eat, sleep, work, PLAY

I love when friends come to visit me. It is fun to spend time with them and show them around the City. The people who visit me in New York bring with them an energy and enthusiasm to enjoy as much as possible in their short visit here. After all, they are on vacation.
Unfortunately, I am not on vacation. I live here. I have responsibilitites. And so, I try to keep up. I try to balance my normal life with their vacation attitude. And it exhausts me.
On Monday, my roommate was in town to visit. She decided to come the Sunday evening after I very convincingly told her she should. There is nothing more motivating to finish a paper on a Monday morning than knowing someone will be there Monday afternoon. I woke up early, did laundry and wrote my paper. By noon, I was ready to have some fun... until my evening class. Luckly my roommate has other friends and was easily entertained during the times when I had class on Monday and work and tutoring on Tuesday. Each night we went out as if it really was summer break. Wednesday I didn't have to work, and I decided to skip class. That night we went to Bluegrass Wednesdays. A childhood friend from Dallas met us at the bar for Bluegrass Wednesday. On Monday I managed to convince her to come to NYC Wednesday rather than Thursday. So she did.
So began the next wave of entertaining friends. My roommate returned to Syracuse, and I continued to play hostess. I went to work Thursday morning, then met my childhood friend in Times Square for lunch. I hate Times Square, as do most people who live in New York. So we headed back uptown. After all, even though my friend was on vacation, I still had to babysit. It was only for a few hours, and then it was time for more fun. My childhood friend and I met another friend who lives in Long Island for dinner. I took them to my new favorite restaurant, the Boat Basin Cafe. This open-air restaurant is located on the Hudson River over-looking New Jersey and under the 79th street. And for some reason, Thursday night Boat Basin seems to be the place "where all the men are." I think the ratio of men to women might have been 30:1. And for some reason one of those 30 was a guy I used to date. This is the second time I've run into a former guy in the last two weeks. I digress... After dinner we went back to the Sports bar I discovered on Tuesday night to watch the Mavericks game. The game didn't end well, but our night sure did. Childhood friend and Long Island friend left my place at 1:00am to go to the airport to pick up another Dallas friend.
I worked Friday and Saturday morning. I opted not to go out Friday because I was simply too exhuasted. Instead, my three friends went to the theater without me. On Saturday I rallied for the last big night of friends in the City. I met them in SoHo at a very cute restaurant, then we did some shopping. Afterwards we went back to my place to get ready for a big night on the town. We made it to Nacho's just in time for the last call at Happy Hour. Then we went for an amazing Italian dinner. After dinner we headed to Times Square. I still hate it. But this was their vacation. The first place was empty, so I took them to a little Irish pub just off Times Square. Within three minutes of being in the place, the owner had bought the four of us shots. We stayed there until 3am. I can report Saturday night ended with a BANG!
After crashing at 4am, I'm amazed my friends managed to leave for the airport at 7am. I guess it was a typical New York experience.