A succession of trains took me in to Manhattan, where I stumbled over to the East Village, and a street whose closest UK equivalent would be Camden Market. I met up with my couchsurfing host's flatmate, Sara, who showed me around their appartment until Amanda, who approved my visit, got back from work.
The flat had a novel set up, in that there were 2 bedrooms (housing 3 girls in US student bunk bed fashion), a living room/kitchen (where I slept on a sofa bed), and a bathroom, which could only be accessed by walking straight through Sara's bedroom, which never ceased to feel odd.
Nevertheless my hosts were really cool and didn't mind this creature sleeping in their living room.
The excitement picked up the following night, when we went out to meet Amanda's workmates for drinks.
We were told to meet them in a bar to the East of us, but when we tried to enter, the Amanda and Sara, being just 19, had their (fake) ID's taken by a bouncer. During the post eviction rant, I learned that being 'carded' was common, but actually having the fake cards confiscated was a rarity.
Kindly enough the people they knew in the bar came out to meet us and we found a dive bar just down the street, called The Blarney Cove.
The Blarney Cove was everything I'd imagined an American bar would look like, and as we passed the owner (a 50 something woman in black with a Clockwork Orange-esque tattoo round her left eye) and her clientele (big men with mustaches), I felt things were looking up.
The barmaid decided to ID us, but Amanda's friend Jason convinced her to let us stay if the 'minors' drank coke. Having agreed on this, the same barmaid instantly approved of serving everyone beer.
We, which by this point consisted of Amanda, Sara, Jason, Lindsay (another work person), 2 more work girls and I, sat and drank for 25 minutes, enjoying ourselves, until a woman in the bar punched the barmaid and after being thrown out, kept kicking the bar door, before shouting "I've got a gun", as if that would convince us to let her back in.
This prompted action from the bar's owner, who ran up and down, telling us about the 'psycho cunt's' prison record, before checking we all had ID for when the cops arrived. Upon finding out Sara and Amanda were 19, she decided 'cunt' was the word that would see her through the evening.
The owner told my hosts to get in the cellar and hide until the cops left, lest she loose her license. The girls obliged, and ran behind the bar and down into the Anne Frank re-enactment center.
The owner stormed up and down the bar, kicking the walls, throwing stools and proclaiming that she 'saw this coming', and that we were cursed until 2:11, thanks to a lunar eclipse.
This tirade of prophecy and profanity lasted 10 minutes before the cops arrived, and as Jason (who worked as a chugger) tried to get the cops to sign up for his charity, Lindsay and I shared glances and tried not to laugh or think about how much we would prefer to be outside with "psycho cunt" than inside with someone who listens to the moon.
Eventually the police turned up, took a statement and left without incident, before the owner threw us all out and told us to never come back.
I went to bed feeling my first 24 hours were well spent.
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