My Fun-Filled Sunday!

Today I went to dim sum with my friend Sara and another friend of hers. It was my first real adventure out into Chinatown (except when I went to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory with a friend the other night, which is a famous ice cream store, but it doesn't really feel like it counts because it's not really Chinese...). We went to a restaurant called the Golden Unicorn which the other 2 had been to before. I'm kind of scared to try restaurants around here just because I feel like they will be hit or very big miss, so it was nice knowing that this place was a good one. We shared a table with two other random people and the servers wheel carts around to the tables and you just point at what you want and they give it to you. It was so delicious and really cheap and we ended up eating a ridiculous amount of dumplings and sesame balls and other Chinese food. I will definitely be returning.

Then, to put off our homework for a little more, we went to the Highline, which is this old elevated railroad that's been converted into a cool park. It's awesome and has a view of the Hudson River, as well as these cool deck chairs that you can lie on and suntan. Oh and some of the deck chairs are actually on the railroad tracks and have wheels, so you can roll back and forth a little bit. So we "did our homework" (people watched) there.

And then I finished off my night by going to my friend's apartment to watch the season finale of True Blood. Her buzzer broke yesterday so she was standing outside waiting for us, but my roommate and I were late because the train never came, and when it finally did, it was a local, so then we switched to an express and got off at the closest stop and took a cab which then proceeded to not turn down the right street so we just got out and ran. It was an experience. But her roommate makes homemade pie for True Blood watching and it was so amazing. I can't even begin to describe it to you. It was actually a recipe from "Waitress" which is this really cute/slightly heartbreaking movie starring Keri Russel and she makes pies and dreams up new recipes. This one is called the Lonely Chicago Pie and has blackberries, raspberries and strawberries, covered in chocolate. Soooo good. Makes me want to take up pie baking. New York should really get over it's love of cupcakes and rediscover the pie. I'm calling it: the next big dessert is going to be pie!

And now I have to do all the homework I didn't do this weekend...

New school year, new student council bulletin board!

This is what I did today:

Big Gay Ice Cream Truck

Went to the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck last night which another new specialty food from a truck place. This one is a normal Mister Softee truck but the guy that owns it has all kinds of crazy specialty toppings for his soft serve - think pumpkin butter, Ginger syrup, olive oil and sea salt, crushed graham crackers, the list goes on and on and changes daily. I got a ginger milkshake, the first one he had ever made and while it was good, there wasn't enough ginger in it for me.
I'm interested in seeing what else he comes up with so I'll probably be back again.

Housing Works

I went to this really awesome comedy show at Housing Works Cafe on Tuesday night. My old roommate, Emily, has been a Housing Works volunteer for the past year and I never really knew what it was until this week. Housing Works is an organization that donates all of its funds to provide housing and social services for New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS. They have a bunch of thrift stores around the city, as well as this bookstore/cafe and it's almost all volunteer run.

Anyways, they do free comedy shows all the time and the one I saw was the last installment in a special series of summer comedy shows, called "Staycation." It was really great and I can't honestly remember the names of the comedians that performed, but they were much more impressive than I was expecting for a free show - one of them was just hired to be a new SNL writer, another is on the Comedy Central show "Michael and Michael Have Issues," another just filmed his Comedy Central special, the list goes on... It was a super enjoyable night and my cheeks hurt at the end from laughing so hard. And I got to see Emily, Dianne, and Pat for the first time all summer, which was great! I definitely plan on attending more shows and exploring the bookstore and thrift stores some more.

2 WEEKS UNTIL THE STUDENT COUNCIL WELCOME WEEK BLOCK PARTY!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

In the Loop

I saw "In the Loop" last night (I've been seeing a lot of movies this summer for some reason), which is a British comedy that is based on a show called "The Thick of It." Basically it's about whether or not the UK and America should declare war on the Middle East and it's a comedy. The movie was okay, funny at times though not "a gut-achingly hilarious farce" as the previews promised, and the ending was a total let down. Maybe it's because we're used to super happy endings where the good guy wins and the bad guy gets what he deserves, but the end of this movie was kind of a downer, just warning you. There were some pretty great insults in the movie though, including calling someone "the Nazi Julie Andrews," so if anything, you can enjoy that. Oh, and remember the girl from "My Girl"? Well she's in this and all grown up!

Pier I Cafe

Went to this cafe on 70th street with some friends the other night and it was really cool. So basically, if you're walking on the street, at 68th street you will come upon this giant staircase and ramp that will take you down to the water where there are lots of bikers, runners, a pier, a great view of Jersey, and this cafe. It's self serve and the food is pretty good, but the real appeal is that there are a ton of tables where you can just hang out and look at the water. It was really nice and even though NYC is an island, this is the first real waterfront restaurant that I've been too. Anyways, this is what it looked like:

Paris to the Moon

I just finished reading Adam Gopnik's book "Paris to the Moon." I originally found this book at Dad's house during Winter Break and started reading it, but didn't finish before I had to go back to school. Then when I was home over the summer, I found it again, this time on Mom's bookshelf and decided to take it. It's a collection of essays that Adam Gopnik, a writer for The New Yorker, wrote when he and his wife decided to move to Paris for 5 years with their baby son because they knew if they didn't do it then, they never would. I really enjoyed the book, mostly because of the anecdotes about his son, who is thoroughly entertaining. Also, I loved just being able to relate to the places he went to and the experiences he had as an American in Paris, although he was there from 1995-2000, so some of the stuff is outdated. So even though this one took me a long time to read (over half a year) it was still really good. And I finished it yesterday and had a dream last night about going back to my homestay in Paris for another semester abroad, weird...

Paper Heart

I saw this new movie with Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera the other day. I think it started as a documentary but turned into a fictional documentary (I hesitate to use the word "mockumentary" because that always sounds like they're mocking the documentary, which they weren't really). Anyways, Charlyne claims she doesn't believe in love and sets out across America to interview people about their views on love. She visits high school sweethearts, scientists, bikers, romance novelists, little kids on playgrounds, but somewhere along the way, she finds herself in a relationship with Michael Cera (they are perfectly awkward together), but is she in love? Of course there was only one way to find out: go to Paris. The movie was cute, but kind of left me wanting more or at least wanting it to be true since Michael Cera is an actual movie star and he played himself in the movie. Oh, and I really wish that Charlyne had brushed her hair. Just once.

Moving!

So I moved into my new dorm for the school year last Saturday. I'm now living in Lafayette, which is a dorm (surprise!) on Lafayette Street, and is at the bottom of Chinatown. I had a horrible moving experience that involved the street being closed (thanks for notifying me, NYU!), a cop literally screaming in me that he had no time to talk to me and that I needed to keep moving, a surly security guard, a sassy student checking me into my new room, a street fair that caused a traffic backup, and the world's hottest day ever. I'm living in a 6-person suite, in a 2-person bedroom with my friend Kelsey who doesn't get here for another 2 weeks and while we have the best room because it comes with a closet and our own bathroom, the room itself is the smallest that I've lived in since being in NYU housing, not to mention I'm incredibly confused as to how 6 girls are going to share 1 fridge, about 7 cabinets and absolutely zero counter space in the kitchen. So that will be...interesting. While I've been moved in for almost a week now, I'm still not even close to unpacked, mostly because I'm trying to figure out where I can fit all my stuff, but good news: I bought closet organizing material at Kmart yesterday, since this closet is about 1/4 of the closet space I've had before. On the plus side, I'm actually enjoying the neighborhood more than I thought I would (well, I mean I haven't actually done much in Chinatown yet, but it's not as annoying as expected and I'm looking forward to some cheap meals of dumplings or something) and the walk from school is actually only about 20 minutes through SoHo and surprisingly nice. I get to see lots of very nicely dressed people, which I always enjoy. So that's about it, pictures to come once I've actually set up my room.

:(

Tomorrow's the last day of my internship. It went by so fast and I'm going to miss it and the other interns a ton. We close out our time there by giving presentations in front of like 55 important people in the company plus other people that work there too. Scary...

Harry Potter...twice

I dragged Lindsay to the opening night of Harry Potter and we got there at 10:30 and the line was already around the block just to get into the midnight showing. We toughed it out though and actually got great seats. Unfortunately, due to the late hour at which we saw the movie, I kinda feel asleep a little at the end.

AND THEN I got to see it for free when my mentor at work gave me a pair of tickets. It was still good the second time.

Here's what I think about it: It was much funnier than the other movies (not funny, but funnier). There was a ton of teenage romance, more so than I remember there being in the book. As a movie by itself, it was good, but it really didn't focus much on what the book was about. Despite the fact that it's called "The Half Blood Prince" there was literally 3 mentions of the half blood prince during the movie.

Okay, I'm gonna go read the last book now and wait expectantly for the final movies...

The Dark Lantern

Took out this book by Gerri Brightwell from the NYU library. It was an okay read, nothing that I would rave about, but entertaining. It's the story of a maid who comes from the English countryside to work in a house in Victorian London. But of course, everyone in the household has secrets of their own...duh duh duhhhhh! Anyways, like I said before, it kept me entertained but I have NO IDEA why it's called the Dark Lantern. Not too many lanterns, let alone dark lanterns...

Public Enemies

I got to see a free private screening of the movie, Public Enemies. It's Jonny Depp's new movie about John Dillinger, a criminal in the thirties. I enjoyed it but I think a lot of people were left feeling a little disappointed by the ending. It was based on a true story, so the end wasn't all guns blazing and elaborate plotting. The one thing that annoyed me was Marion Cotillard because she was supposed to have an American accent but it was so clearly a French person trying really hard to have an American accent. It would have been better if they just let her be French.

So my opinion is: glad I saw it but also glad I didn't pay for it.

Regis and Kelly!!

I got to go to a taping of Regis and Kelly the other morning with all of the interns. It was pretty awesome.

The set from our second row seats. It's tiny.

But Kelly is even tinier. I don't think that I can convey to you how incredibly small she was. In this picture she looks fact compared to how little she actually is.

Shot of Regis and Kelly with Katherine Heigl, the guest of the day. She wasn't too exciting, kinda blah. Jordan Sparks was the musical guest and she was amazing. Her song Battlefield has been stuck in my head for like a week now.

Regis asking Julia (one of the interns), "Is that your final answer?"

Regis and Kelly filming some extra stuff after the show, with Gelman being all executive producery on the side. He was great, kinda makes me wish I was an executive producer...

After the show, we got to take a tour of the ABC studio and all of the interns took a picture behind the local news desk. Aww, such a nice picture!

Jacques Torres Ice Cream Sandwiches

So sometimes we get f0od at work and the other day we got ice cream sandwiches from Jacques Torres (he is know for his chocolate though he makes other delicious things too). Needless to say, as you can tell from the below picture, they were absolutely amazing. Now the other interns and I occasionally take little afternoon breaks at the Jacques Torres factory across the street for these sandwiches. I'm salivating just thinking about it...

My favorite video online right now...

Celeb Citing #3 and #4

3. When Brad and I were walking back from dinner the other night, we spotted Jimmy Kimmel and his wife across the street from us. It looked like Jimmy was looking at a map or something, while his wife kind of stared at us, since we were clearly staring at Jimmy. She gave us a "I know you're staring at my husband because he's famous, but lets all just play it cool" face.

4. This morning on my way to work I was walking through Washington Square Park and they were filming something by the fountain. It looked like a pretty low budget movie to me, especially after they filmed The Sorcerer's Apprentice (live action version of the Disney movie starring Nicholas Cage), Step Up 3 and Remember Me (Robert Pattinson's new movie) in the park earlier this summer, all of which where huge productions with lots of people yelling at you to walk around where they were filming to avoid being in the shot and to watch the giant wires on the ground. Anyways, as I was walking through the set (nobody yelling at me this time) I saw this guy walking towards me that looked familiar. It was Mark Feuerstein (you might recognize him if you google him - In Her Shoes, short lived show Good Morning Miami, other various things) walking directly towards me. So exciting! They were filming Royal Pains, his new show on USA that I've been watching because Verizon Wireless is a sponsor. Anyways, that was my excitement for the morning and a great way to start my day!

The Radys Came to VIsit!

So a couple of weekends ago, the Radys stopped by New York on their tour of colleges. I got to hang out with them on Saturday night in Times Square. First we had sushi at this place called Haru right off of Broadway. It was super delicious and I kind of keep dreaming about it, so clearly, I must return. Then we went to see Mamma Mia, which was really great. It was almost exactly like the movie (or probably more accurately, the movie was almost exactly like the show...) except that the actors sang about a bazillion times better than they did in the movie. I always want to go to Greece after watching it... And I always have ABBA stuck in my head for a solid week. Anyways, that about concluded our night since the Radys had been up since a really ridiculously early hour. Hopefully it was the first of many visits to come :)

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...