Going To the Castle and We're Gonna Get Married

Holy mama, my last two weeks have been very busy indeed. When I returned from London, I chilled out for a few days at home, then started off my weekend by going with Julie and Lauren to Julie's parents' pool for some swimming and baking. That night I headed out for a belated birthday celebration for Kat. We started at Crocodile Lounge for some drinks, shots, free pizza, and games.

Lemon Drops Are Yummy Go Megra Go (I Scored Really Well But No One Was Watching) We went to Tribe afterwards and got our groove on (on the seats.) I also danced without shoes on the floor (it was not sticky!!) We had a dance party in the cab back to Meghan's - music blasting, driver dancing - it was no Cash Cab but it was a fun ride.

The next day me, Heather, Erica, and Meghan departed the city early and drove to Tobay Beach (short for Town of Oyster Bay for those not in the know) with Jessica and her friend as well. I felt so posh on a private beach without all the scummy Jones Beach Field 4 people around (yes, that group usually includes myself.) That night we went to Jessica's friend Charlie's party in Huntington. His house had a pool, hot tub, and comfy hammock, also there were bats flying above his backyard (in Long Island, seriously who knew?) The four of us from the previous night's sleepover trekked back to Heather's for another one, met up with Jess again in the morning and headed out to Pennsylvania to meet everyone for whitewater rafting. After a few communication problems in our boat, we ended up doing really well. We only got caught on a few rocks, slammed straight into the guide's kayak just once, and I was the sole person to fall out of our boat the entire day - We were stuck on a huge rock, shifted our bodies to one end of the boat to get off of it, that didn't work so Jessica reached out to grab onto another boat to yank us off, our boat went on it's side and I flew right out of it. I floated on my back with my feet up and head first and waved goodbye to my friends as I went downstream. Another boat managed to rescue me and my paddle which I had let go of and pulled me in. I rowed with them for a bit until my boat caught up with me so I made some new friends. The trip back was the only crappy part of the day. There was a big Pocono 500 Nascar race nearby which meant tons of traffic. We left at about 7:30 pm, stopped for dinner at Friendly's and didn't get back to Queens till almost 1:30 am!!

On Monday I was exhausted but went to MSG to see Muse. Two things I couldn't believe about the Garden this time - 1) The seats were comfortable and pretty close 2) The sound was actually good for once. Cold War Kids opened. I had seen them accidentally once before and I only really knew 'Hang Me Up To Dry' but they sounded great, shocking again mainly because it was MSG. Although I haven't followed CWK much, I recommend seeing them live.

Cold War Kids

Muse are so amazing live. I cannot say this enough!! The first time I ever heard them, Laura had bought me the Japanese import of Origin of Symmetry. I remember ordering pizza at Ray's on my lunch break, sitting down and putting it into my discman, listening to 'Newborn' and 'Bliss' and thinking WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! (Mainly thinking heavy metal and classical music combined.) Four years later and thank you Laura, I've just had another outer body experience (although it couldn't top their performance closing Glastonbury.)

dghdth

Matt Bellamy/God's son came out in a red suit (matching the lights) and started the show with 'Knights of Cydonia' (I was not expecting this as they've been closing shows with it in the UK.) The tracklisting was as follows:

(JFK Speech), Knights of Cydonia, Map of the Problematique (love this song so much), Hysteria, Supermassive Black Hole, City of Delusion, Butterflies and Hurricanes, Hoodoo, Apocalypse Please, Feeling Good, Sunburn, Invincible, Starlight, Time is Running Out, New Born, Plug in Baby; Encore: Soldier's Poem, Unintended, Stockholm Syndrome, Take a Bow

I'd never seen them with the giant bouncy balls filled with confettiWhen they left prior to the encore, the place was dark and everyone had their cell phones lit up, then the stage backdrop turned to stars also, I felt like I was in the planetarium, the atmosphere was amazing. I had to control myself from dying when they played 'Starlight,' but 'Sunburn' was my favorite tune of the evening

I'm Feeling Good

Time Was Running Out :(

The next few days I was sick with terrible sinus pain and a cold. I watched Big Brother (stop making Eric do crappy things, it's not his fault he's America's player!!) On Thursday I felt more alive and went with Heather to the city to meet up with Sunil, Lewis, Shane, and Sanj who were in town for a wedding. Kat came to Fat Black Pussycat too and I drank cough medicine their signature drink and almost a whole pitcher of beer (I love 1/2 price drinks) before Heather and I ran to Mercury Lounge to catch Los Campesinos! (I'm not that excited about this statement, the band just has a ! at the end of their name.)

Kat & Sunil on the throne at Fat Black's

H & K

When Heather and I were showing our IDs at the door, she noted that on the sign outside, they had omitted the ! from Los Campesinos! The three girls in front of us turned around and told us they'd heard their band's name, it was funny at the time. I only knew three songs by LC but most of their stuff have a similar happy xylophone-violin-ey vibe which I like. The only unfortunate thing about the show was that the lyrics sounded very muffled (we were in front of a speaker) and I think that's the best thing about their songs. I knew some anyway though so it was all good. The band is REALLY young by the way.

Team Campesinos trick or treating on your driveway in the middle of August

One of us dressed as a zombie, one of us dressed as a pirate, one of us dressed as a ninja Four of us dressed as school girls?
We went back to meet everyone at the Village Underground for dancing with a live band
Sunil drunk Lewis & Shane

On Friday I stayed at home and finally finished season 2 of Grey's Anatomy. To be honest, I was expecting this HUGE thing to happen in the finale because everyone couldn't stop talking about this Grey's phenomenon and 'Chasing Cars' and all that (leading me to think there'd be some huge car accident.) I think the Meredith/McDreamy thing was obviously coming as well as the Denny stuff but although predictable it was still sad and great. Don't tell me what happens during season 3 because I'm waiting for it to come out on video!!

On Saturday morning, Gail treated the bridal party to a spa day. I got a mani/pedi and a facial which stung like hell but it's looking pretty good today and I still feel very refreshed. We stayed over her apt. and went to Oheka Castle together on Sunday AM. This place was amazing!!! I felt like I was at a European castle, tre romantic.

Here is a photo of it (I didn't take this one): My dad snuck in some photos behind the photographers

This was my first bridesmaid walk and I was sooo nervous. My dress was too long and I was holding onto this dude for dear life so as not to trip

Mom + Michael + Dad

Mom + Gail + Al Gore Dad

Sweat was dripping down my back, it was scorching
I now pronounce youChuck & Larry Husband and Wife, yay!
Mr. & Mrs. Kazin entering the reception
The band was terrific. Gail and Mike's wedding song was 'Kingdom Come' by Coldplay. They played all kinds of stuff I like (Oasis, Blur, and similar) Tara and Amy
My moms and pops
The dessert at this reception was ABSOLUTELY INSANE!!! They had a whole room dedicated to it. There was the wedding cake, two more tables with about 20 different cakes on them (I opted for tiramisu), a table for mousse (melt in your mouth, seriously) and ice cream, a bananas foster area, and a table with strudels, chocolate covered strawberries, cookies, a profiterole tower and more.
Gail and her dad

I danced so much at this wedding, and despite knowing Gail's friends just a little I had a really great time. Tonight I'm going with a really random group of people to see Rooney at Irving Plaza (the one show I thought no one would go to.) It's me, Heather, Sunil, Marcus, Kim, Gareth, his girlfriend and another friend. That's it, I'm out!