Harry Potter and the Skinny Dipping Muggles

Jumping back onto the Harry Potter band wagon this summer, I am trying to catch up with the books I haven't yet read. Being so dedicated to that pursuit, I lugged the 800+ page "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" with me to a wedding in New York. I finished the book, which was much more depressing then I had expected, and have returned from this wedding a little worse for the wear. My roommate took one look at me when I got home last night and made me recount the entire event, despite the fact that it was 2am and she had work today.

I knew this was going to be a whirlwind weekend. I had no delusions that this was going to be relaxing in the least, but I was absolutely unprepared for the unbelievable world of hurt I am in today. My arms ache, my legs look like I narrowly escaped the jaws of some mythical beast, and my head is floating approximately three feet about my body. How I ended up this way is a blur to even me, but I will try and recount as much of this as possible before my floating head makes a mad dash for it.

This was the wedding of my nearest and dearest college friend and her college sweetheart. I have known both of them since the first week of freshman year. Despite not having spent much time with them since graduation in 2001, I still consider them some of my closest friends and therefore was not going to miss this important day. This proved to be a trek of epic proportions however. When I originally made these plans, I was still employed and thought that I only had a limited amount of vacation time. So even though this was a long way to go, I only planned the trip for three days and could not change the arrangements after my untimely sacking. The wedding was way out at the north eastern most point of Long Island making it neither easy nor convenient to get to. I took a five and a half hour red eye to New York on Thursday night, landing at JFK at 7:30am having slept about 2 hours. Then I took an hour long cab ride from hell with the absolute dumbest cab driver to her parents’ house, where I then got into a car with the bride's brother for the 2 hour drive out to the wedding location. All told, this was an 11 hour trip from door to door.

Once in Southold, I spent sometime with the bride at her grandparents' house, had lunch with the family, before checking into my hotel (there will be pictures of that grandiose establishment very shortly, no amount of descriptive prose could capture the majesty that is the Santorini). My roommate, Paul, had been arranged by the bride, another friend of hers that was coming solo. We had never met, but we were instant best friends. I think it was a combination of sleep deprivation and bordering insanity that we shared. We had about an hour to shower up and change for the rehearsal dinner. I was working on about two hours of sleep but was trying my best to be alert and awake for the forthcoming festivities.

The blur begins at the rehearsal dinner. I drank entirely too much, ate way too little (the lobster looked offended that I was going to eat it, so I gave up that endeavor rather quickly) and scraped my knee on the merry-go-round that I had foolishly decided to jump on while it was moving. I have vague memories of ill-advisedly flirting with the videographer before waking up at 11am the next morning safely tucked away in the Santorini.

The ceremony, which we were late too, was beautiful, and we had just enough time to head back to the hotel, change shoes and jump on the shuttle bus to the reception that was being held at her grandparents’ home. It was picturesque. They had set up an enormous tent in the back yard that over looked the bay. The day was perfect and there was more alcohol then I ever thought could be consumed by one party. Here are the details which I hazily remember. Again I was entirely too inebriated to be accountable for any of my actions. There was a frenzied amount of dancing, which I believe has added to my soreness. Then there was more flirting with the videographer. A rousing chorus of “Build me up Buttercup” which has been immortalized on the wedding video, was followed by a walk on the beach with a fellow wedding guest that I don’t particularly remember meeting. A high-school make-out session with him on the dock (which I later learned was supposedly off limits because it’s so unstable) ended with him ripping my adorable new dress almost completely off. My new superhero, Heather, one of the bridesmaids, whipped out her emergency kit and had to SEW ME INTO THE DRESS! It was so beyond repair that that was the only way I could respectably rejoin the wedding reception.

I don’t particularly remember the shuttle ride back to the hotel, but I was with my hotel roommates, Paul and now Rachel, a college friend who had joined up Saturday (I do know however, that there were at least two drunk dials to friends in LA, but those conversations may be forever lost to me). Once back at our hotel, I ripped myself out of my dress and more debauchery ensued. There was ocean skinny dipping with some other Santorini guests, during which I somehow bruised the top of my foot to a lovely shade of dingy. This was followed by pool skinny dipping that included scaling a fence while almost complete nude. Happily, I escaped any harm in this horribly hazardous endeavor. I can not say the same for some of my fellow dippers.

Sunday is a smudge in my mind that included brunch, the beach and a harrowing 13 hour odyssey back to Los Angeles. All told, I look like I have been beaten, and thrown down about 100 flights of stairs, but this has to be the best wedding I’ve ever been too. Excuse me while I go die now.