Happy Friday!

Happy Friday from NYC! It is a chilly 39 degrees and I could not be happier about it. Love the cold! I started today off by getting our traditional office work bagels from famed Murrays, and ran into Sarah Jessica Parker (hello, Sex in the City!). Last weekend, Katie Beard came in town from Philly, where she is a childlife specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. It was SO good to have a friendly familiar face to spend the weekend with! Friday night we went out to a little hole in the wall sushi joint, and then headed to famous Magnolia Bakery for some cupcakes!

They were delicious! Apparently New York really loves Halloween, because virtually every store/place I enter is decked out. I'm ok with this, as I pretty much love any kind of holiday decorating. After eating ourselves into a sugar coma, we passed out for a good 10 hours. It was AWESOME and much needed. Saturday morning I decided it would be a good idea to take Katie out for a traditional NYC brunch. We headed to Good Enough to Eat and once again ate ourselves silly:

If you can't tell, the food here is really good. We then headed down to Times Square to see if we could get in last minute to see Daniel Radcliffe's play. Didn't go so well. Instead, we headed down to where I work in the Meatpacking District/Chelsea/West Village and did a full days worth of just hanging out and shopping. I wanted to show her parts of the city that tourists don't normally go, and we had a blast! Randomly, we ran into John Kerry having a serious talk on his cell:

I tried to get a non-stalkerish distance away before I pulled out my camera, cause I'm sure he just wanted to be left alone. Still, very random/cool. Before we knew it, it was time to get back to watch the Tennessee game! We picked up a large delicious pizza from Patsy's and headed home to curl up to watch the game. We all know how that ended! (Roll Tide). Sunday we got up and walked from my apartment on 89th all the way through Central Park to the Museum of Modern Art (about 2.5 miles). It was a gorgeous day and the temperature was perfect so we took our time and enjoyed the park. The museum was.... interesting. I will never understand why people are paid ungodly amounts of money for ripping a piece of paper and framing it and it ends up in the MoMa?! Who knows. After about 2 hours, we were a little tired of the random weird art, but we were definitely glad we went! Sundays in the city at a museum just can't be beat. Plus, we still use our student ID's to get discounts. Here are a couple more pictures from our weekend!

We had a blast! Thanks for reading, come back again next week :)

I am no longer homeless!

The most relieving news I could give you is that I have a place to live in November and December! It is a studio apartment in the mid-40s between 8th and 9th aves (Hell's Kitchen), so a very central location.  It is an avenue and a half from Times Square, which could cause some problems when the area gets really congested around holidays, but the street actually feels like it could be a mile away from TS, so that's great. The apartment is a studio, which pretty much means I live in one room, but after living in the Alpha Gam house for 2 years, it feels monstrous. I have a full sized kitchen and bathroom, and most importantly, DVR and a large HD TV with all essential channels! The girl I am renting from is a Broadway actress who most recently has been in Jersey Boys and Legally Blonde, but I will keep her name private out of respect to her space, but I will say that she is fantastic! She had a few other people interested, but said she just "felt in her gut" that I should be the one to live in her home. I think this might be because I made her feel sorry for me by explaining emphatically that I was homeless and going to have to give up my internship (true!). Here are a few pics of the place (she decorated all Anthro... love!):

This consumed my entire week last week, so sorry for no fun posts from then! Stay tuned shortly for an update on mine and Katie's weekend, as she came in from Philly to visit :)

Weekend in the City!

My first weekend in the city, I had the apartment all to myself! Friday night my roommate Hannah (the one who is on the designing shows) and her fiance and his little brother all came and stayed. The other 3 girls were out of town, so it was nice not to be alone that night and to meet some new people! Saturday I trekked down to the Museum of Natural History (ok, trekked is not really the right word. It's less than 10 blocks). I was secretly excited about this outing, as the museum was the setting of Ben Stiller's Night at the Museum, which I love. But, the museum definitely has a lot more history than that, as it is well over 100 years old. I whipped out my student ID and got a major discount (hey! they don't know I'm not still in school!) and I was on my merry way. The place is HUGE. And the map was not very helpful. Needless to say I wandered most of the time. Let me tell you, this museum spares no expense in showing people the circle of life. Here are some of my favorite pictures that may or may not be appropriate:

Please, read this. 

That's a polar bear. He is EATING a seal, hence the blood. The seal's face is tormented. Little kids asked lots of questions.

There were a lot of other strange pictures, but I will spare you. I wandered around for about 2 hours, saw most of the big attractions, then got bored and decided it was time to head on out. Overall, it was a really cool place, I highly recommend it!

Sunday, I woke up early, which I was not too happy about as I had hoped to finally catch up on some sleep. I had been wanting to check out Strawberry Fields in Central Park, and it just so happened to be John Lennon's birthday. Now, I had been looking forward to the nice cool fall weather in NY since we don't get a fall at home. I checked the weather, and it was a cool 85 degrees outside. Wait, WHAT?! I pretty much only brought cold weather clothes. Angrily, I put on my shorts and t-shirt and headed out into the heat. There was a neat street fair going on outside my apartment, so I strolled through that and picked up some fresh squeezed lemonade and headed down to the park. About 5 blocks into my walk, I decided that I would rather take the subway down since Strawberry Fields is at 72nd street and my apartment is on 89th. I got off the subway, and was hit by a massive crowd headed to the sacred area. The building across from the fields is the famed Dakota, where Lennon lived with Yoko Ono and where he was murdered. Each year on his birthday (and death day) she walks across to the park and mourns and celebrates with the fans. Sadly, I did not see Yoko. But I did see lots and lots of singing hippy people. Facepaint and all. However, standing around listening to all these different people from different parts of the globe happily singing the same songs (and in tune, too!) was a really neat experience. Uncharacteristically, I walked back to my apartment through the park and marveled, as I do each day, that I actually live in this monstrous place. 

Hippies in the park, with the Dakota in the back

Sunday night I met up with a girl that I had emailed back and forth while trying to find a place to live, and we went to the Sunday night Redeemer service. It was great, and I officially made my first New York friend! Her name is Heather, she is from Seattle, and is doing a book editing internship for the same length as mine. We are going to go exploring this weekend, so stay tuned for that. 

Monday was Columbus day, so I got the day off! I decided to go down to Tiffany's of 5th Ave to get my chain fixed, as it had broken shortly before I got here. I can't tell you how this happened, but I got up to the customer service floor and pulled out my necklace, and it was magically fixed. Now, I am not crazy. I KNOW that my necklace snapped right next to the clasp. The lady pulled it out, and it was perfect. So she looked at me like I was crazy, and I headed back home. I got stuck in the first annual Columbus Day parade, so I decided to check out the Apple store next door to see the tribute to Steve Jobs:

Truly amazing. People from around the world were still leaving tributes almost a week after his passing.

Monday night my friend Scott from work invited me to hang out with him and his girlfriend Ashley (yes, Ashley from the Bachelor). She was so sweet and welcoming and we ate one of the best kinds of New York pizza! My first weekend was awesome and I am so thankful to have made some new friends. Stay tuned for the next post, in which I will tell you why passing out on the subway is not a fun experience (I know, you're all really surprised). 

Thanks for reading!

The Big Move

So anyone who remotely knows me knows that it has always been my dream to live and work in New York. Not forever, as I could never permanently move away from the bay, but it would be great to live in the city until I get tired of it, or my mom drags me home. Whichever comes first. (Just kidding mom). I saw on Twitter where this social media company called The 7th Chamber needed an intern, I decided to give it a try. The description said that the intern should love social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc), be a recent college grad, and about 7 other characteristics that pretty much summed me up. Seeing as the other 500 cover letters I had written over the past couple of months had returned absolutely zero jobs, I decided it was time to break out of the professional mode that I had been told (during multiple classes, what a great use of my tuition money)  would guarantee me a stellar job. I sent a quirky "5 Reasons Why You Should Hire Me" email to the company, and I got a response within 30 minutes. From there a had a whirlwind 7 days of a few interviews and projects, and bam! I was offered the position. Enter freak out mode. Totally in shock, I was now tasked with finding an affordable short term furnished place to live in less than 1 week. This is almost impossible to do. I will spare you from the details of how crazy I went contacting everyone on earth, but, by the grace of God, (and help from Hunner) found a place to live 12 hours before I had to cancel my flight to get a refund. For the month of October, I am living with 4 wonderful girls (2 from Mobile, 1 from Auburn, 1 from Long Island). I am living in this room, which was featured in a magazine because one of my roommates is an incredible designer:

It looks a little bit different now, but it is awesome. So dad and I got on a plane with all my clothes in 2 bags, and headed up to NYC. He stayed with me from Saturday-Tuesday and helped me get oriented (and made sure I wasn't going to get lost, etc..). We went to see Spiderman (his choice) and I snuck a picture of the stage even though the aisle patrollers were very strict about the no camera policy:

It was actually really good, and now I have the songs stuck in my head constantly. My favorite part was probably watching all the little kid's faces while Spiderman was swinging around (and the grown men's faces for that matter).

When dad left, I was officially all on my own in a city of 5 million people! Luckily, I have been so busy I haven't had time to fret about being alone, and for this I am grateful , cause I sure do miss everyone! I ride the subway to work and I walk everywhere. Which, if you know me, is not like me. It's definitely an adjustment, but I feel like I'm getting some good exercise in. My first week at work has been awesome, and I am really learning a lot. I work in the trendy Meatpacking District on this cobblestone street:

I love it! It's awesome. 

So that's all for now, but I'd like to thank all the fabulous people in my life who have sent me constant notes of encouragement: my family, my sweet boyfriend, and all of my friends. You know who you are! I wouldn't have made it up here without your support. Now come visit! (Also, I still need a place to live for November and December- open to all ideas)

P.S.- Remember how I said my roommate was an awesome designer? She was on the Nate Berkus Show (of Oprah fame) this morning showing off our apartment and her ballin' skills! Here's Hannah!