Bence in the States: 10.07 - 10.13 - East Village and the Catskills

This was an insane weekend in any terms. On Thursday I visited Charles and got camping gears for the weekend hike in the Catskills. I thought I was fully equipped and prepared for spending the night outside in a borrowed tent. But don't go that far.

From last week with Attila in Southport

Thanks Jing for the rice cooker. It's in good hands.

There was the 3rd CEENET Trade Visit with Polish focus organized by Donna.

http://www.ctceenet.org/2013/08/28/2013-polish-trade-visit-to-connecticut/

On Friday morning I jumped into my car dressed professionally and headed to Manhattan to meet the CEO of the globe's first and only Venture Capital firm specialized in aquaculture. I arrived without any major delays and found a free (!) parking space with the help of Juli in Manhattan 20 minutes on walk from the Times Square. The meeting was fantastic and we talked over one hour and forty minutes about aquaculture, business opportunities and a lot more. I was quite surprised by the fact that I only expected 15-20 minutes and not that friendly talk.
Then I met Kristof from the MCC at the Grand Central and grabbed a beer somewhere on the way to Chelsea where we met Juli and Miki for many more drinks:)
After a short chit-chat and dress change we ended up at the Keybar in East Village. This is a cool, Eastern European bar run by two Hungarians Attila and Gyuszi.
We had five massive hours drinking like true Hungarians. We started with two rounds of Raspberry Palinka then switched to our national drink called Unicum (this is a special bitter made by many different herbs using a secret formula. We mixed the 11 rounds of Unicum shots with 6-7 beers in the meantime:)

This is how you park in Manhattan

Kristof, Juli, Miki plus Bence

At the Keybar - getting there

http://keybar.com/

almost there

here we go with Attila the owner

Then we went home by taxi around 2AM and got up at 7:30AM for a wonderful camping in the Catskills.

It was not grateful to wake up and get in the car. I had to eat something and felt so dehydrated so I bought some milk and bread. Juli showed me an extremely expensive bakery (gourmet bread) where I purchased a $4.5 ?! 1.5 lbs bread. However, it was the best bread I've ever had. It sucked the Unicum out of my belly eventually and saved my life probably. My milk purchase made Juli and Miki laugh at me, but wait until the end of the story.

Nobody had money or cards but me:) So I withdrew some money as well from a Hispanic grocery store with $2 surcharge. Anyway, we were ready to go. My car made the night, it was still there, no tickets, no cracks, nothing. Finally we set the gps and headed out from NYC. The upcoming 2 hours driving felt terrible, i am sorry, i felt terrible. The sickness came in long lasting waves, i had to pull down the window to get some fresh air. When we found the camping I could not believe that we arrived.

Fully equipped like a camper

In the bag: 2 sleeping pads, 1 tent, 1/2 gallon milk, 1/2 loaf bread, 1 chunky canned soup, 1 ramen noodles, 3 pairs of socks, 1 pair of trousers, 3 sweaters, 1 spoon, 1 lighter, 1 BG survival knife, 3/4 gallon water, 1 jacket, 1 lamp, 1 sleeping bag down to 25 Celsius (This night was 5 Celsius)

Sleeping pads, the tent and the pack are from Charles.

Happy couple:)

Juli is a professional photographer (Juli would say, no, she is not, but she is) with some nice lenses and a solid DSLR base.

The weather could not have been better. Seriously, fall is gorgeous in New England but it was ridiculously gorgeous. Catskills is one of Charles's most favorite hiking places. I can understand that.

This is where we camped. Guess what happened to my milk? We drunk it together of course, there was no more laugh. It tasted like silk and blanket for my stomach.

This is what we saw when we woke up. But first I had to set up the tent which I haven't done for a while, let's say 8 years:) It went well though and I started making fire.

Like this. We collectively gathered some branches and kept the fire going until 7:45 PM where we went to bed. Yes, 7:45 PM. It was pitch dark and we were exhausted.

But before that we had a nice warm dinner with gourmet dried instant food prepared by Juli and Miki.

It is around 7PM. The fire felt so good and we just sat around it and talked about traveling, plans, stories and all that. There was no signs of my hungover any more.

This is the morning preparing the "junk" breakfast by Bence. The night was long, wet and cold for me. I only had an ultra light sleeping bag which is warm until 25 celsius, as I said this night was only 5 celsius. I wore 3 pairs of socks one of them was for skiing, 2 pairs of trousers, 3 t-shirts, 2 sweaters, 1 jacket, 1 hat, 1 sleeping bag. Juli suggested me to put warm stones from the pit so it will warm up my tent. It worked until it was getting really cold so it did not help much, but the idea was good.

I fell asleep at 8PM and woke up at 11:58PM first and I felt it must me around 4AM so it disappointed me and the stones were cold. I checked the weather outside, we got a huge fog so everything became soaked. Temperature dropped significantly and there was a bit wind going on as well. I tried to sleep more and woke up at 4:30AM next, then 5:45AM and finally at 6:00AM i left my tent because I was cold.

Making a fire when you are sitting in a cloud and everything is so wet can be quite challenging. Fortunately, I've seen Bear Grylls's all survival episodes and in 15 minutes there was a fire ready to sleep next to it on a sleeping pad. That's what I did until 8:30AM when everybody woke up, had a warm breakfast, packed everything and left the camp site.