170 wineries.
600 wines.
So. Many. Samples.
Having volunteered the night before gave me two free tickets to attend the wine expo. My dad makes his own wine and would want to go. My mom can not be left out, so they bought one ticket and happily staked claim to my other ticket. $90 per ticket is too rich for their blood, too.
We caught a 12:20 train into the city.......ugh day 3......and the ticket guy came around to punch our tickets. He did so and then looks at me and says "I know you". I am learning to despise those words. I looked up & sure enough, it was a student I had in 2001-02. Wow. So old am I.
He asked me how I was, introduced himself to my parents, and sat down to ask me what I thought about grad. schools and which would I reccommend. He would get up at each station, peak out the door, as per job responsibility, and then punch tickets quickly and sit back down to chat. I had him for two semesters and could barely get a word out of him. He chatted all the way to Jamaica! I was dying a thousand deaths inside.
When we arrived at Penn, we decided to take a cab to the Javits Center due to all of that rain we had teeming down. My mother has never taken a NYC taxi in her life. Doesn't it just sound fitting that we were only two blocks away from Penn when a cabbie flies up next to our driver and starts cursing him out? Our cabbie responds and the other driver threw something hard out of his window and into the face of our guy! Our driver yells "I will punish you now!" and begins to speed. We thought, for sure, that we were going to be in some insane cabbie chase, but it was coincidence that we were headed the same direction. It's only four majoy blocks to the J.C. Why can't it be uneventful?
Anyway, we got there at 1:45 for the 2:00 start. We were ready with a bottle of water, a notepad and pen and knew to start on the right side. They let us in and we grabbed our complimentary wine glasses and headed off to the first aisle.
I won't go into details, but I sampled approximately 100 of the wines. I found some amazing dessert wines and even a red that will go great with anything from steak (if I ate it) to pizza (if I ate that).
We left when the event ended.....6:00. There were so many adults tripping, stumbling, vomiting, and holding onto walls/chairs/tables that it wasn't funny. These are adults! I can understand if it was the combination of wine made them ill, but if it was just the consumption of wine....which for most it was.....that is so sad.
We walked back to Penn and stopped in at Kabooz..............a fitting name for this day......and grabbed dinner. Our train was at 7:20 and we got home some time after 8p.m. I was exhausted. Did I have to tell you that? I am already on the list to be notified to sign up for a coveted spot among the 19 volunteers next year!
I hear that the J.C. does a food expo in June or July. I wonder if they need any help for that.
