Join the Club.

We went clubbing and survived!

Allison had warned me a few weeks ago that when her sister-in-law Lindsey visited town this April, they had big plans to do some serious dancing, and that I was coming with.  Allison enlisted the help of her coworker Hannah and friend Angela to show us the ropes.  It turns out it was their first time clubbing too,  but Hannah and Angela are from California and somehow knew things about the clubbing scene that we would never have managed to maneuver on our own.  Plus: they were a complete blast to hang out with.  Hannah had taken care of all the details.  She had contacted a club promoter via some website who then stalked her online until he determined she was sufficiently "hot enough" to get on his list.  (The clubbing world is shallow...)  Being on the list means you don't have to pay the $25 door charge at all and you sometimes get free drinks.  It's all about money, though, and the club promoter's job is apparently to get enough attractive people into the club that lots of other people want to come and spend money to fist pump in a strobe-lit lounge with them. 

The Rules of Clubbing:

• Men always pay more than women to get into the club.
• The coatcheck is mandatory, and will cost you $6.00.
• If you sit down at one of the nice table/lounge areas, you will be charged $500.  Do not sit down.
• The bartenders are amazing, tip them well.  They can toss, juggle, and sling drinks like it's the circus.
• 75% of the people in the club are probably from Jersey.  You will know them by their fist-pumps.
• You will inevitably have very sweaty people try to dance with you.  Use the forcefield shield of your four other lady friends to protect you.  However, when an NYU student from Monaco wants to dance, you might as well go for it because he's at least being a gentleman and only wants to talk about himself anyway.  Fine with me, hearing about your dentistry program is fascinating.  I always wondered whether they practiced on each other.  (They do.)

After staying at our first club, Kiss 'n Fly, for about an hour and a half (earlier we had met at The Standard Hotel for amazing nighttime weather and cocktails), we decided to check out a couple of other places down the block.  There was Cielo (too high of a cover charge) and some place that a guy was trying to promote to us as we wandered through the meatpacking district.  There were people out in droves, despite the downpour that started around 11 PM; people wearing sparkly outfits and running laughing through the rain like little kids.  It felt like one of the best nights I've had in NYC and I was thrilled to be out exploring something I would never normally do with a great, fun group of girls, living it up.  At around 2:00, I got a text from a friend who is in town to work on a feature and has been crashing on our couch (Mark Stuen, former MSU Alum and ninja).  He was a block away from where we were standing in line outside of Cielo, so I wished the girls a great rest of the night and decided I'd run over to meet up with him so we could buddy-system the commute home.  The skies had dried up and we realized we weren't completely exhausted yet, so we took the L to Williamsburg and I showed him Sand bar and Berry Park (with that great skyline view -- the Empire State building was green for Earth Day).  We grabbed falafel pitas at the new Kebab place on Bedford Ave and made it home amongst a very haggard looking crowd at 4:30 AM.  I don't know how I had the energy to stay out that late, but somehow you get carried by the night when everything goes so swimmingly, and for the record: the air smelled amazing after the rain.  The city cleans up well and I did too, thanks to my Club-Wear purchases from Joy 21.