Weekend: 10/ 20-22

Another long, but very unproductive weekend. Unproductive in the sense that I've got midterms left, right and center and I didn't do a thing for any of them. But I embrace my flaws and move on.

Friday night I met up with Russell (did you know he spelled his name with two Ls?) to go to services at Bnei Jeshurun (BJs). We also invited Prithvi along, because he is a closet Jew. Prithvi is Indian, grew up for a time in Saudi Arabia and Germany, and yet knows everything about Israel and Judaism, but he'd never had the experience of going to services since the opportunity growing up was always limited. I think we all had a pretty good time, we prayed, we danced, we answered lots of questions (sometimes I made stuff up, what is the Eternal Light over the ark for?)

Russell then came to stay over and my friends at I-House had our long awaited potluck. I'm the only one of our group who has a kitchen, so people were excited to have food not from the cafeteria. I made a Daniela-esque Thai curry, Suzana and Prithvi worked together to make an excellent Indian dish, something like alu-maktar, containing potatoes, peas, and spicy love. Imre brought Hungarian wine to represent his native land. Honza decided to not represent the Czech Republic, but brought Swiss ginger snaps and other cookies instead. Russell brought Argentinean wine, suggested by Paul (Canadian) who couldn't make it. Then my neighbor Susan lent extra dishes and another bottle, towards the end of the night. And the cream on top, quite literally, was Brittany joining us after work at Kitchenette and bringing us tons of different cakes!

Saturday morning Russell and I met up with Sam at Nussbaum & Wu for bagels and coffee. Then Sam went back home while Russell and I did homework at my place. Russell left in the early afternoon. I then read a bit more before getting ready for my first JDate. I met Y. Down at a Starbucks in the 90s. He was very sweet, and we had a nice time chatting about Columbia (he went their undergrad) though I don't think we'll be seeing each other again. He had a really nice Burberry scarf, the kind I have a knock-off of from the Statue of Liberty that cost $5. After the date, I headed back to I-House where people had just started a mass movement to the pub after the Fall Fiesta. I hung out there with friends until the early hours of the morning and then crawled into bed.
Sunday, nothing much happened until the evening, which was Sam's first show in NY! I walked over to the apartment Sam is crashing at, and hung out with him and Russell until Rachel and Marsha (who drove in from Philly together) came and picked us up. The SideWalk Cafe was pretty big, and much more upscale then I was expecting. Sam's set was great; he played That Girl, and his cousin Naomi joined him with harmonies on Angel Eyes, and he sang that one outlaw-hand-cutter song which always scares me, and a new love song too. It was just so incredible to be seeing him perform, somewhat like Nishas, made me a little teary. Russell's friend, Andy, bought us all champaign to celebrate! We stayed to listen to Glenn Roth, who plays the guitar faster and fancier than anyone I've seen before. We then headed for one last beer at the oldest bar in NY, McSourleys. At the SideWalk I also finally met David Weinfeld, who I was starting to believe was an international hoax cooked up by Seth and supported by my sister.

Even the rain cloud of being sick after it all at 4 in the morning had it's silver lining, I was able to call up Yohoshua and have a nice little chat and I got to hear yet another scream out between random people in the park. Now I have to seriously work on my midterm stuff because next weekend in another WUJS reunion (isn't every weekend turning out that way?) and Shira and Mike's engagement party!