Cabo Wabo, 2005

Just got back from Cabo San Lucas again. Wow! Shitty flights both ways and horrible airport experiences in Cabo and Houston, but it was a great trip overall.



This is a view from the lobby of the hotel. See that little hut-like thing in the middle of the pic between the two pools? That's a swim-up bar where we spent tons of time. Gotta love those two-for-one drinks during happy hour!

There are a lot of fun stories to tell but since they're at least PG-13 rated, I won't get into them here just yet -- what happens in Cabo, stays in Cabo... ;-) But I will say that we met several really nice people down there. In particular, we met a cool couple from San Diego at the hotel. It turns out that Rob and this guy both went to the same college at the same time in Massachusetts, but they never knew each other back then. We went bar-hopping with them a couple of nights to El Squid Roe, the Cabo Wabo Cantina, and a few other places including the World's Smallest Bar where there are only six bar stools -- my house has a bathroom bigger than this place, but it's quite cool and it has a full bar.

Here are the pics from this year's trip and here are some pics from last year.

If you want to read about Cabo San Lucas in general, there is a good article at loscabosnights.com.

Oh, I almost forgot...one bad story to tell: one night we met some people at a bar at the marina. They had been eating a pizza and there were two slices leftover. After a while, the waiter came to clear off the table. Not even a minute later, I saw the waiter bring a slice of pizza to the table next to us. It looked like the same pepperoni/black olive pizza that he just took off of our table! To try to make a long story short, Karin (who speaks perfectly fluent Spanish) confronted the waiter about it and he admitted to it -- he took leftover pizza from us and served it to someone else!

Happy 2005. It pays to be a girl.

A few weeks ago, Shannon planted a seed... She said she's never been to NYC for New Year's Eve and since she is temporarily living near Boston now, she was thinking of going. I went there 10 years ago and had a great time despite miserable freezing rain, so I was due to go back.

She picked me up from work and we sped down to New Haven, CT to catch the train to NYC. Everything went well...that is, until we got to NYC. Once in Manhattan, it became increasingly obvious that it was going to be tough to get a good viewing spot. 42nd Street was gridlocked with pedestrians starting before 6th Ave. We fought our way thru the crowds up 6th Ave. towards 45th Street. Every street heading to Times Square was completely closed. I asked a cop where we can go to get into where the action is and he said to go up to 59th Street and they'd let us in there. We hustled our way up 14 more blocks only to find that we had become fenced in at Central Park. Completely trapped! They had successfully corralled us -- like a herd of cattle into a holding pen, and there was no way out except to go back where we came from.

By this point it was less than 15 minutes till midnight so it wasn't looking very good. We backtracked down 6th Ave., looking for spots where we might be able to sneak past the police barricades. Nothing. NYPD did a damn good job of keeping everything blocked off so no one can get thru. With about six minutes left before the ball dropped, Shannon went up to one of the cops as a last-ditch effort. Next thing I know, I see her inside of the barricade and running towards Broadway! She managed to pull-off a, "Hi, I'm a tourist from Ohio...please let me in?", and they did!! So now it was MY turn... I went up to the same cop and said, "I'm with that girl from Ohio who you just let in". He took one look at me and said, "get out!". I said, "no, really...that girl from Ohio who you just let in...we're together". He again told me to get out. I tried again..."officer, you don't seem to understand...I am with that girl from Ohio...we came here together...if I can't get in, we'll be separated and won't find each other afterwards". He didn't wanna hear anything from me. Just didn't care.

We wound up finding each other around 12:30 and by that point, they had opened up some of the barricades so I was finally able to get into Times Square. We thought about trying to get into some of the pubs and bars but we were mindful of the time and the train schedule so we headed back down to Grand Central Station instead.

On the way home from the New Haven train station, we stopped off at Mohegan Sun, thinking we can get a bite to eat somewhere in there. But those dumb-asses only had ONE restaurant open! The line waiting to get in was about 20 minutes long. You'd think that (A) being a weekend, they might have more than just one place open at like 5AM, and (B) it's a popular holiday for night-owls and drunks who may want to eat!! But nooooooo...only that one place open. Figures.

When I woke up New Year's Day, I watched the festivities on TV (recorded from the night before). A million people because it was the 100th anniversary of the whole ball-dropping thing and the weather was nice. Maybe I'll try again in 10 more years.

Here are the pics...they're not very good because they were taken with my cell phone.