After two days in the city, I was completely wasted. I can see why the damn place lives on caffeine and cigarettes. I spent most of my day sitting around with Ruthie in her den, with the exception of outings for lunch and coffee. At 6:30, I was dropped off by Ruthie at the train station for what would be my first independent foray into NYC. Thankfully, on the other end of the train line was my dear Monica, a girl I hadn't seen in person in the better part of two years. We were both giddy to see each other as we caught a subway to Little Italy in search of dinner. What a place Little Italy is. We walked down multiple street blocks lined with *nothing* but Italian restaurants packed together like sardines. As we proceeded down the street, more and more Italian guys standing outside their restaurants started to grab Monica's arm and try to pull her into the restaurant. Monica, suspecting she would soon be abducted, chose a place and we headed in for a table in the back. A two-hour dinner ensued, almost straight out of some awful romantic comedy, and we traded countless stories on life, love, career, the truly big things. From there it was a taxi to the West Village, where we found a comfortable bar to settle down. It was a Sunday night, so there wasn't much to worry about from noise blocking out our conversations. Like always, the things to talk about just poured like rain, even as we got bored of sitting down and played games of pool and played with my camera. After several hours, reality set in and we decided to call it a night. She was off to home to get up in the morning for work, and I was off to do last-minute preparations for my outing to Boston. And maybe squeeze in a half-night's sleep.