I went to New York last weekend with four friends. We whooped it up. For example, Friday night ended with shards of multiple drink glasses shellacked to the inside of my purse with the contents of several votive candles. It was that kind of whooping.

Still, a few things came clear through the haze.

First, NYC is crawling with famous people. Who look entirely like themselves, only with less perfect hair. Here are the people we saw:

The Woody Allen and Julie Andrews sightings are less rock-solid than the others. Don't these pictures make you wonder why famous people reflexively grip the sides of their heads when photographed? But I digress.

The second thing that came clear is that tap water is the new black. No more Perrier or San Pellegrino or Evian. Collectively, the New York dining public has agreed to drink water right from the spigot. It's amazing that real change can occur so quickly. We read about how much waste is produced and fossil fuels are expended in our bottled water mania, and WHAM, I'll take tap water, please. People were even carrying around personal nalgene bottles filled with tap.

The third thing I became dizzyingly aware of is just how good New York City restaurants are. There are cheap ones, fancy ones, bustling ones, ethnic ones--many of them so scary good that you have to moan and roll your eyes during meals. So there I was all weekend, moaning, rolling my eyes and picking glass bits out of my purse.