Northeast For The Holidays with Friends and Family

I got to the Northeast about a week before Christmas, as did my brother. We spent most of time bouncing between Connecticut and New York with our parents, relaxing, eating well and catching up with some friends.

My mom's christmas party a couple days before the actual day was a good night, catching up with our good friend Sean and Kelly, Mark had to stay back in the city that night. Some other old friends showed up too, that night some of us went out to a good beer bar and laughed our way through the night.

Somewhere between Christmas and New Years Mark made his way to Connecticut, we all headed to my dad's place in New York where Sean and Kelly came too, as well as my Uncle. It was a great night of feast, drink, cigar and conversation by the fire.

On New Years Eve my brother and I headed to a bar in Georgetown, we took a wrong turn into a parking lot, turning around we got stuck in a snowbank and had to begin digging ourselves out. I ran to the bar where some of our friends were just arriving, the bartender found a snow shovel for me which made the dig a lot easier than using our hands.

That was a good night, beers and champagne at midnight, then a ride to the diner where we met Mark and Sean for the first meal of the year. My brother and I followed Nick back to Weston afterwards where us and a couple girls wound down the night, finally snapping out of a fog in the mid morning and heading back home where I slept for some time.

My brother flew back to California a day or so later, I stayed bouncing between my mom's in CT and my dad's in NY. I'd laid out all my gear on the bed, some new things via Christmas like some mosquito netting I'll be using to keep bugs, snakes and spiders from bothering me when camping. It's a never ending assessment when it comes to what's in my bag and what gets left behind, always trying to make it lighter.

I finally got into the city, driving into Astoria to stay at Mark's new place a couple nights. Him and his girlfriend were hanging out when I got in, we made a run to the store for a six pack and began catching up. Once she took off we shot down some mezcal and headed into the night, landing in a sports bar with a decent beer list.

Just after ordering a first beer a girl with a Guinness shirt came and asked us if we wanted to attempt the "perfect pour". Her and guy in a Guinness shirt were doing a promotional thing, they had the beer taps setup and let us each pour own beer and keep it, it was a great way to kick things off. We got some food too, then later when they were closing up the Guinness setup a girl came and gave us an extra pint.

We went to another bar on the walk back home, showing the bartender there our perfect pour certificates in hopes for a free Guinness, she was bewildered and no free beer was awarded, but he had a Guinness each anyways.

We helped Sean move a table the next day, then after some mimosas we went to a new burger spot where they had meat like elk, bison and ostrich. It was an easy going day after that of football and helping mark sort through old CDs.

I got on the road the next day, back to Connecticut. It would be my last night in town, full of sorting things out and making final decisions on my pack, the next day I'd be flying through the sky towards Los Angeles.

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