A weekend of Island Hopping!

So I went island hopping Friday night! I love saying that, sounds so exotic... so Sempre Primavera ~esque!!

Well, to make this even more exotic, it was an Ethiopian party that I went to. A friend had a super idea to have a party for no particular reason. Brilliant! No need to tell me twice... I'm there!

Dulce came along, and we started out the evening with a nice walk to 59th street to take the tram over to Roosevelt island. It was both of ours first time doing that. Funny thing was that last year I lived on 59th street and my windows faced the tram... so every morning and evening the nice people on the tram got a show... Hey! I'm sure it rose their morale as they proceeded to the office!!

Anyway, now I got a chance to be on the "other side" and boy it IS fun to look into the peoples' windows as you're gliding 250 feet in the air! I say, everyone should take 5 minutes and go on the tram, its very beautiful and gives you a whole new view of the city. Feels very different... I felt like I was in Japan or something! (Ok, maybe Japan, because of the Japanese tourists that were joy riding the tram...).

Roosevelt island is TINY, with mostly residential buildings and some parks, Dulce said it reminded her of a college campus. I agreed.

The party was in a lounge of my friend's building with large glass doors and a look out onto the patio. She decorated with lots of candles, and there were plates with grapes, and many wine bottles. Very nice. Everyone was super friendly and international. There were people form Ethiopia, of course, South Africa, Bermuda, Trinidad... it was a fun crowd. The Trinidadians brought a BIG bottle of home made rum drink... Let me tell you- sweet delicious and strong, but you don't feel it. In fact they called it "Rum Punch", even thought it didn't look like punch, they assured me that the "punch" will come later!

We danced to all kind of beats and I learned that Ethiopian dancing is all about the shoulders as opposed to Brazilians being all about the butt for example. What a freakin' awesome time! It was just really great, and reminded me of crazy international parties my Brazilian friends used to throw back in Chicago... aaahh.... Even though the Fire department didn't show up this time, the party still had a deliriously HAPPY vibe!!

What wasn't so grand is the island hopping back to my own island, Staten Island. It involved a quick hop to the island of Manhattan... and than a ferry boat ride to SI. But thanks to "Rum Punch" it was all good in the hood. I guess I do live on exotic islands... and don't even realize...