Spring Break Trip in New York City - The Nutshell Version

Basically, Manhattan is amazing. I really wish I had another week there, so I could explore the city more. And eat more. Heh. See below.

Day 1 (Tuesday, March 22)

I got to LaGuardia early that morning and took the M60 bus and the N train into Manhattan, emerging a block and a half from the hotel (win!). It went more or less without a hitch, which was surprising because I am very good at taking public transportation in the wrong direction. I wish all cities were as user-friendly as NYC.

I met up with JH and SB coming from JFK, and ate at Carve in the Theatre District:

Later, we frolicked in Central Park:

And then we went to the Met and saw amazing amazing paintings and sculptures.

And then we ate dinner at a Hale and Hearty Soups on the Upper East Side:

And then we took a 456 train to Grand Central...

...and walked to Times Square from there.

Shopping was involved, but goods were not purchased. The stores there are crazy; I don't remember seeing a single one that was only one story tall. The American Eagle in Times Square was three stories (!!).

Day 2 (Wednesday, March 23)

The next day we headed to SoHo for shopping.

We ate at Grotta Azzurra in Little Italy for lunch.

On the way back for more shopping, we were sidetracked by Pinkberry.

More shopping ensued. I won't bore you with the details, because 3/3 of my known blog readers are male and probably don't care.

Dinner followed, at an Australian place called Eight Mile Creek in Nolita:

We finished up at Topshop and Uniqlo, since neither of them are available locally. By this point my fUggs-enclosed feet were throbbing like none other, but for the sake of shopping I soldiered on through bravely. I mean, where else could you shop in a packed Sephora that still manages to have (almost) more salespeople than shoppers? Or a stand-alone Pink?

The weather was pretty crazy that evening. It had been raining on and off the whole day, but then it started hailing and thundering and snowing and I was super excited because I had never seen snow on the streets before, and it was falling from the sky, which was pretty magical.

Day 3 (Thursday, March 24)

On Thursday we took the M5 bus (scenic view!) to the southern tip of Manhattan, to take a ferry from Battery Park to the Statue of Liberty.

I couldn't decide whether or not this was the Brooklyn Bridge, but a map I obtained later stated that this is the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

Later, we went to Ground Zero, where the memorial was being constructed, and Wall Street.

I thought the Stock Exchange had a strange lack of activity, but then I realized it was 5:30 and the markets were closed. Boo.

We ate dinner that night with DL, who arrived the day before, at Arirang in Koreatown.

Then we all went to the Empire State Building for a very cold, very windy, very beautiful night view of the city.

Day 4 (Friday, March 25)

Friday morning I went to the Top of the Rock, which provided me a great daytime view of the city. The lack of clouds was a serious plus.

At ground level, Rockefeller Center is pretty cool too.

Since J and S were still asleep, I had some time to do more shopping in the area. The Rockefeller Center J. Crew did not yield any spectacular sale items, but I snagged a great lounge dress from the Anthropologie for $10. The 5th Ave Banana Republic was having a 25% off sale, and I got a nice cream cable-knit sweater there. This is probably my favorite Banana Republic store, because it is huge and two stories. The petities section takes up a third of the top floor, and the sale section was just as big. The only annoying thing was that there were no fitting rooms on the second floor, where the sale section was. But other than that, it was pretty heavenly.

I ate lunch with DL and her friends at Udon West in East Village.

We walked around East Village for a while and browsed in some vintage stores.

Then...Max Brenner. The Chocolate Store.

D and I shared half a chocolate chunks pizza with marshmallows and hazelnut bits, and a strawberry white chocolate smoothie. Amazing.....

For dinner D and I met up with YY and other friends of theirs at Lantern Thai Kitchen, in Gramercy.

The pad thai was great, but it was my third meal in four hours: udon at 3, chocolate at 5, thai at 7. (More food is always good food?)

We walked through Times Square and shopped here and there, but mostly marvelled at the blinginess of everything.We also went inside Forever 21, just because it was huge and four stories tall.

Day 5 (Saturday, March 26)

The last day was a short one :'(. We ate lunch at Room Service, in Hell's Kitchen:There was a very brief and somewhat harried stroll through the Upper East Side, because I was paranoid that I would miss my plane.
We made it to Port Authority Bus Terminal two minutes before the shuttle left for JFK. So there, paranoia does pay off. (Or we should have just not gone to the UES that late. That would have been better.)

All in all, this trip was a lot of great food, a lot of great shopping, and a lot of great sightseeing. I cannot wait to return to New York, also because the numbered streets appeal to my OCD :)

Black Friday Haul

I'd say it was a relatively successful Black Friday. My first one, too! I didn't go hardcore, at midnight, but it was still fun and there were still huge lines. No matter...I went with Ann and Amy at 10am, and we talked during the lines and it was all very pleasant. We did plan on getting there a little earlier, but we stopped at Best Buy and got some TV shows. I still remember when they all got Friends DVDs last year for $10 a season...this time I got the second season of Mad Men for $10, plus two seasons of Smallville for Sierra (obsessed... :P). I actually haven't watched many episodes of Mad Men yet, but I like it so far. And I usually only buy books or DVDs that I know and like...

At the mall, we hit Vans, PacSun, Forever 21, American Eagle, Converse, Gap Outlet, and H&M. I can't post pictures because I can't find the stuff I got online, but I got a black thermal henley and a turquoise cami from PacSun, and a maroon sweater from Gap Outlet. There were actually more sales than I expected - PacSun and AE had 20% off everything in the store, and Gap had tons of sales too. The strange thing was that Forever 21 was pretty much Black Friday personified - huge (disorganized) store, bright lights, loud music, clothes strewn absolutely everywhere, four never-ending lines, frenzied shoppers - but it was not cheaper than usual. I don't understand it. Maybe it's because F21 is always cheap.

Ingrid Michaelson and related

So today was a pretty awesome day. (Or rather, yesterday was an awesome day. Today is officially Tuesday, when yesterday's evening of idle frivolity will come back to bite me.) First I managed to clear one standard deviation above the mean on my BioE midterm. And then I drove up to San Francisco with ML for an Ingrid Michaelson concert. Before the concert, we ate in a little Italian restaurant called Pescara, which has a pleasantly large ratio of food quality/quantity to price. As we finished consuming a meatball sandwich, the Giants won the world series. And then we experienced the concert (see below). And then we went to Quickly's (who had all the drinks normal PMT places have, but - get this - NO PEARLS. what kind of madness is this!? but milk tea is still delicious.)

And the concert. It was fabulous. I feel like I should write this all down this very minute, even though this week will be pretty terrible, workload-wise. It's important to remember these experiences and special moments, because that's what I will remember years from now. Or maybe I just don't want to do homework. I'm going to regret this so much later this week. Or even later tonight. (tick tock tick tock 1am...)

The opener was The Guggenheim Grotto, a great singer-songwriter duo in their own right. They're also Irish, so their accents gave them bonus points. I must make a note to look up their songs on Youtube.

Here's the set list for Ingrid Michaelson:
Immigrant Song (Led Zeppelin cover)
Soldier
Breakable
Once Was Love
Die Alone
Parachute
Mountain And The Sea
Everyone
You And I - sung with band mates and The Guggenheim Grotto
Nightswimming (R.E.M. cover)
Annihilate (new song)
Always You (new song)
The Chain
Locked Up
The Way I Am
Maybe
San Francisco - this was unplanned, see below
Toxic (Britney Spears cover)

Encores:
Be OK
The Way I Am, punk rock version

Basically, this is probably my favorite concert to date. The Fillmore is a great venue (a sort of vampire-mansion glamour) with great energy. The only thing I regret is not wearing heeled shoes. I don't think I ever felt my short stature as acutely as I did tonight. But I don't mind only catching short glimpses of Ingrid and craning to peer over people's heads. Because Ingrid Michaelson is a fantastic performer, from the moment she came out with her band mates (I <3 Allie Moss!) in black hooded cloaks. Plus, she could sing and play the song San Francisco, which she wrote and recorded four years ago but never put on an album. A girl in the crowd asked her to play it, and she actually managed to cobble it together from memory despite not having played it in ages. That is a mark of a great musician, in my book. In addition to having a unique voice and singing in tune, two criteria which Ingrid also fulfills.

She also used a looping pedal quite adeptly in Nightswimming. It's this device that can record sound and repeat it back, and then you can sing on top of it and add another layer to the looping track. I actually really wish I recorded that song. She sang it by herself, with only the looping pedal and no instruments. It had several layers, and at the end it sounded like an a capella group singing together. Also she couldn't mess up because any off-tune notes would keep repeating for the song. But she didn't mess up, and it was phenomenal. For real.

Basically, it went something like this: (not my video)

Amazing, no?

Also, I love the snark-tastic stories she tells between songs, like freaking out before singing at Carnegie Hall for a R.E.M. tribute concert, and then giving a kick-ass performance, and then getting drunk from champagne at the afterparty and embarrassing herself in front of the lead singer of R.E.M. Quote from this incident: Sometimes you feel proud of yourself, but then something happens to remind you that you are a troll.

And her punk rock version of "The Way I Am" was ridiculous. In a good way.

I don't regret going to this concert at all. Even though it's hella late and my homework remains unfinished.

Highlights of the Week

disclaimer: very food-heavy :9

Saturday: We (SB, KL, DH, MB, DO, and me) went to the Counter, and I got a beef, pineapple, cranberries, and lettuce burger. It was very good. Plus they have awesome fries. And then we went to Cold Stone while listening to Belle and Sebastian's new album, Write About Love.

Sunday: NS, my brother, and I went to the Tomales Bay Oyster Company near Point Reyes. It was a full-day adventure, driving for two hours up hwy 1 (note to self: don't ever let brother drive up hwy 1, unless you bring a barf bag). It was slightly freezing, but delicious and the first time I ever shuck or ate raw oysters (hellooo 101 in 1001!). Afterwards, we went to Verde for PMT, and then I ate dinner with my brother and his friends at his residence.

Monday to mid-Thursday were dark times. You know, the three P's - presentations, psets, papers. I don't like to think of those. Although I did learn from various coffee runs around campus that I can get Endangered Species chocolate for $1.

Thursday: Lunch at Sushi House with my AIM mentor. They have really great teriyaki chicken and seaweed, like at Ophelia's Cafe, and . Later, after this rhetoric presentation (T_T), I had a poster session and hung out with KH, IN, and WZ. Plus there was a project about pop-up books, and one with a virginal, which were beyond amazing. Went to WZ's that night to check Bio pset answers, and talked about life. Good times.

Friday: Lunch included grilled cheese, broccoli and carrots, and broccoli/sausage/alfredo pasta. Needless to say, I was a happy camper. I watched When Harry Met Sally that afternoon, which was exciting because a) it is a fantastic movie, b) I have the same phone as Marie, and c) it has a bobble bird in one of the scenes, whose mechanism we explained in a BioE pset, and I was one of the few to get that problem right because I didn't look on Google, which had a wrong explanation. (PWNED.) And later I'm going to Nordstrom Rack with WZ and SB for my shoe edification. And then tonight is my Breakfast at Tiffany's party. And by party, I mean movie+snacks.


October is always my favorite time of the year, not because of the season (although it is a nice balance of sunny and lightly rainy).It's because I get to be at school again, and although it's rather stressful, I'm not as burnt out as in spring, and I can still emerge from consecutive late nights generally without horrible angst. I still have energy to do fun stuff (see above) without worrying about what I'll do in the summer (although I should start thinking about that...). Also, since people haven't been at school for ages, the drama hasn't really started yet. Plus I can meet new people in the dorm without seeming weird, like I would later in the year.

Berkeley!

Yesterday I woke up at 6am to catch a 7:30 train to the Pre-Pharmacy Symposium at Berkeley, which was kind of enlightening but not as much as I'd hoped. I still don't get what pharmacists do, besides the guy behind the counter at Walgreens. Apparently they counsel patients about how their drugs could interact with each other or adjusting dosages or things like that. Stuff that my doctor does. I don't get it.

The symposium ended at 5, so I called up A and D for dinner and general socializing. I visited A at her dorm (which looks totally like in her pictures! wow I'm such a stalker), and then we went to D's room across the street. Both of them lived on a really tall floor, in a seven- or eight-story building (!). And then and then and then you know the pink Alena Skirt I was stalking? I had gone to Anthro on Thursday to get it, but there wasn't one in my size! (So I got a pair of black Hue tights. But I digress.) However, Berkeley has an Anthro, and we called them up, and they DO have a size 6 Alena skirt! We put a hold on it, and A and D are getting it for me today! Eeeee I'm so excited...I have such great friends :)

Afterward, we went to eat dinner at this little alleyway lined with restaurants. We each ordered a different type of dish, and then we tried each others'. I now know what GOOD he fun (chow fun?) with broccoli tastes like. It's actually kind of sweet. And then we went to Yogurtland, although it was cold and freezing outside. It's basically like L'Amour, but cheaper (30 cents per ounce rather than 47), and with mochi toppings. :9 When we went back to D's room, she showed me her MUA product-planning lists, which are even more OCD than mine. I was very impressed and am considering upping the OCD on my own lists >:)

When it came time to go home, I waited at the bus stop for a bit, but when the bus failed to show, I just walked to the BART station (and I think the bus arrived right after I left). I missed the outgoing BART by about a minute - I was on the ground level and I heard it leave below my feet. Thankfully, I had built some slack in my transportation schedule, because I didn't know that you could transfer directly across a platform instead of waiting 20 minutes for the transfer train to show. Turns out, it was probably good that I took the later BART, because I got to the Caltrain station at the right time. It was freezing and I had not brought a jacket (silly me). There was this very gregarious and slightly crazy guy on the platform, and he started talking to people out of boredom (the train was rather late), including me. He asked about the IHUM reader I was holding (btw - I finished all my IHUM reading on the trains!), and I was trying to make polite conversation while being slightly freaked out, cold, and a little sleepy. He turned out to be harmless (I think), just really bored.

When I got off the Caltrain, I realized that I had parked my bike on the far side of the tracks. Note to self: when parking your bike at a train station, go across the tracks to park it so that you don't have to cross back later to get it. It's less scary going to the other side of the tracks in the morning than it is late at night.

All in all, quite a fun day. Back-heavy, but still fun.