We got a later start on Friday than we’d intended, but we’d been up so late the night before. After everyone got a shower, Sydney, her roommate, Todd, Berck, and I walked to Tom’s Restaurant south of Syd’s brownstone in Brooklyn. Famous Fat Dave had not steered us wrong; the waffles and home fries were exceptional. I had a Belgian waffle with ice cream, whip cream, syrup, and cinnamon butter. Tom’s is strange because they hand out orange slices and cookies before taking your order. Then there were post-breakfast cookies and lollipops.

Todd had forgotten his wallet and MetroPass, so we had to walk back to the apartment to get it. Then we hopped on a train to the Lower East Side to visit the Tenement Museum. Unfortunately, we had to wait an hour to take a tour, so we made our way to Pommes Frites, a tiny restaurant that only makes fries and dozens of sauces to go with them. Sydney gave us a quick walk around NYU and then took Berck to buy a Koti roll, some nan enclosing Indian potato goodness. Berck spent the rest of our trip begging to go back, which makes me suspicious that they include cocaine.

By then we had 15 minutes to get to the Tenement Museum, and we just barely made it, being only about a minute late; they were just starting the tour, and we weren’t the latest ones–a group arrived just as we had entered the building, and a redheaded guy apologized for making them late. The guide told him they’d have to take a quiz at the end for their punishment. The museum was possible because in 1935 the landlord couldn’t afford to shell out the cash to install a metal fire escape in the back, so he just evicted all the tenants except for the shops downstairs, and the rest of the building stayed pretty much untouched until the museum bought it. It’s hard to imagine a family of 12 living in three tiny rooms with one window and running a sewing business out of the apartment at the same time. It’s no wonder the child mortality rate was greater than 50%.

By the end of the tour, it was too late to go to any other museums, so we took the subway down to Battery Park and hopped on the ferry to Staten Island. The port facilities are massive and modern and seem more expensive than necessary. Berck didn’t believe us that the ferry was free, and it’s amusing to me that the loudspeakers keep thanking you for riding it. As we rode the escalators up, men in suits up above stared intently at everyone coming up, profiling, I guess. We got some seats at the very back, but Berck spent the whole time happily leaning over the rail and taking pictures. The weather was nice that day, dry and cooler, and it felt good to be out in the breeze.

At the other end, we wandered around the opposite port facilities, trying to figure out which bus we could take to get to the pizza place for mozzarella sticks. Todd figured it out, and we waited a couple minutes for a bus to take us there. We missed our stop but only had to walk back a few blocks. Staten Island is very suburban with actual houses with little yards and cars. Everyone still talks funny, though. Denino’s Pizza was packed, it being a Friday night, but we managed to get some sticks for takeout and sit at the bar and drink some beers. The sticks were good but not exceptional. I wondered if we should have gotten a little pizza, but Berck didn’t want supper right then (I’m guessing because of his Koti roll).

Across the street waiting for our return bus, we tried Ralph’s Ices that just happened to be right there. Their cream ice was AMAZING; if only they were on the subway line. We missed a bus buying ice cream, so we had to wait extra long to get back. That put our return trip on the ferry at sunset, though, and that was not at all a bad thing.

The bus returned us to the ferry terminal, where Berck and Sydney ran to use the bathrooms. I spotted the water fountains and told Todd I was going to refill my water bottle. He said something about a bird being in the fountain, and I thought he was making a literary allusion I wasn’t getting until I saw a pigeon actually sitting in one of the drinking fountains.

We watched the sunset behind the Statue of Liberty on the way back, amused by a crazy guy who wanted to talk to us about the Sex Pistols CD he was listening to. We’d originally planned to attend a free Neko Case concert in Central Park at 7:30, but by then it was 8:30 and would have taken us another half hour to get there. So we headed back to the Lower East Side to The Living Room, which has free music and $6 beers and a one drink minimum per set. We headed upstairs and heard an excellent folk trio called Barnaby Bright, but they only played two more songs in the way too hot gallery. So we headed downstairs to the overcrowded main room. I was too tired to stand around listening, so I sat out in the bar area on a comfy couch and planned the next day’s activities.

Sydney came out later to tell me they’d snagged a table. We heard a really good acoustic solo guy calling himself Birdwire, who invited a red headed friend of his to play something I’d never heard of. The guy came up and sat on a wooden box and started slapping it with his hands. In the middle it sounded a nice bass, and up in the corners it sounded like a snare. Sydney said, “Is that the guy at the Tenement Museum today?” but I didn’t think it was; Berck thought it was too, but he is notoriously bad with faces. Then the singer invited another guy up with a harmonica, and the three played a wonderfully rousing song about a train. The soloist told everyone he was giving away free CD’s, so Todd went over to get one. “Hey,” said the red head, “Weren’t you at the Tenement Museum today?” Blue hair is kinda hard to miss.

At midnight I was exhausted and ready to go home, but everyone else was ready to keep going for the next set that a huge band was setting up for. At least I was sitting down, though in the very front I figured it would be pretty darn loud. La Strada has a lead singer/accordion/guitar/piano player, guitarist/backup, bassist/backup, drummer, and string trio. They have a huge sound, often interesting lyrics, and a lead singer that sounds like the guy from Decemberists… in fact, they sound very much like the Decemberists. I loved them.

All of the bands these days don’t have websites; they have MySpace pages.

We stayed until the end, then came out to find the street that had been moderately busy at 10 was now hopping at 1 am. We made our way down the block to Katz’s Deli. $14 is a lot to pay for a pastrami sandwich, but it and the plate of pickles that came with it fed me and Berck, so I guess it’s not that bad. Besides, where else are you going to find a quality pastrami sandwich at 1 in the morning? At Katz, they hand you a ticket when you walk in. Whenever you order something at the counter, they write on your ticket and hand it back to you. When you leave, you hand your ticket to the cashier and pay for whatever it says on it. If you lose your ticket, they won’t let you leave unless you pay them $50 cash. No one in New York takes credit cards; it’s an all cash economy, like any European city. There’s a bouncer and often a cop at the door… and an ATM.

We finally got to the subway around 2 and, of course, had to wait half an hour for a train, even though the station was packed with party goers heading home. We finally got home around 2:30. The next day was going to be a packed day of museum seeing, so Berck and I set our alarms for 8:30. Sydney said not to bother to wake her up.