Tarrytown weekend

This weekend Brandy and I went up to Tarrytown to see Keller Williams, a one-man band that Brandy used to follow pretty religiously. On Friday night we had a girl come to see the apartment. She was a Long Islander who is planning on finally getting the hell off the North Shore. She was really only beginning her search, so we don't see much chance that we would be living with us, but she did score some good points when she mentioned one of her pet peeves as not recycling and we got into this huge conversation about recycling and composting. Since we had to get up early the next morning, Brandy and I decided to stay in and drink one of the last bottles of wine we got from the wine club membership my dad and stepmom had given us for Xmas. It had a shockingly strong flavor but was pretty good nonetheless and we had no problem polishing it off.
I had to get up at 7:30 so that I could have breakfast before the two hour trek to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx where I have practice. It is pretty ridiculous that it takes me longer to get to practice, which is in the same city, than it does for me to get to school in another state 45 miles away.
After practice I had lunch with my team at a diner before attempting to meet Brandy on the Metro North train at Marble Hill. We had planned to meet right after practice and have lunch in Tarrytown, but Brandy had to return to the apartment four times for forgotten items. I had a turkey burger and suffered from diner's envy as everyone else's food looked much better than mine. The wasabi mashed potatoes were pretty damn good though.
After lunch I tried to make it to the train station to meet Brandy's train, but it turned out to be a little further than I expected and my knee was bothering enough to discourage running. I was about half a block away when all of the arriving passengers came pouring out and one informed me that, "shit dude, you just missed both." So I ended up waiting 20 min for the next one.
In Tarrytown we stayed with a CSer from Marseilles, Antonin, whose brother was also visiting. He turned out to be very cool and we had a lot of excellent conversations about France, America, Champaign and wine. They also told me that the were impressed with my French from only one year of study, but that French people are worthless at learning languages anyway.
The show was at the Tarrytown Music Hall, which is the oldest music hall in Westchester County and is absolutely gorgeous. It is red brick with all these little eaves and windows. It is relatively small and intimate on the inside with awesome wall art. We checked out the balcony for awhile and it is almost better than sitting down below, although everyone was standing below. The place is also a non-profit and is run by a bunch of old and relaxed volunteers. Actually, it seems like this is representative of much of the workforce in this town. The show itself was pretty cool too. Keller does a pretty fun show and I got quite into it. There were these two drunk girls, Brandy suggests Jersey girls, jumping around in the front row and by far the most into the show, until they disappeared for a little bit and came back completely fucked up. They went to the front again for a bit and just looked really disoriented and then one of them rushed back to her seat with an abominable look on her face and sank into her chair. The other one was not far behind and was not spotted for the remainder of the night. Nothing like getting too fucked up to enjoy your favorite band.
Today we started the day with a long conversation about France and USA again and then had overpriced breakfast at a diner before coming home.
I am reading this book called The Discovery of France, A Historical Geography by Graham Robb, a historian of France who spent a lot of time cycling around the country. He makes the conjecture that the fact that France exists as a unified country is pretty shocking given the history and the differences of the people and past, and even present, local languages. It is very interesting and highly recommended.