YDA NYC

Arrived back in the district last night from a fun-filled and successful weekend at the Young Democrats of America Winter Conference in New York City.  It was 

overall a blast and as usual, a great time with great friends.

Friday evening, I arrived much later than everyone else.  I didn't get to NYC until 1am-ish, but this was still enough time to have a great time with everyone.  I took the BoltBus from DC.  This was overall a good experience (especially for only costing $30 round trip!).  I did have an interesting experience with the guy sitting in front of me on the bus.  I was just looking out my window enjoying the trip until I saw something very disturbing from the reflection of his computer.  He was watching porn...like crazy ridiculous porn...on the bus!  He did not seem to care at all!!  He didn't look like a weirdo, but I guess you can't judge a book by its cover.  Seriously though, who does that!?!?

After I finally arrived, a bit scarred from the random porn experience, I met up with my usual YDA crew.  They had just come back from eating in Little Italy at La Mela.  They had rave reviews and brought me leftovers...  They were fab...  We then went to a little sushi/karaoke bar and sang our hearts away while drinking overpriced drinks in a tiny room with about 100 of our closest YDA friends...  Good times!  The night was topped off with Dan and I deciding it would be fun to go get pizza and go to Times Square at 4am.  This was totally a good idea at the time...not such a good idea at 8am the next morning when I had to get up...

Saturday was a day full of meetings and excitement.  I made it to the 9am Rural Caucus meeting .  June O'Neill was the speaker and she was fabulous.  She is the chair of the New York State Democratic Party and is from upstate NY about 18 miles from Canada.  Basically the way she described where she was from, it is the middle of nowhere.  It was great to get her perspective on rural issues and I think its fabulous a typically "urban" state has someone from a rural area running the Democratic Party.  She was great and kudos to the Rural Caucus for having her speak!

I made it to the Resolutions Committee and they passed a few resolutions supporting EFCA, Repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," honoring President Obama, and a few others.  I'm very happy that YDA is going on record supporting all of these causes.  As a progressive youth organization, we definitely

 need to state our positions.

After Resolutions was the fabulous Communications and Outreach Committee Meeting.  I am the South-Central Region Appointee.  We have not really done much with this committee and if anyone knows how important communications is to me, this has been very frustrating.  What could have been a useless meeting, actually turned into a very productive discussion about the direction our organization needs to go with communications.  We definitely need someone to take the initiative to see these ideas through.  I am expecting great things in the future for this committee and hope to see it flourish as an asset to the organization.

After all the business...we headed down to my favorite pizza place in town, Lombardi's in Soho, to partake in a fabulous lunch.  It was fabulous as I expected...

Saturday evening, we ate at Ariana Afghan Kabob.  I have never eaten Afghan food and was quite nervous that I would not like it.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  This was SOOOOO yummy and the atmosphere was fun too.  It was  cute little local restaurant and we had a hilarious waiter.  It was a blast!

After dinner, we went to the Crystal and Rod party at the Dream Hotel.  They reserved the penthouse bar thing and it was fabulous.  We were on top of this roof with a great view of Times Square.  It was totally swanky and everybody that is anybody was there!

Sunday was General Session and this is going to need a post all on its own...  I left feeling like it was productive though.  We ate at Empanada Mama's afterwards and it was so yummy.  I've never had empanadas except the kind that you can get at Taco Bell.  After we ate, I met up with Carrie and Elaine, old friends from my OU days at a cute little coffee shop on the Upper East Side.  It was so New York.  It was great to see them and catch up.  I do wish the weather would have been nicer yesterday though because I was really wanting to hit up some shopping down in Soho.  It was just so nasty, rainy, and cold.

Overall, it was a great weekend.  My YDA friends are like family to me so it was great to catch up with everyone.  We ate well, had a great time, and also got down to business.  Hopefully Houston will happen so I can see everyone soon!