had a secret bar, accessible only through a pay phone in the wall of the hotdog place. We didn’t have the secret code, so didn’t attempt to go in. We were in bed by 1am, which was just fine with me. We scrapped plans to go out to Queens to meet S & S for brunch after waking up to snow. It was a great little getaway. It was so nice to hang with friends, and to get out of dodge for a night.