Pace on Earth

New York State of Mind

I had been to New York on three previous occasions; 1) in High School on a class trip 2) for this same tournament in 1999 and 3) to see Jimmy Buffett on Long Island in 2003 (The Big Grease). Each trip uncovered a little something different about the place: 1) that it's freakin' huge and not to give ticket scalpers money before they give you the ticket 2) that it's big but not bad and that a limo is really the best way for any large group of guys to travel and 3) that "the harvest moon brings with it a warm wind off the waters of the sound" and that everyone loves Buffett. This trip reminded me of all those things, somehow, and then some.

We arrived in the city via Bangor, Maine at dinner time on Friday night. We checked into our hotel in Queens across from Laguardia and then headed into Manhattan to the tournament meet and greet. As is the way with rugby tournaments, I immediately ran into two girls I knew from Ottawa and a guy from the Mirimachi. We moved on pretty quickly and went on a quick tour of Times Square. After a few tourist priced beers we packed it in and headed home for an early night.

Saturday morning came early with our first game at 9:20. I was disappointed to find out that our first opponent was the home club for an old Canadian 7's teammate of mine who had clearly prepared better than me. They won and we lost our second as well. That put us into the Bowl competition and we then ran the table and claimed the bowl as our prize. The legend of the New Brunswick Timberwolves is born...albeit modestly.

We took in the Premier games and drank just enough to think we probably could have beaten any of this freakin' teams on another day and then headed back to the hotel to clean (read: lube) up. We headed back into the city to the tournament party and made numerous false claims to anyone who would listen. Shoulda, coulda, woulda, and in some cases did. The party was at an Irish pub with a large black manager who didn't even have an Irish accent. We moved on to someplace more authentic and found another Irish pub where the workes all did have accents (put on or otherwise). We liked it there and stayed until sometime after 4 am. The owners made some cursory hints that they wanted to close down but the place was still hopping when we left. It is the city that never sleeps after all. My big night in New York City was spent in two Irish pubs. It was all worth it though because at the second stop I found Normy's old buddy hanging out front.The next morning we got up and hit the road for Boston, hoping to make it to the Pats game Sunday night. It wasn't in the cards so instead we hit the go-carts and then went and watched the game at the Cask and Flagon across from Fenway. We tried to find some fun in Boston but things appear to be pretty low key on a Sunday night.

We made it home on Monday afternoon and were most ecstatic that both border stops were wave-throughs. Just tell them you're playing rugby - idiots yes, but harmless idiots.

God I love road trips...

Pace out.

Labels: On The Road

posted by Vitamin S @ 7:49 p.m.