Nueva York so far 2 weeks in

Hey so I've been living in the Big Apple for 2 weeks...

-Our friend Sean drove us up here in Seth's packed explorer on a Tuesday and he hung out until Thursday
-Greeted by NewYorican neighborhood in Williamsburg, a part of Brooklyn regarded as nice
-Got in and surprised to see that bedroom was way bigger than i thought and started the unpacking process/decorating right away, looked as if we'd been living here for months on day 2
-First night here, we all pregamed forever (liquor murdered me) which was a blast and Sean's friend came to the city and we all went out to Manhattan, and went to Trevor's (Peter's friend) that is a bartender at a monk bar, where you're supposed to be quiet and we were loud as shit, had to go home right away bc i felt sick, saw Chris (one of Peter's friends that has become our friend) and we were all so wasted. Asked us the next day, "you noobs remember seeing me?" Yeah I came home and hugged the toilet. Happy homecoming. Then accidently chain locked the door and Peter and Sean couldn't get in. They were yelling and raising hell and we couldn't hear them although Seth's head was right next to the door. Finally got up and peter who's a cheerful redhead (hes also half Puerto Rican) who looks like he'd work at a 1950's diner serving up shakes, said "Vicky, I'm pretty mad see" and then looked at my PJs and said in a happy voice, "ha, nice is that Tinkerbell?" Fun first night.
-While Sean was here, we went to Roberta's-cute little "hipster" wood grill ovens and yummy specialty pizzas (not big NY style though) with Tomo-Peter's old Japanese roommate and a friend of ours who showed me how to get to the grocery store and my bank that morning- the essentials. Saw a dead rat on our way to Roberta's. For everything that would be funny or strange or really anything, Sean would say, "Hey, it's New York!"
-Peter hates that Alicia Keys New York song, so we'd sing it in spite of him
-While Seth went to drop Tomo off at his place, since Seth still had his car then (Sean was driving the car back home) Seth got pulled over for not wearing his seat belt. He're in New York, it's big deal. He probably got singled out for Va plates bc as he was getting pulled over, there were babies driving cars and drug deals going on around him-exaggeration i hope.
-Also, while Sean was here, we went walked around Union Square, got a drink at McSorely's-the oldest bar in the city 1864? and then to Peter's restaurant, Ippudo-soo good, they gave us lots of free toppings (meats-like pork belly yum). We'd been to Robertas, McSorely's and Ippudo before but we knew they were good and trust me, i intend to discover everything around here especially restaurants-i want to take a huge bite outta life!!
-Was dressed up in Giants colors excited to go to a bar in NY and watch them play, but Seth went to Second chance, appropriate name for a Redskins bar and we hung out there instead. It was pretty fun, they went into overtime against the packers and won. The entire bar only had this one game on and everyone started singing the fight song.
-one day, we went to Penn Station and Times Square and were touristy. I was excited but it bored Seth as if he had lived here for years
-Seth is teaching me how to get around using the subways, but agreed that at night if i ever came home from going out with galpals, id take a taxi back from the city
-heard gunshots a couple blocks down once. I don't think I've ever heard them
Its pretty loud durinhg the day, but not so much at night
-luv my apartment, high ceilings, wood floors, and gas stove -it's just kinda loud and obviously like everything else here, small, and my roommate Peter that I've known forever although never close to, he was in my prom group with one of my girls,
-Peter works mostly nights at an awesome Japanese Ramen shop aforementioned that famous people go to like Martha Stewart
-we stay up super late and wake up super late to the same Spanish song everyday. We're constantly using our itunes to block it out. You could get along completely fine if you only spoke spanish in these streets. Everyone on this street is Puerto Rican I think. -i have printed out the words, so at least i can sing along "me duele la cabeza de"
-spend most nights hanging out, making food, and watching episodes of 30 Rock and some Golden girl episodes -never seen 30 Rock before now, but pretty funny
-one night we went out at 1 AM-feels like Europe, although we just went to Chris' house and drank his delicious homemade beer-"Mckeedees-dont remember the last time I laughed so hard -he lives in Brooklyn too off the L -oo look at how New Yorkish i sound
-Seth says i need to work on my expressions-you know you can read me like a book, but i need to not freak out if i see weird shit which is all the time
-everyone dresses the same around here: leggings and boots, skinny jeans and scarves, flats, weird shoes. I accidentally judge everyone on the subway and everywhere else
-went to the laundromat yesterday-that took forever unless you do the more expensive lazy route for those employed- drop-off service
-went to a bar called drop-off service and met Chris out there-not too bad -just chill and cheap beers-met some minorities-Seth was the minority there
-haven't had some bomb ass pizza yet here since last time we came
-Peter invited a couple of friends-Mayumi-she seems great,  for movie night- Wet Hot American Summer
-Seth doesn't remember the last time he had to actively meet friends- he has some acquaintances in the city that he invites out, but they haven't been able to come meet us. I'm sure we'll meet people when we start working, but I don't really care. I luv alone time and contrary to popular belief can be introverted. That and everyone and their mother is coming up to see me/or will be up here and I'll see them, so I'll be pretty busy in the entertaining business, speaking of entertaining, we saw this ad for a foot fetish model. You just sit there and let men who didn't get hugged enough as children lick and "play' with your feet-hilarious and disgusting. I start on Monday. Jk. but yeah April came just last weekend to see me. I needed some good April time. Friday, we went to my Puerto Rican grocery store, went to adorable but super hipster bedford avenue a couple stops away and walked around and then went to Samurai, a little casual Sushi place-pretty good, but no Yama then stayed in and ate fettuccine, watched Closer,  drank cheap wine, baked cookies and sang old school R&B/love songs like "I Swear" and anything by Mariah Carey until 3 in the AM, boys came back and were loud as shit and i got crappy sleep
Next day we were tired as balls, but went in search of this breakfast place she had been to before, Pillow. Just like GPS says "do you wish to avoid unpaved roads?" the Droid navi should ask "do you want to avoid hoods slash projects?" because it took us down one for a little while, we finally got there and it was cute and yummy, and we used my gmaps directions to take us home down a safer path, through the Hasidic Jewish part of town, every building had Hebrew writing, every person was wearing the orthodox attire. I thought i saw a bum, but c'mon they know better.. jk. then we went to where JMU dukes in NY were viewing the JMU homecoming game, bar was ok and we were pretty not lively, we lost to New Hampshire, then at home we planned on going and getting fancy dinner and going out dancing, but April dealt with some stuff and then we were all tired. We passed out. next day, we met up with Jaimie also from VB who was visiting another friend. We went to Peter's restaurant again with Peter and Seth and again i got the Akumuri Modern yum-super fun to get to hang out with her and April in NY! and met Jaimie's friends too. April left and that night Seth and I went to the redskins bar again to watch them lose and then went to meet Jaimie and her friends out at Trophy bar which was kind of dive with a DJ who played prince, mj and no cupid shuffle. I soberly hopped/danced around with drunk Jaimie on an empty dance floor , but it was entertaining as Jaimie was having a ball. Next day Jaimie, her friend, Peter, Seth and I went to Roebling Tea room which was also cute, got the chai tea- Seth was excited to see porkroll on the menu then Jaimie left
-So one cool thing about NY is that lots of shit is taped here like the...Colbert Report, we signed up for the Bill Bryson episode since Seth and I read him on the trail and what an awesome time. i was so excited and my face hurt from laughing and smiling. one of the employees was this annoying ass chipper girl that i wanted to smack. but everyone else was mad cool, there was a comedian before him while Colbert rehearsed some lines-funny. Then Colbert came out and it's an intimate atmosphere only 7 rows of ppl i was in the 7th row. poor lady next to me i was yelling and hooting like i was at a knicks? game, so yeah he came out and answered questions out of character and then within the show incorporated things that he had only talked to the audience about like that he feared bears the most and then muttered quickly..and gays and mexicans, and "shield of vibraneum" which someone in the audience tried to call Colbert on being wrong about, he messed up a couple of times and they had to re record some parts and we still laughed just as hard, saw his writers come out and his makeup people, it was awesome and he seems like a really cool dude in real life, show was about goats stealing American jobs, dumb ass Christine o'donnel, and even said "Oprah gave away tickets to Jon Stewart's rally, but not to mine, but it's okay because my grandfather had a saying...FUCK Oprah." oh my gosh it was hilarious and then we looked under our seats (I've always wanted to be on a show and do that!) and saw bus tickets to his rally in DC!!!  which we are going to! please watch the show 10/14/2010. you can see us in the upper left corner when he announces the ticket give-away but only for a sec. We're seeing The Daily Show when Sara gets here
-Yeah so next month, Sara -haven't sen her in so long- lived w/her A-wing represent! at jmu and quickly became friends-is coming up to see me and Julia (also in our wing) and then at the end of her stay, my vb gals Hedy, Court and Lynz (now lives in Misery) are coming. Vegas part II.
-I need a job, all these visits are going to make me ba-roke and no i don't mean the art
-im unemployed and the only effort i have made towards employment is redoing my resume which was a task, but proud of it now
-Seth is unemployed, but has had an offer for Paragon Sports, which he is probably going to take. They had an open house and everyone was standing in line to do quick interviews, where he'd glance at your resume and figure if he wanted to spend anymore time with you. I was being nosey and every now and again would peek to see nonverbals from the interviewer and Seth. it lasted a while and i knew that he had scored a job. Went to a Mexican restaurant drawn in by free sangria to celebrate
-saw a banana and cookie monster playing instruments together in the subway, saw a couple accuse a man of groping the male and yelling out NYPD!, saw a man mumbling to himself with a parrot on his shoulder on the street and the parrot shat on him and the guy could not have cared less-i kept my distance, I've seen an old, skinny man dressed as superman advertising purses, saw a bunch of people dressed like supernerds i mean superheroes for some comic convention,
I hate seeing poor people asking for change, it makes me sad
-i don't feel safe walking alone or with just a girl at night, but i haven't had to
-Seth plays lots and lots of Halo and Modern Warfare
-think our neighbors probably think we're crazy because they hear things like Seth jokingly yelling "Close your vagina, vagina face" when I'm asking him to clean the dishes
-went costume shopping and spent too much on a makeshift smurfette costume (Seth is going to be Papa Smurf-don't worry they arent related) bc we dont believe in pre-bought costumes. oh if we can recall, Michaelangelo -the ninja turtle in 11th grade thank you Christian and Joey
-Jersey Shore South Park episode was a doozy


Yeah so I'm liking it so far.It's not that expensive if you don't live in Manhattan. Our commute is not far at all. Only expensive thing is probably going out and the fact that theres so many fun things to do here.  Everyone visits next month, then home for thanksgiving and then a month, then home for Christmas. but yeah i gotta get on that job search. I feel like my life is exciting and I'm excited for it!

app trail day 15

About September 26, 2010

Day 15 Lambert’s Meadow Campsite à Highway 220 (9.1 miles)

 We’ve been home for 4 days… I haven’t been able to write because I came home and hit the ground running with packing for new York. It’s funny. I wore the same pair of pants for 15 days in the trail and now I’m facing the dilemma of having to pick my favorite 85 clothing pieces to bring with me. Stupid huh?

Anyways back to the topic of already being home. You ever had someone surprisingly take that last bite of your meal? Doesn’t it make you feel all messed up inside? Like cheated? Now when you get a plate of food, your mind psychologically prepares itself for that amount. If someone takes a bite in the beginning or you know that at some point someone will be having a bite, your mind in the psych-prep stage factors this in as well. But when someone surprisingly takes that last bite from you…

So that’s how I felt lying in the tent on the 14^th night when we decided that going home early made more sense than staying for the following reasons:

1.       Corey was leaving the next day to Virginia Beach and instead of having Seth’s dad drive 10 hours out of his way on his day off, we could just go home with Corey

2.       Seth remembered it was his dad’s bday on what would have been day 16

3.       The reason we went on this trip was for Seth and he had gotten everything he wanted out of this experience (except Dragon’s tooth L)

4.       It was going to thunderstorm its buns off for the remainder of our time there

5.       My knee was still killing me

Now if it wasn’t for the Dad driving thing, I would have put up with everything else. I didn’t feel like we had been there long enough and again, I was anticipating 3 weeks, not 15 days so I just felt funny about leaving before the date.

Regardless, the next morning came and we would take on the day with the knowledge that this was our last day on the trail. It was raining and I stayed in the tent as long as possible. It was about 730 or 8 and we packed up quickly and started the 9+ mile day… in the rain. We hiked quickly- faster than we had gone before. At the pace we were going at, we’d be through by noon. We were above the clouds which was pretty. I tried to get photos of the pretty leaves while I could. Corey decided to push on ahead solo and Seth took the opportunity to practice his Spanish. As usual, the beginning went by quickly and the end dragged on. We were hasty towards the end and when we finally saw 220, and Corey keeping my hohos company, we were proud.

We hopped in and he drove us to the Home Place. A-mazing. Best fried chicken I’ve ever had. They serve everybody the same thing everyone gets the meats-country ham, roast beef, fried chicken and all of the sides- mashed taters with gravy, green beans cooked in bacon, biscuits, etc. ad somehow we made room for peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm. It was weird seeing so many people in one place, especially all the Va tech lovers. Wish I was there in my “I bleed purple” shirt. So after that little bit of heaven, we drove home and shook and flicked the stink bugs out of all of the equipment…those fuckers made it all the way to VB. I eagerly pulled out the scale for gratification. I told Seth to hop on first and not to look. He said that last time he weighed 202 pounds. I looked and the scale read 190. He lost 12 pounds! –he later found out it was 14. Well if he lost weight surely, I must have lost a ton too- I mean my turkey gobble wasn’t as prominent as it had been before. Seth would look this time before me. I stated that last time I weighed myself I was between 131 and 132. I stepped on then followed Seth’s eyes as they went from the scale and as he gave me a half, fake smile. I looked down and I shit you not 131.6. Wow. Pretty funny. We gave it the old muscle weighs more than fat thing and I defeated sighed. It ended up I actually went down to 126. The smallest I had been in years.

I drove Seth home and while mildly excited to be sleeping in a bed, I knew that this little adventure was over. It had felt like a while and yet a short period of time. I liked it a lot. Things were simple. They were not convenient, but simple. It’s funny, while you’re worrying about your basic needs, you find that the higher peaks on Maslow’s heighacrchy are reached. Inner peace and parts of self actualization. For those who are already in touch with these things, this experience highlights it. Im one of those. Im not sure how it woukd be to not already posess this sense of true happiness within oneself. I recommend this challenging but rewarding experience or really any time that you can get away from all the crap of life-the stuff that actually takes away from what you already know life is actually about (This I say as I type on my computer) I’m about to live in the land of excess. Let’s see how this goes…