Hiiiii...

Sorry I haven't posted anything in awhile. I'm probably going to do some massive posting in the next couple of days, if I can remember everything...

Free Pinkberry!

There was free pinkberry (froyo that tastes like frozen yogurt that people seem to either love or hate) this past Friday to introduce their new flavors: coconut and passion fruit.  Just thought I would share because I love a good free food deal.  I was contemplating going Pinkberry hopping with friends but then it started downpouring (surprise!), washing away all my hopes of a belly full of free froyo :( so I napped instead.

Kristin's here!

Kristin is in the city for a couple of weeks this summer, doing a theater program.  She arrived on Sunday and I went to pick her up at the airport (though it was kind of early so I was late, oops).  The really exciting part of this story is when we went to brunch.  I've been wanting to try this place, Cafeteria on 17th and 7th after a couple of my friends raved about their mac and cheese with truffle oil.  Kristin and I checked out the menu online, saw that they had green eggs and ham, as well as croissant french toast (or as Kristin likes to call it, double french toast), and we were sold.  Being fathers day and a busy brunch place, I decided it would be a good idea to make reservations.  Here is how that conversation went:

Sara: Happy Father's Day! This is Cafeteria.  

Me: Hi, I'd like to make a reservation for brunch

Sara: Oh, we don't take reservations.  But if you have the secret password...

Me: What's the secret password?

Sara: What do you want it to be?

Me: Well, we're pretty excited about the green eggs and ham, so how about that?

Sara: Green eggs and ham it is.  See you soon! I'm Sara.

Me: Thanks Sara, I'm Ali

So understandably Kristin and I were excited to go there after that convo.  When we arrived though, it was pretty empty and the person that seated us was a guy.  So we didn't get to use the password.  But, I did get the croissant french toast, which was pretty delicious and Kristin got a half order of pancakes AND scrambled eggs AND she ate it all! (which, if you know Kristin is pretty unbelievable since she is a firmly established nibbler. but I can vouch for her).  After we finished and left, I realized that I had left my umbrella there, so we went back to go get it (I've had that umbrella since I started NYU, which I think is some kind of record since umbrellas are frequently lost in this city.  and it has a squishy handle, which is awesome).  When we got there the guy that seated us and a girl were admiring the squishiness of it.  After claiming my umbrella, I asked the woman if she was Sara and she was like, No.  And then I had to explain that I had spoken to Sara and that we had set up a secret password and the guy was like, Green eggs and ham? And then the girl was like, Hey how come everyone knows about this but me? And then we left.  But it was a pretty memorable brunch.

After that, I took Kristin to Magnolia's for cupcakes, which has been 3 years in the making since I promised her some last time she was here for Thanksgiving during my freshman year, but after walking all the way there, we found out that it was closed because of the holiday.  

Then we both went back to our respective rooms and napped the day away.  

Oh and apparently Kristin met Matthew Broderick tonight, though I'm not sure how or where yet.  She hasn't replied to my text back...

Sunny Sunday

Note: the following occurred 2 weeks ago. I'm a little behind on the posting, but I'm catching up...

After literally spending all of last Saturday  in my bed (it was lovely), I decided to venture out on Sunday.  Aleja, Lindsay and I went to the Snapple Big Apple BBQ.  It was just like the Rib Cook-Off, but more expensive, busier, less available seating, and in Madison Square Park (not to be confused with Madison Square Garden, the arena...)

The craziness of the barbeque on a sunny day:

What I got.  Literally 6 people asked me where I got mine from while we were trying to find somewhere to sit:

Delicious! 

Aleja went for a pulled pork sandwich.  She picked the longest line, but I think the wait paid off:

Lindsay eats quickly and likes to take pictures of herself.  She got a pulled pork sandwich from another stand, but minus the barbeque sauce because she's a bizarre eater:

Finger-licking good.

Then we walked over to a street festival that was going on and bought some crepes to really round out our meal.  While we were sitting there eating them, we discovered that there is an apartment building called "The Future."  I kid you not. And it's so great because if you're a resident, you get to say things like, "Oh, yeah, I live in The Future." 

Then Lindsay and I decided to bake a cake.  But not just any cake.  We made what no man (possibly) has made before: a brake.  2 layers of cake and a middle layer of brownie.  The results were delicious and due to the color of the frosting and shape of the brake, we were inspired to turn it into an edible pirate's treasure chest.  

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

I borrowed this book from Mom, who read it for her book club and it was probably one of the more enjoyable books that I've read recently.

Written by Mary Ann Shafer (I've never read anything else by her before...) it's an epistolary (thank you, English major) novel about a British female author in the aftermath of WWII who is trying to write another book after the success of her first one. She ends up by chance corresponding with a man who lives on Guernsey Island and gets wrapped up in the lives of those who live there.

It was funny and sad and touching and entertaining all at the same time. I read most of it on the plane ride back to New York and then finished up the last bit in the next two nights. I haven't read a book that fast in awhile...

This is my life:

7:45 - Alarm goes up

7:55 - I get up

8:30ish - I leave my dorm

9ish - 5ish - Internship

5:30ish - 11ish - Student Council Work*

12ish or 1ish - Bed

*Wednesdays and Thursdays are interrupted with a short break for So You Think You Can Dance

Rain, Rain, GO AWAY

It's been raining like nonstop.  Don't believe me? New York Times will back me up:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/nyregion/20rain.html?_r=1&scp=19&sq=rain&st=cse

Summary for those who aren't going to read it:

Rain has fallen for 15 of the first 19 days of June

True Blood

In a moment of pre-internship boredom, I decided to watch HBO's "True Blood."  Vin recommended it to me and I had heard a ton of people in Paris talking about it but I was desperately trying to avoid jumping on the vampire bandwagon.  Anyways, here's what I have to say about it:

BEST. SHOW. EVER. 

Seriously, if you haven't watched it, you should stop reading this entry right now and start watching True Blood.  It's about vampires going mainstream in today's society thanks to a synthetic blood drink that some Japanese people came up with.  The show is set in Louisiana with a waitress who can hear other people's thoughts, vampires, murders, and a ton of other surprises (supernatural or otherwise) that I wouldn't want to reveal. 

If anything, you should watch it for the opening title sequence itself, which is this crazy mix of religion, sex, violence, the South, and the supernatural.  It's unlike any other opener I've seen and will stick in your head. 

Also, the ad campaign that they've had to promote this show is ridiculous.  Season 1 started off with ads for Tru Blood (the synthetic blood drink) that were made to look like mock alcohol ads and they even put Tru Blood buttons on vending machines.  There is this really awesome blog that they set up - bloodcopy.com, that is supposed to be a human turned vampire blogging about vampires coming out in the open.  For season 2, they turned to sponsors like Marc Ecco, Gilette, and Harley Davidson to make mock ads for products geared specifically towards vampires, like vampire cologne and motorcycles that drive fast enough to beat the sun.  They did a couple of magazine inserts that were fake little newsletters with vampire-specific news, as well as events that were then photographed and published in magazines where human celebs hung out with other celebs who were actually vampires.  Also, living in New York, I am constantly seeing ads for True Blood everywhere, especially wildpostings (which are when you see like a row of the same poster advertising something.  It's done deliberately, even if it doesn't look like it...)  So they've done a pretty good job of surrounding me. (<---wow can you tell what industry I've been working in for the past couple of weeks?)

So yeah, as you can see, I'm kind of currently obsessed with this.  Thank goodness season 2 just premiered 2 weeks ago, cus I don't think I could have waited any longer.

Sunday, please come soon.

Freaks and Geeks

So Emily owns a rare copy of the first -- and only -- season of "Freaks and Geeks" which has made it's way round to pretty much everyone she knows.  I finally got my turn borrow it and it was pretty magnificent.  

"Freaks and Geeks" is a short-lived TV show made in 1999 by Judd Apatow (think Anchorman, 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Pineapple Express, etc...) that revolves around the lives of high school teens in Michigan in 1980.  The main characters are Sam - who hangs out with geeks, and his older sister, Lindsay, who has recently deviated off of her track as a perfect student and is now hanging out with the freaks.  The show is chock full of really great actors who have gone on to become pretty famous, especially James Franco, Jason Segel, and Seth Rogen (all of whom have remained pretty faithful to Judd Apatow) and the episodes themselves are great because they cover all of the terrible high school awkwardness but in a way that makes it enjoy and uncomfortable and funny to watch, all at the same time.  Brilliant.

It's one of those shows that developed a cult following AND was critically acclaimed.  Why it was cancelled may forever remain a mystery.

Anyways, good luck getting your hands on the DVD of season 1, it's pretty hard to come by.  Your best bet is to borrow Emily's copy, but I'm not giving it back until I get a cannoli from Arthur Ave...

Kacey's Visit

Before we both start our summer programs and become super busy, Kacey came for a visit.  Here's a rundown of the exciting things that we did:

Wednesday:

• Kacey arrived
  
• We got Starbucks and hung out in the park (there are no Starbucks in CT, where Kacey lives, so usually she gets it like 30 times when she visits, but this was our only visit because it's so ridiculously expensive)
  
• I made a slightly bizarre, but okay dinner (in my kitchen! yay!)
  
• We went and got Rice to Riches, which is this amazing restaurant that only serves many variations of rice pudding (banana, tiramisu, coconut, pomegranate, rocky road, cinnamon raison, mango, chocolate chip, french toast, etc...)
  

• We watched So You Think You Can Dance.  Kacey loved it.  Mostly, she loved Mary's cackling...

Thursday:

• Made brunch.  Thank you, Target, for making Chocolate Raspberry pancake mix.
• We went to Texas.  Texas on Tour, that is.  Apparently, the Texas Tourism people thought that a really great way to boost their tourism would be to embark on a countrywide tour that gives everyone a free taste of Texas, complete with interactive 3-d video kayak tours, videos and trivia games, live musicians, hot sauce, Seaworld animals (which we unfortunately missed) and green screen pictures.  To see Kacey and I "hanging" around with a local Texan bull, click here.  
• We got dinner at Stand, a really great local burger place that serves delicious milkshakes (Toasted Marshmallows, anyone?) and makes their own mayo and ketchup
• Finished off the day with Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, a movie that I love, but that others seem to find as lacking a satisfying plot.

Friday:

• I had a brilliant idea: Brooklyn Botanical Garden!  Unfortunately we missed the full bloom season, but we still got to see a lot of cool stuff.... A japanese garden complete with koi fish and turtles in a pond shaped like the symbol for heart, Shakespeare garden, which features all of the flowers that he ever mentioned in writing, Fragrance Garden, where you get to smell the flowers, Cranford Rose Garden, Rock Garden (lame), Bonzai Museum, among other things. Below is the only picture I took of a black/purple flower.

• Met Carrie for dinner at Pomodoro, this pizza place that is known for their vodka sauce pizza.  It was amazing and I highly recommend it.
• Took a stroll through Little Italy, where there was some sort of festival going on, and Kacey and I had our first ever fried Oreos.
• Finished off the night (and Kacey's visit) with Slumdog Millionaire.  Well, she watched, while I napped...

Ikea!

Maya dragged me to Ikea to help her pick up some furniture for her new apartment.  We stopped by for an awesome Swedish meal of Swedish meatballs with gravy, lingonberry jam, mashed potatoes, and a Lingonberry and Elderflower juice boxes.  Verdict is: Elderflower is better than Lingonberry.  Delish.  

And then the straps on the Ikea bag made really terrible looking bloody bruise marks on my shoulder.  Awesome.

Bumble and Bumble Model Project Take 2

I went to go get my hair dyed (for the first time!) at Bumble and Bumble last week.  

Here is my before shot:

I don't have an after, but that's okay because it looks exactly the same as the before.  Once my hair was all dyed, washed, and dried, my stylist and I were both like, Um we don't see any difference... But then the head stylist came over and was like, Are you kidding me?! It looks so great.  So subtle, but really makes a difference.  

So then at the end you have to fill out an evaluation form and I rated my experience as a 4, saying that I couldn't tell a difference in my hair color (and neither could my stylist).  When I handed it in to the receptionist, she read it, then got on a phone that was hidden behind her desk and called someone.  The person in charge of the program came up to talk to me about my experience and asked me to send her an email in a couple of days, letting her know if I saw a difference after a couple of washes or something.  I think she was worried that I was upset or something, but hey, it's free - doesn't matter to me!  At least my stylist was really great at doing the whole head-massaging while she was washing my hair... 

Oh summer housing, how I've missed you...

So this entry is pretty much just me getting out my frustration at housing.  If you choose not to read my rambling frustration, I won't be offended.

My dorm, Water Street, closed forever at the end of the school year, so my roommate Allison and I decided to live together at another NYU dorm, Carlyle Court on Union Square, during the summer since we had both had terrible experiences with non-NYU roommates last summer and were hoping to avoid that again.  So we thought we would get put into a double studio apartment.  How wrong we were....

Friday: We move in.  And get put into a quad (2 people in a private room, 2 people in what used to be a living room but is now a bedroom).  I asked Olga the building manager to switch us to a double and she said no.  I went to our room and found out Allison and I were in the common room, even though no one else was there.  I went back to Olga and asked her to switch us to the private room, which she begrudgingly did.  Then, Allison met our suitemate who was apparently a little upset  that she was in a quad and in the common room.  So I went back to Olga again and asked her to switch us to a double.  She told me to come back on Wednesday

Sunday: This is what our kitchen looked like, thanks to our charming and considerate suitemate. All of this is her stuff and we couldn't even get in the kitchen to use it.  So I spent a lot of money eating out.  Boo.

Wednesday: We go and talk to Olga as she requested us to do.  She tells us to send her an email (which we had done before we even moved in when we were requesting to be roommates and she never responded).  So I sent one.  No response.

Thursday: Still no response.  Allison sends an email.

Friday: Still no response.  We visit Olga's office again only to find out that she is gone.  So we speak to her assistant who is very nice and understanding but can't do much other than call Olga.  She also tells us that they aren't really giving studio doubles out, except that they just moved our 4th (and nicer) suitemate into a double. 

Saturday: Still no email response.  Mom sends Olga an email too.  Oh, and did I mention that it's 80 degrees outside and our air conditioner hasn't been working since we moved in? Awesome, so glad that I'm paying extra for a dorm with air conditioning.  

Sunday or Monday (can't remember): We find out from Olga's assistant that our request was for a double, and we are in a double within a quad, so our request has been fulfilled.  I go to summer housing and complain about Olga, only to be told to call someone on Tuesday and speak to him then.  

Tuesday: Allison and I visit Olga again and this time she is there.  After pretending to not know who we are (not possible, we have been bothering her too much), she suddenly remembers that the reason we wanted to switch was because of our suitemate, who has since moved to a single. We tell her that that is just one of many reasons why we want to move out.  She promises to look later that day and see if she can find us a double, though apparently it doesn't look too good because there are a lot of rooms closed due to renovation.  Allison's mom calls summer housing 3 times, bothering them and telling them to make sure that Olga changes our room.  In the late afternoon, Allison and I get an email from her saying that we've been switched into a double and to please move in by Thursday at the latest.  We move that night.  Victory is ours!  

I will miss these views though...

Sorry, that was long and rambling and probably unnecessary...

YayYayYayYay!

Washington Square Park was reopened last week after a year of being under construction.  The fountain was working, children were playing, dogs were running, it was wonderful.  And let me tell you, it was so much more enjoyable knowing that the fountain was perfectly lined up with the arch...  

I think phase 2 involves closing the east side of the park, which should happen fairly soon.  Hopefully it will all be finished in time for my graduation next spring, when they somehow manage to squeeze all of the grads and their families into the park.  Not quite sure how though...

Thanks for pasta, Dad!

Emack and Bolio's featured in Time Out New York

The ice cream store that I work at was featured as a stop on "The All-Ages Walk" article in Time Out New York (a popular weekly city-specific magazine) this week.  Of course, in her normal fashion, my boss got mad at pretty much everyone that works for her because of their interaction with the TONY staff (be it because we didn't get their card or because she wasn't there when they took pictures, which was somehow our fault or... the list goes on and on.....).  Anyways, in the end it all worked out and there's even a picture of Robin, my boss, handing Jenn, my coworker (who is posing as a customer) a scoop of ice cream.  Note: my boss does not usually smile that much, especially not at Jenn.

Here's the link:

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/i-new-york/74624/you-asked-for-it-the-all-ages-walk

(ps. our picture is the last one)

Free Coldplay Dowload

For those of you who like the band, Coldplay is giving away a free download of a bunch of their songs performed live at a concert.  Here's the link:

http://www.coldplay.com/lrlrl/lr.html

Yoga to the People

You might be noticing a trend: I'm trying to take advantage of the free things that the city has to offer (don't worry, posts on all of the free outdoor movies that they offer in the summer to come).  My latest venture was to my first official yoga class at a studio on St. Marks called Yoga to the People.  It's free (well, actually, donation based) and they have a couple of locations in New York, as well as in California.  Anyways, it was so hard and I don't actually think that I've ever sweated that much in my life.  My eyes hurt because they were so salty at the end of it and my arms hurt from reaching for the ceiling so many times.  Despite the excruciating pain that I endured, it was really cool because it was a mixed class: mixed ages, mixed yoga levels, mixed athletic abilities - yoga for everyone.  So that was really nice, because it didn't matter if I wasn't doing the poses correctly or if I need to take a little break and just sit on my mat for a little.  

And while I don't foresee myself becoming a yoga fanatic like some people, I do hope to go again, get a little better.  We'll see what happens. 

Celeb Citing #2

Don't know if you can really make it out, but that person in the black with the blonde hair behind the coffee cup is Sarah Michelle Geller.  Yup, Buffy the Vampire Slayer herself, a 90's tv icon, came into the ice cream store the other day.  And for those of you who don't keep up with your daily Perez Hilton, she and her husband, Freddy Prince Jr.  (another 90s teen heartthrob), are about to have their first baby.  She was talking about him when she was leaving.  It was exciting.

Also, in related news, Jason Bateman has come in two more times, though I was unfortunately not there for either of them.  Maybe next time....

Bumble and Bumble Model Project

As you might have been able to guess, haircuts in New York can be pretty expensive.  So what's a poor college student like myself to do? Bumble and Bumble, a hair salon and hair product line, has what they call "Bumble and Bumble University" in the Meatpacking district where stylists who have been with Bumble and Bumble for at least 2 years (they may have been cutting hair at salons before that for many years) come for a 3 day refresher course, where they cut and dye hair.  

I got to be a hair model for them, which basically means that I get a really expensive haircut for free.  It was really easy, I just showed up for their hair model casting call, they checked out my hair, and scheduled me for an appointment.  I was nervous that I would really have no say in how my hair was cut, but they were super great and really were conscious of what I wanted, how short I wanted it, what kind of bangs I wanted, and that my hair was curly.  It was an awesome experience and I will totally be going back. In fact, next week I'm getting my hair dyed (for the first time. eek!) for free there too. 

View of the receptionist's desk:

Waiting area with the salon behind it:

I forgot to take a picture of my hair or of my stylist who was this really great woman from California.  Anyways, I totally recommend it for those of you who are in New York.  They have a bunch of different hair styles that you can choose from.  My was the Razor Bob, which is just hair that's cut above the shoulder with a razor, which is apparently their signature style.  Pictures to come of my cut and color after I get it dyed. Blue.  Just kidding!