To recap from whence we came; when we last left our heroes they shook off the chains or boredom, embraced the freedom of being in college, and they up and left for Rutgers University without planning at 11p.m. on a Friday night.
To set the scene, Paul and I had just freshened up and finished romping though some of the ritziest hotels in the world. We then continued our time-killing trek through New York City. Our wanderings landed us in front of Rockefeller Center. There was a group out front who were as crazy as us. This was a group of Canadian students waiting for tickets to Saturday Night Live. God bless those brave souls who would camp out to go see SNL nowadays.
Paul and I ended up at Penn Station wet and a little out of it around 4:45 in the morning. We parked ourselves against a wall and enjoyed some more Keystone Light out of Sbarro cups watching people pass through Penn Station. After sitting for thirty minutes Paul and I finally got the train to New Brunswick and left New York after one helluva night that still wasn’t over.
Finally around 6:30a.m., we arrived at Rutgers. We got hit with a sudden rush of adrenaline after realizing we arrived and knowing what we went through to get here without ending up in jail. Our next objective was finding the Zeta Psi frat house, where Paul’s friend Tom lives. Nothing on this trip was easy and getting a hold of Tom was no different. He didn’t answer his phone or answer his door.
We then met up with one of his frat brothers who said we could crash on any open couch. When our hopes and dreams of couches were slashed, Paul and I settled for the only two open pieces of furniture in the house, two love seats. I passed out across from a kid with his pants around his ankles. Amid the smell of stale beer from the party that ended only hours before, I finally went to sleep.
After a solid two hours of sleep, Paul woke me up and with Tom still M.I.A., an upgrade in facilities was needed. We gathered our backpacks and headed to the classy sorority house of Zeta Tau Alpha, where Paul’s other friend Danielle lived. The actual reason for our trip was to watch a Rutgers football game which was at noon, so Danielle was up and ready to tailgate. There was one small problem – unless we were tailgating on Noah’s Ark, it wasn’t happening.
Soon after Paul and I arrived at ZTA, Danielle’s roommate Annie had some friends over who were up from the University of West Virginia (that’s who Rutgers was playing against, and I use playing loosely). We all shared some laughs and drinks, then two quarters into the game we all ventured out into the rain to the game.
We got to the game in the fourth quarter, but the game ended about 3 quarters before we got there. After the game, the consensus was to make the thirty minute walk back to ZTA. An hour and half later we hopped on a shuttle soaked and headed for the house. Paul and I were drunk, drenched, and drained, so after drying off a nap was in order.
Paul, Tom, Danielle and I went out for an uneventful night, and we ended up falling asleep to South Park at three in the morning. The next day, Paul and I hopped an 11 o’clock train back to New York City.
After the missed trains, the rain, a night spent wandering New York City, a grease truck sandwich, bad football, and ten hours of sleep Paul and I still made it back for work at 5:00p.m… impressive for not having planed a single part of this trip.
Editor’s Note:
This is the second of a two-part article. Part one appeared in last week’s paper.
