Hurricane Sandy

Just under 2 months at the new job, NYC gets hit with a massive storm – Hurricane Sandy. As devastating as this storm was to many parts of the northeast, I was luckily unharmed. The storm provided me with some free vacation time from work and I used it to my advantage.  The city shut down for days and parts of Manhattan didn’t have power for a week or longer. Of course, I barely paid attention to the weather forecast over the weekend and woke up on the Sunday before the storm hit to panicked phone calls from both of my parents and my aunt. I was running out of time to get out of the city and take cover because so many train and bus lines had stopped running or were about to cut service. I figured I better not try to brave this storm alone (my roommate was staying with her boyfriend) so my friend from home, Erica, so graciously invited me over to eat junk food, drink wine and watch bad TV until she loses power from 70 mph winds.  After I made my way over to her place, we checked the news every few hours.  By doing so, we had learned that many parts of lower Manhattan were flooded, without power and the Jersey Shore was no more (SUCH a disappointment…ha).  After about 24 hours of this routine, we had severe cabin.  We had hit our limit on eating bodega food and Netflix serious so we had to find something a bit more exciting to occupy our time. 

While finishing up our third bag of potato chips and last six pack of beer, Erica received a text from a friend who was bartending at a spot in Manhattan that had lost electricity, but was otherwise unscathed.  He was bartending by candle light and insisted we come down. When we walked outside, Erica’s neighborhood in Midtown didn’t show any signs of being hit by a storm and looked completely normal. All of the stores and restaurants appeared to be conducting business as usual.  We easily found a cab and ventured downtown. Now, anyone who has ever rode in a cab in NYC (or possibly anywhere) knows that the ride can range from feeling comfortable to jerky to damn scary to praising Allah that you will survive the ride.  My ride that evening made me want to plead with any religious deity that would listen me because as soon as we left the part of Manhattan that had electricity, everything went black.  Cabs were flying down the streets with no traffic lights to obey, coming and going as they please through the darkness.  Seeing one of the brightest cities in the world go completely black brought on the most bizarre, post-apocalyptic like feelings I have ever had. It only got worse when we got out of the cab to walk down the street and try to determine which bar was the correct one to enter.  After making it to the bar and settling down from my wild ride, I knew we made the right choice. There were a few locals inside, everyone was super chill and the bartender Erica knew, Jason, was someone who went to our high school. I never thought a town of 300 people could produce 3 awesome New Yorkers. Jason introduced me to my first pickle back shot, if you haven’t tried it, you must. It is a shot of whisky followed by a shot of pickle juice to be used as a chaser. They are delicious, but keep track of how many you take – they can be deadly if not monitored closely.  Erica and I spent the next 3 nights in the candle-lit bar hanging out with the owner, a few employees and the bar regulars playing games and doing shots. Who knew you could have so much fun without electricity.  Lesson learned.