I'm
tired. Who knew that lying on a beach in Mexico, next to the Caribbean could be
so damn exhausting!
But
then again, Spring Break 2012 did bring about an unprecedented personal
partying streak, one that I'm sure my homie Caithlin Jones will be proud
of.
It
begins, the week before Spring Break starts proper...
Night
1: Student Night. On an unassuming tuesday night, we headed to the local
watering-hole, P & G's for a few refreshing ales. Nek minnit, it's 5am,
nobody is entirely sure what has gone on, but the pizza tastes great.
Night
2: Turkish night. After being coerced into going out again (will power lacking)
I find myself, with a few other non-turks, in Murphy's bar, having drink after
drink purchased for me, despite my very vocal, if insincere objections. 4:30am
rolls around, much dancing, clapping and drinking, turkish style has occurred,
a jovial time was had by all.
Night
3: Tower Hour. Tower hour, as I may have already explained, is where you get
100oz of beer for $6.Don't ask me to convert to L, I can't. Measurement units
aside, it's a lethal combination. This time I actually didn't want to go out,
so I managed to slink away for an early night... at 3:30am
Night
4: Ben's Bday. Ben Bruno turned 25, which means he has officially stopped
growing, which means that I'm taller than him, therefore he now has to bake me
a cake. Yum. A few pre-drinks + some beer pong at Ben's apartment, then we
headed out to Blind Barber (a speak-easy hidden in the back of a Barber Shop) -
Ben had reserved a table, which our very kind, and very hot waitress upgraded
to the VIP, no doubt because of the gratuitous use of the Kiwi Charm (read
accent) by Yours Truly, and maybe Ben...
Ben and
I spun the most wonderful yarn in Maori. 2 fetching young lasses from Little
Rock, Arkansaw didn't know a whole lot about NZ, and asked what language we
spoke there. Such foolishness and ignorance meant that Ben and I felt no shame
in bullshitting the poor young things. We of course told them Maori was the
predominant language of Aotearoa, and only a few people spoke English, we then
proceeded, at their request, to showcase a little of our language. The
conversation essentially went as follows (apologies for spelling any Maori
speakers reading this):
Ben:
Kia ora, Tena quoe
Andrew:
Ka mate, ka mate
Ben: Ka
ora, Whangarei?
Andrew:
Ahhh, Wairarapa, Pokarekare Ana, Whakapapa.
Ben:
Kakariki kowhai, kereru kopapa.
Andrew:
Te tirita o Waitangi, Kawanatanga, Te tiro rangatiratanga.
Ben: Ka
pai
Andrew:
Kia ora.
Naturally,
their curiosity was only furthered by the this impressive display of our
bi-linguity (*might not be a word) So they asked for an explanation of what was
said. Ben proceeded to inform them that we were discussing the politics of Iwi,
and whether or not I thought he was going to be made or next chief. Tu meke.
Night
4: Cancun. We (Sam, my aussie roomie and I) arrived at our hotel around 9pm,
and were greeted by our 4 Spanish friends and their 6 bottles of Rum. Hilarity
ensued. We stayed out in the night clubs till around 6:30am, before meandering
(read stumbling) our way home along the beach. This is where we ran into
trouble. You see, we had never seen our hotel in daylight before, nor from the
beachside, alas, we could not find it. What we could find, was some very
comfortable, suspended beds, which looked like too much fun to pass up. So we
lay down for a quick nap and a swing (not advisable, it invoked a sense of
sea-sickness). 2 hours later, I awoke to find nobody except Felix and I
remaining, so after some persuasion (read kicking and yelling) Felix got up, and
we headed out in search of our hotel. Funny story, turns out we were about 50m
from the hotel, so sleeping on the beach was wholly unnecessary...
Night
5: Our spanish friends negotiated entry, + open bar at a club called congo for
$20. Bargain. Two parts of the night will stick in my mind. The first being a
'display' of everything by some Prossi up in a dancing box, twas reasonably
disgusting, but made hilarious by the fact that all of our international girls
were made to be her back up dancers while she 'shook what her mama gave her'.
Felix was charged with recording the events, the end result of this being that
we now have a 3 and a half minute of the russian dancer's arse. Lololol. The
second was being up in the dancing box (not sure how I got there) when Empire
State of Mind came on. I naturally rapped it, like a boss, for the people below
me in the club, I think Jay-Z's spirit was controlling me.
Day 6: Culture -Made it out of Cancun (which essentially transforms into the 51st state for spring break) for some culture, to the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza which were beautiful, then stopped for an authentic mexican feed on our way home. yum.
The rest of our time in Cancun (Nights 6,7,8,9,10 and Day 11) is essentially a blur of beers, beach parties, beaches and betches (see what i did there, it looks like I'm saying bitches, but that would be disrespectful, so I didn't do it...) Oasis hotel had some awesome parties with a massive sound system on the beach, and some delicious pink drink that came in a coconut with a face made out of orange slices on the front of it (name escapes me, it was that good)
We had some interesting experiences in the night clubs of Cancun to say the least... Memorable ones include being invited up into a dancers cage and proceeding to rap the shit out of Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" for my loyal subjects below me, then I was made to leave the dancers cage because they wanted it to be just girls up there for a while. My civil rights felt violated. I was the victim of blatant sexism, and I was about to climb up on my high horse to have a go at the MC when I realized 1) He was a stocky mexican man who possibly had gang tats, and 2) the reason i was getting down was so that our international girls could be the back up dancers for a stripper/hooker who was wearing a very short skirt and nothing else. Naturally we found this amusing, so employed one of the spanish boys to film the whole thing, unfortunately what we got was a 4 minute video of this Russian girl's unique 'booty shaking' ability. Lol.
By far the best night out in Cancun was our 2nd to last night, we found a tiny little local bar with $7 one litre, Margaritas. Lethal. Add to the mix a 40 year old Mexican dude and his wife (and their two young children who were just chillin') and it made for a night that nobody can remember with people we won't forget! Much tequila was consumed and the mexican man took great delight in telling me that my name in mexican means "the one who comes monthly" - thanks mate.
For our final day in Cancun we booked an all inclusive boat cruise that included alcohol (not that anybody really felt like drinking it), snorkeling, parasailing, swimming with a shark, food, cocaine, island markets and just general chilling and killing on the Caribbean, before anybody asks, yes I did have the themesong of Pirates of the Caribbean stuck in my head all day, but no I didn't run into Cap'n Jack.
Since then I've been to Boston, which was beautiful, slightly more laid back city than NYC, chilled in a a roof-top bar in NYC overlooking the Hudson river (Which had an aircraft carrier moored right next to, casually sitting on the flight deck was a B2 Stealth Bomber, Space shuttle + Numerous fighter jets: Boyhood dream fulfilled)
Other than that, just causing the same carnage in the small town of New Paltz as I usually do, it's finals week atm so theoretically i'm doing lots of study, although most of it seems to be aimed at ascertaining exactly where the limits to my awesome partying streaks are (it turns out it's 7 nights)
1 week from now i'll be packing up and leaving the State University of New York, moving into Manhattan for a week, with a whirlwind visit to Washington DC to meet a lawyer for the World Bank scheduled. After Manhattan I fly out for London and another adventure begins while I travel Europe for 40 or so days with my aussie friend Nicola. We will cause trouble, make memories, and of course, end up with few stories to tell.
I'm going to miss all my SUNY friends a lot, but rest assured, you haven't been replaced and i'm looking forward to being back in the motherland with y'all soon.
Gotta testify, come up in the spot looking extra fly, before the day I die, I'm gunna touch the sky...
Peace and love
Chilling with my stealth bomber, pre 8km walk home with Ben (Drunken logic: the fact that we had an expensive dinner + drinks precludes the use of a $10 cab home)
I would have used "bilinguality"
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