Bet you’re wondering what the hell I was thinking with the title of this blog post. If you understood the kind of weekend I just went through, you’d know that feeling like death at the end of it was a very normal feeling. Almost expected? I’m 32 years old and I legitimately had no business getting on the way I did this past long weekend.
Do I regret anything? HELL NO.
Well, sorry, I regret booking my flight with WestJet – but we will get to that.
The way this trip came to be was that I knew I’d be broke as hell with my trip to Europe during summer 2019. I’m one of those people who likes to go all out for my friends birthdays so I had to think of some way to do/plan way ahead for the year.
My friend Sherry‘s birthday is in July. Jummy‘s birthday is in August. Lorren‘s birthday is in October. This time of year would truly be my BROKEST because I was in Europe from August 9th – September 2nd. What could I do that would work for all three, BUT, do it earlier in the year while I have money?
Ahhh, let me book a trip for all four of us. So in January, I asked all of them if they had plans for (Canada’s) Thanksgiving Weekend and they said no. Boom. Sent them e-mail confirmations about flights to New York for October 11th – October 14th. Girls Trip to New York as a birthday gift to all three. Mission accomplished.
Friday Flight Issues
Unfortunately, once the trip finally came it started out rough.
Our flight was supposed to leave Toronto at 7:30pm on Friday, October 11th and arrive at LaGuardia for 9pm. This would have given us plenty time to take an Uber from the airport to our hotel, drop our things, and Uber it to our 11pm reservation at The Sugar Factory in the Meatpacking District.
None of that shit happened though.
We planned on getting to Pearson Airport at about 5:30pm to begin the check in process BUT at 3:30pm we all received an e-mail from WestJet that our flight was 45 minutes delayed. Okay, not the WORST delay ever but we would need to alter a plans a little. Sherry changed our reservation to 11:30pm instead and we still had some hope. Cool.
We were supposed to take off at 7:30pm and now it was 8:15pm. By the time we got to Pearson Airport, that time turned to 8:24pm. Again, not too crazy.
After crossing through that insane line/process to be OK’d by U.S. Customs Agents, we made it to our gate around 6:30ish. We sat down and then the flight attendant for WestJet made the announcement that our flight had been delayed, again. We went from arriving at 9pm in LaGuardia to now we wouldn’t even be leaving Pearson until 9pm. Furthermore, we actually didn’t leave at 9pm. By the time the plane FROM LaGuardia got to Pearson, people disembarked, they cleaned, removed luggage + put our luggage and we sat on the plane – it was about 9:45pm. We were leaving Toronto 2 hours and fifteen minutes later than we were supposed to.
Absolutely fucking livid. The explanation we received from WestJet was that LaGuardia is having a lot of construction work done so many flights were not leaving on time bla bla bla. There goes our whole Friday night plans. By the time we landed in LaGuardia we had to cancel our reservation and the only option left was to take the Uber to hotel and sleep.
Uber, Lyft, Juno
I believe once we finally exited the airport and made it over to the ‘rideshare pick up‘ area it was about 11:30pm. We tried to see how much an Uber from the airport to our hotel would be.
$118.00 USD
ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN AMERICAN DOLLARS!!!
It’s not new to me that rides from airports everywhere in the world tend to be a bit pricier, but $118? Get that the hell out of here. We realized at that moment that probably the rest of the Canadians that had gotten off our airplane were requesting Uber as well. There were signs for Lyft and Juno around the area as well. So we tried Lyft because we had never heard of Juno.
$50.88 USD
It was $67.12 USD cheaper to take a Lyft than it was an Uber from LaGuardia to our hotel. We obviously took that option and made the excruciatingly long trek from LaGuardia over to the Prospect Park area.
Friday Night, Finally
After a long commute due to the construction at LaGuardia and for some reason there being traffic at 11:30pm on the roads – we made it to our hotel. I had booked us at the Comfort Inn, Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
If I may add at this point, thank goodness I booked the flights and hotel as early as I did. The week we were going to fly to New York our exact flight was $983.00 roundtrip per person (I paid less than that for all four of us in January) and our hotel for three nights was $1300.00 (hellll no). People may sometimes pick on me for doing things really early but this is one of those times I was very happy I did.
There are no pictures of our room in the hotel because we literally got there and were so starving that it was all we could focus on. We showered and ordered pizza to settle our stomachs as quickly as we could. Then we went to sleep. There go all those awesome Friday night plans. At 1am after all the BS we had been through getting to New York, we were going to sleep.
Brunch and Coney Island
Sherry had found this brunch place online and made a reservation a while ago. The place was called 230 Fifth Rooftop and it was located in Manhattan.
We got our cute clothes on and headed for the subway to go into the city. It didn’t end up being too bad, I think it only took 32 minutes or so to get to the location from our hotel. We didn’t even see any weird shit on transit, have to admit that was a let down. I have historically seen some very wild stuff on the trains in New York but we were not that lucky this time.
Our reservation was for 1pm and we were let into our seats right away. The view from that rooftop is really amazing and it wasn’t super busy at the time. We opted for the $29.00 all you can eat brunch.
Because I am lazy, I will say here I hate situations where I have to stand up while eating. I like to enjoy as much food as possible and enjoy doing nothing. With the brunch, you had to go down a flight of stairs to go get your food and then come back up to your table to eat it. Repeat. Repeat.
Thank goodness the food was very good or that would have annoyed me much more. If I may suggest that you must try the chicken and waffles because the chicken was fried PERFECTLY. Also, I chose to drizzle some Nutella on my waffles because I can’t live without Nutella.
After we finished our food the four of us also took some time to take cute pictures and videos in front of their ‘Kiss Me Here’ sign and the indoor ‘Wish You Were Here’ sign. Aw.
Because Lorren is a hippie, we walked over to some stone store after brunch. All those amethysts and whatnots, you know those ones? Yeah. She purchased some more for her collection and now she is Thanos so watch out if the world starts going to hell. Lorren got all her Infinity Stones and is wreaking havoc with them obviously.
We also went into this little store where they sell super cheap jewelry but you have to spend at least $24.00 to shop there. We managed to surpass that minimum EASILY. I love hoop earrings and big gaudy earrings as well, lots to choose from.
It was now time to head over to Coney Island. I hadn’t been there since I was 17 years old and I think the other three girls had never been there. Seemed like a cute place to go visit during our afternoon, plus we had dinner reservations for 6pm at Footprints Cafe there.
The train from our location in Manhattan to Coney Island took about 45 minutes and again, we saw no wild shit on the train. We wandered around the rides and the beach area until it was dinner time. I was a little shocked that on a day where it was only 18 degrees (Celsius) outside people were still entering the water. It was really busy around nonetheless, there was a nice man cutting mangoes right next to us into flower shapes and hoards of families wandering as well.
At this point we walked over to Footprints. Now let me tell you about Footprints OK? Every damn time one of my friends goes to New York, they always post pictures of the food at this place. I had to try it! We had to try it!
Imagine Jamaican food with a bunch of pasta thrown in, playfully referred to as ‘rasta pasta‘ in this situation. It was amazing. I live my life trying to devour as much carbs as I can as an Eastern European, so this place was REALLY made for me.
Sherry and Lorren got plantain with a shrimp pasta. Jummy got the most amazing pasta with oxtail. I chose to go for roti skin, mac & cheese, fried breadfruit and some jerk shrimp. A little bit of everything. I did regret just not getting the damn oxtail though, that really looked like it would change my life for the better.
I would like all of you to know, this was the moment where my life went to shit. Well, not my life, but my decisions for my body.
Jummy’s wonderful cousin Deji (a new Yorker) decided to grace us with his presence at Footprints. Because two days prior to us coming to New York it was Lorren’s birthday he wanted to treat us to some alcohol in celebration.
This was a bad idea.
We had already been drinking some of their WILDLY named cocktails at Footprints but he wanted shots. We all did shots of tequila, cool, went down nicely. But it wasn’t enough. He decided to tell the bartender it was Lorren’s birthday and the bartender did NOT pour out shot glasses for our second round. Oh no, that was poured INTO AN ACTUAL GLASS. I remember going to drink it and thinking to myself, ‘the drink was supposed to end one ounce ago.’ This is how I knew, I may die this evening.
Saturday Night
Deji drove us home and we began to get ready to go do some clubbing in Manhattan. One of my Instagram followers had mentioned that there was going to be a good party at SOBS in Manhattan. I was especially excited because one of the DJ’s on the flyer was Bobby Konders and I used to listen to the Massive B mixtapes when I was younger. This guy is a great DJ.
It was ladies free before midnight with free Jack Danie’s and/or tequila with the entrance. They let the entire line of women in at the same time and the guys stood outside and waited. I loved this policy!
Once we got in we kept drinking. And drinking. And dancing. All I can tell you is that the music was great and that we made it home safely at about 5am. The end.
Sunday Funday
Well, I woke up at 1pm – I think. My whole body hurt and the remnants of the drinking the night before were very clear in the pain I felt in my head as well.
The other three girls were also in and out of sleep and we were clearly way too late for the breakfast that was included in our hotel stay. We lingered and lingered until I eventually ordered us some breakfast on Uber Eats.
We ate HEARTILY and fell right back asleep. That is how we literally spent our Sunday. In and out of sleep. I wish I had actually stayed sleeping the whole time but instead I woke up at some moments to watch my Dallas Cowboys lose to the 0-4 New York Jets. Disgusting.
The only thing worse than a hangover is watching your team lose to a shittier team.
I’d say at about 8pm we finally began to stand up and start getting for another night of partying. We had RSVP’d to an event called ‘Afrobeats & Brunch‘ at Le Souk. No cover, big win. Also, yes I understand we went to a party at 10pm that mentions brunch but I’m not really into asking too many questions you know? We just wanted to party some more.
Once we arrived at the club at about 10:30pm we were quickly let in and went up two flights of stairs to the party area. It was nice, I just don’t like narrow nightclubs. I prefer to have a lot of space to dance and this party was very popular and it looked like that wouldn’t be an option. Lorren had purchased four drinks and that shit came to $60. SIXTY USD. Nope. We did the math and obviously the best idea was for us to just pay for a damn booth.
We went with a bottle of tequila and with tax/gratuity it came to $386.00 USD. Please don’t do the currency conversion for that into Canadian, it will make you upset.
I regret none of this decision-making because now we would have our own area to sit/dance/stand and a bottle with all the trimmings to ourselves as well. The bottle service lady was awesome because she even brought the bottle to our table with a ‘happy birthday Lorren‘ sign and sparklers. I thought it was really cute.
Just like the night before, this night included a lot of alcohol consumption. The only difference was that this evening we couldn’t stay until 4am. Why? Our flight to Toronto was at 6:30am. Yikes.
Feeling Like Death
It was a shame we had to leave the party because at around midnight we began making friends. Dancing was great and so was the vibe. But we had to stick to a strict 2am departure from the nightclub to make our flight. Obviously, we were NOT going to have any delays on the day we’d actually want one to happen.
We left at 2am, went back to our hotel to shower and get ready and then took a Lyft over to LaGuardia airport. Just to compare, on the Friday the drive from LaGuardia was 45 minutes + while the one at 3am on a Monday morning to LaGuardia took under 20 minutes. Crazy.
Once we arrived at the airport we went through the regular screening process and got some food in our system. As you can tell by the featured image/cover for this blog post – that is how I felt at THAT moment in the airport. We went from napping to clubbing to the airport. It wasn’t that we were hungover, we were STILL DRUNK. I did learn that you’re not supposed to tell the flight attendants that though. She said they can’t let drunk people on airplanes, so just stick to ‘hungover’.
I sat in LaGuardia with sunglasses on because everything was too bright for me. THAT is how bad the situation was with my body at the time. Pathetic.
The flight ended up leaving on time and I managed to be in my bed in Toronto by about 9am. At least that all worked out because I spent my entire Monday sleeping off the pain from the weekend.
I hope this post doesn’t lead you to think I’m a raging alcoholic. I mean I enjoy drinking and don’t do it too often, but when I do, it’s party time!
And boyyyy did we party. This was by far the best weekend I’ve ever had in New York and it was my fifth time going. We enjoyed it so much that we spent time discussing when we would come back and do it all over again.
New York was awesome, moral of the story is that when you drink your body will hate you. The end.
- Mirna
How much for 1 bottle of Tequila…??
great read, I’m gonna add those restaurants to my list for the next time i’m in New York.
Yeah the bottle service was with tip and tax $386USD