such a vivrant thing

My week in NYC has been pretty outrageous. Such a good time. Mary and I arrived late on Monday night. We drove 12 hours straight, which was entertaining. Wait, no...not entertaining exactly, but fun. Ohio and Pennsylvania just don't offer much to look at when driving through. There was satellite radio and curly fries though, so we did ok.

I split my week between Harlem with Mary and Tim, Hell's Kitchen with Autumn and Alphabet City with X. I'm becoming a professional couch surfer and an amazing packer. :) It was fun wandering around the city for the week and by the end, I actually was finding my way around the subways solo, which made me very proud considering last time I was there for a week, I couldn't figure them out to save my life.

Some awesome touristy and maybe not-so-touristy adventures I found in the city:

• Free wireless internet in Central Park...spent a lot of hours sitting in the grass at Sheep Meadow working on the laptop. If only that could be my office...
• P.S. 1 - Mary and I tried to go to the MoMA to see this exhibit by Jeff Koons that I wanted to see. Sadly, the line wrapped all the way around the block and I didn't want to see it that badly. So as a replacement, we decided to go to this P.S. 1. When the MoMA needed more exhibit space, they decided to buy an old public school out in Queens. The exhibits are in all the classrooms and even in the basement boiler rooms (which was incredibly creepy). In the summer, they have Summer Warm Up on Saturdays, which is basically a giant party in the courtyard area. They've turned the courtyard into a really cool space, with an area for a band/DJ and dancing. On Saturdays they host different musical acts, sell beer and food and people just come hang out all day. Very cool. When the place shuts down at 9PM, everyone walks to the Water Taxi Bar, which is basically a bunch of picnic tables on the beach with beer/cocktail stands sprinkled around, so also very cool. Plus, it offers a fantastic view of the Manhattan skyline.
• QTip DJ-ing @ Santos House Party - Friday night I wanted to do some dancing, so X, Mary, and X's friend Ron decided to go to this place called Santos House Party. It was kind of a strange place in the middle of Chinatown, but QTip from A Tribe Called Quest was DJ-ing there, so we figured the music would be cool. And it was. QTip spun all night playing really good hip hop all night, we all danced like crazy (we even started a dance circle...although the dancing was not that impressive) and at some point Busta Rhymes showed up. That was my celebrity sighting for the week. Mark Ronson was also there, but he's not as well known unless you know all the hot DJs. I only know of him because his sister is having a lesbian relationship with Lindsey Lohan. (I heart celebrity gossip, I can't help it.)
• Sunday morning, a group of us hauled ourselves out of bed early and jumped on a train to Long Beach. An hour later, we were on a beach that was surprisingly quite nice. There was a $10 fee to enter the beach, which was probably why it was so nice, but I really didn't expect to find a beach like that in NYC. Anyway, the purpose of our trip was SURFING. So exciting! We had signed up for a group lesson and board rentals for the day, but when we got there, the instructor guy told us he wouldn't do a group lesson with us because the swell was too crazy and we would all get pummeled unless we each had our own instructor. After a bit of negotiating, we all decided to do private lessons for an hour. We did a quick 10 minute review on the beach (we'd all surfed before) and then we took to the water. The instructor guy was right...even with my own instructor I still got pummeled by the waves when trying to paddle out. Once I managed to paddle my way out though, I was really good! I was so proud of myself because I hadn't surfed in years, but I stood up every time and only fell off a few. My instructor guy was trying to teach me how to do different maneuvers or whatever towards the end of the lesson, but after an hour in the water, my arms were definitely hurting like whoa. I've become such a wimp! After the hour in the water, we decided to call it a day. I was too tired and wasn't about to try to paddle through the waves by myself, so we spent the rest of the day hanging out on the beach and eating boardwalk food. Such an awesome day. Perfect weather. Surf. Greasy food. What more could one ask for?

So that was my week in NYC. When I wasn't doing all that, I was just hanging out with NYC friends at random bars and eating delicious food. Mmm...the food.

And now I am on a bus (with wireless internet) heading for Baltimore to hang out with my sister and brother-in-law for a week, followed by a weekend in Lynchburg, VA for my cousin's wedding and then back to the midwest for work.

Hugs, kisses and many thanks to Mary, Tim, Autumn, X, Nick and Jason for letting me crash on couches in NYC!

Peace.