When the money ran out and work didn't offer any prospects, we decided to head to NY to see the girls :)

We traveled by bus and met Rusty on the way (yes, his name perfectly matched his look: black guy with dreads and a rasta hat). The dude was sitting with his wife across the aisle from us, drinking vodka straight from the bottle without even chasing it with orange juice!!! He listened exclusively to Bob M and nodded approvingly at our "We respect Bob too and even have a CD with us"... He flatly refused to listen to our hiphop, smiling and saying, "I found my music forever." At the stops, we smoked together and, and, and... I came to in NY.

It was about one in the morning, and we headed to Queens to find the right house... The neighborhood, I must tell you, wasn't great, especially at first glance, but more on that later. The girls were renting an apartment from some Uzbeks... ugh, unpleasant people. Anyway, after wandering around the neighborhood for a bit, we found them, met up, and chatted... Things were going very, very poorly for them too.

For 5-6-7 days, or even more, we couldn't find work; I tell you, we were starving—terribly.

It was roughly like this: for a whole day of walking around NY, which was exhausting enough as it was, you'd eat at most a packet of rice in the evening with a packet of ketchup from McDonald's, and maybe a glass of milk if you were lucky... Even then, we gradually started eating from trash cans—yes, yes—nothing disgusting about it, actually, very normal food. Someone throws away an unfinished breakfast in its packaging, and we pick it up, unwrap it, and eat... ugh, the golden days!! I recall those times with such rapture and pride for all of us... I also remember well that we would scavenge through trash cans behind restaurants in the evenings; we found a lot of useful things there in terms of food. Once, I got incredibly lucky: I found, or maybe stole (the back door to the restaurant was ajar, and it was standing right next to it), a large bag with plastic containers that had frozen versions of soups/borscht. I barely managed to drag it home :) And we had a feast!! There were 12 portions in there!!! We carefully ate them for a week, and you can't imagine how heavenly that food was.

Sometimes we just walked around and begged for food in restaurants in the evenings, and people, feeling sorry for us, would give us something to eat or drink.

Besides food, there was a ton of clothes in the dumpsters, even new ones, which I especially remember—my Japanese-style robe, which, after a thorough wash, I carefully wore at night for another whole month, and a T-shirt, a really good linen T-shirt, on which I remember there was even a price tag :) If you want to try this kind of freakiness, welcome to South Manhattan :) the Little Italy, SoHo, and other neighborhoods, but not at the very bottom, just below 12th Street...

I'll write more detailed tips for people in New York later, below, if I don't forget.

Oh, and the most interesting thing is that we were already walking around with cell phones and unlimited plans at that time; again, I'll write below where you can get such freebies if I have enough memory.

I also remember the case when a guy "scammed" me and Alyoshka like two little kittens in Queens.

The story is truly funny, but for some reason, I'm not ashamed of it at all. Returning home late on a dark evening, right near the house, a guy of average build but very charismatic appearance stopped us. Like, "Hey, wait, do you have 2 rubles?" We, of course, didn't have a penny. We stopped, one word led to another, what's what... after about 30 minutes of "chatting," he was already telling us that he was the top dealer in the neighborhood, that he was supposed to be killed tomorrow, and that he had some kind of meta-energy. He offered to let us feel it—he put us on either side of him and hit us in the chest with his palms, both of us!!! Not hard, but still, the situation itself, right? ... I don't remember how we got away from that fool, but it was as if we came out of a trance; we walked home in silence, didn't want to talk, felt ashamed. Only later, after some time, did I realize that the guy was a total outsider and we should have just beaten him up. Although, after a fight... right? And the hypnosis was unreal, I assure you... I've never been scammed like that.

Well, that's enough of the hardcore stuff, or you won't go there :)

Tomorrow I'm moving on to the MOOOOST BEAUTIFUL time of my 24-year life.