Photos!!

So I finally figured out how to post pictures up on this thing!! It's not exactly how I wanted it and it looks a little wonky, plus I can't even add special little captions, but I guess I'll just have to make due. I haven't had a whole lot a opportunities to take many photos, and plus it has been RAINING like every single day since I've been here, but here are a few samples of my glamorous (yeah, right!) life in New York:


I absolutely LOVE Bryant Park, it's my favorite place to lunch. And yes, lunch is a verb up here.


Here's Ali and Kirsten sprawling out on our floor at home. (Ali's pants are see through, hahaha!) This is basically all we ever do when we are at home, and seeing as how we don't have a couch, the floor is where it's at. Check out our super classy neon green rug!!


So one day I was brushing my teeth and then all of a sudden water started pouring out of the ceiling in the bathroom! I was like, whaaat??!!! The maintenance guys came really fast though, so it wasn't a huge deal.


The Conde Nast building: I WILL work here one day. Vanity Fair, here I come!! Muahahaaa!


We decided to go to the Museum Mile Festival, which was basically where you can get into all the great museums on 5th Avenue (the Met, Guggenheim, etc.) for free. We arrived at the Met (above) and decided we didn't want to wait in line for 16,000 hours, so we left.


Umm... yeah I'm a tourist. Here's Times Square, I work right around the corner from here, and it's kind of annoying how many people there are ALL THE TIME.


My boss treated all of us interns to dinner and a Broadway show. We saw the Little Mermaid and it was sooooo wonderful! The sets and costumes and everything were so spectacular and intricate. This is a picture of the stage from my seat. :)


I was walking in Queens (don't ask) when I walked by this little saying. It spoke to me.....I'm so deep, I know.


This is a photo of two other interns (Kaitlin on the left and Aleks on the right) and I at an event at the Empire State Building last week. My company hosts concierge events for our clients, a.k.a. our advertisers. We provide our clients an opportunity to host all the city's best concierge, from hotels like the Plaza, the W, the Waldorf, etc., so that they may then recommend our clients to their hotel's guests. We are kind of like the middle man (our clients provide the party, we provide the guest list) but it's a nice perk to get to go to all kinds of fancy parties.


The best thing about NYC is that there are soooo many open bar parties here, it's ridiculous. There's nothing I love more than free drinks!! There are a couple of different websites that show where all the open bars are for that particular night, and yes, I absolutely have them bookmarked. This is a photo from a Dos Equis promo party (yeah, that's right, free Dos Equis ALL NIGHT.)


Here's a group photo from the Dos Equis party. Kaitlin came with me from the Empire State event and then my roommates came to meet up with us. The two people on the right are Jennifer and J.M., they work with my friend Chris, who was probably the one taking this picture. :)


This is my view from on top of my bed, it's very high and very wobbly. Our room is sooo big, I love it! Ali's bed is on the left and Kirsten's bed is on the right by the bathroom. Don't you just LOVE our HUGE windows??!!


There's two more windows over by my bed, here's the view!! This is what I wake up to, people! If you squint your eyes really hard you can see part of the Brooklyn Bridge at the top left.


Here's my little space, look how clean it is Mom!!!!!!

My love/hate relationship with the New York subway system

After riding the subway here in New York for a few weeks, I think it's safe to say that I love it. No wait, I hate it. No wait, I love it again. I guess my take on the subway changes every time I swipe my little yellow metro card. As of right this second, I'm not too fond of it, more specifically, I'm not too fond of all the crazies who frequent the train. Most of the crazies are harmless and sometimes kind of funny and entertaining. Most of them.

Now, coming from Austin I've had quite a few encounters with the crazies (punk-rock girl in the Wal-Mart parking lot, anyone?), but the crazies up here are on a whole other level. And, there are so many different varieties of crazies here in New York:

• First you've got your bible bashers and subway evangelists. I encountered one on my very first subway ride on my very first day in New York. He was a Matisyahu-looking guy, except he was clad in a saggy, black hoodie and dirty jeans instead of a kippah and a suit. I was so surprised when he started yelling about being washed in the blood of Christ, and I thought it was crazy that no one else on the train even flinched or looked up. But this guy was out done the other day by the scariest old woman I have ever met in my entire life. She looked sweet at first just sitting there reading her bible, kind of like Aunt Jemima wearing her Sunday best. She even had a pretty little hat and everything. But then the train doors closed and my world was forever changed. She stood up, scowling like someone had just trampled through her prized flower bed, and began shouting out scripture with as much conviction as any Southern Baptist preacher. I didn't think such a big, scary voice could come out of such a small, old lady! She seemed to be getting angrier and angrier with each verse, and then finally she slammed her bible down on the seat next to me, leaned in my face and yelled "Do you want to burn in hell??!!" I literally almost peed my pants. I was so shocked and scared and confused I didn't even know how to react. I guess my stunned stare wasn't a sufficient answer, so then she said, "Well do you?!" I quickly shook my head no, and before she could continue the train stopped, so I shot out of there as fast as I could. I was relieved when she didn't come running after me, but it sucked because I had to wait for the next train to come.
• More common than the bible bashers are the bums and drunks begging for money. One guy told his whole life story about how he was bipolar and his doctor wouldn't let him work and blah blah blah. Another guy was pumping his fist and yelling across the train at his friend Lenny, telling him he better not ever do that again, whatever that may have been I'll never know. Oh yeah, and Lenny was invisible, by the way.
• One of my favorite kind of crazies are the train musicians. I guess they're not so much crazy, but still, not your run-of-the-mill passengers. Last week I had the greatest subway ride of my life, I couldn't stop smiling for like two hours after I got home. I was on my way home from work, and these two young boys hopped on the train, acoustic guitars in tow. The frontman, a little brunette kid who was about four-and-a-half feet tall, introduced them to the train as the New Beat Society of New York. He continued: "We are often imitated, but never duplicated, so sit back and enjoy the masters of the train." Then he and his floppy-haired, brace-faced counterpart began an awesome rendition of Purple Haze. I was sooooo thrilled! I mean, these kids couldn't have been older than 12, and that's being generous. They knew all the words, their guitar skills were awesome (no comparison to Jimi, obviously) and they were so genuinely into the music that it was almost inspiring. They weren't asking for money, although I probably would have given them everything in my wallet if I'd had cash on me, they were just playing because they loved to play. That one little song that I've heard a thousand times before put me in the best mood for the rest of the day. Everytime I get on that train I secretly hope I run into them again.
• The last of the crazies are the drunks on the train. I'm not gonna lie, my roommates and I have been in this category of crazies from time to time. Mostly them, not me so much :) In fact, last weekend, they came home with one of the funniest subway stories. They were out at some bar and apparently all these guys kept buying them shots of Patron. Naturally, they both got wasted and made spectacles of themselves on the train coming home. Kirsten (from Holland) threw up in her own hand!! I guess she continued to throw up so they had to keep getting on and off the train. Ali (from Ohio) was yelling at these old men who were staring at Kirsten as she threw up at one of the stations where they got off. At one of the next stops, Ali squated down and peed right on the platfrom while they were waiting for the next train. I'm sooo pissed that I missed it! What I wouldn't give to have been there with a camera!!

As many crazies as there are on the train, I don't know what I would do without it. It can be hot and dirty and crowded and frustrating, but if I never rode the subway, I'd never have ANY good stories to tell!

"We aren't here to win Pulitzer Prizes, people......

......we're here to make money."

That little gem came from my boss here in New York on the first day of my internship this week. He gathered all of us interns around and made it perfectly clear that my journalism/editorial internship would be more like a marketing/advertising/not-what-I-signed-up-for internship. There are a few small windows of opportunity for real editorial work, so I am just going to have to work extra hard to get those assignments.

My ever so eloquent boss is by far the most fake person I have ever encountered in my entire life. His disgustingly loud cackle makes me cringe every time I hear it, which is at least once every 20 minutes in case you were wondering. Ugh, it looks like I'm gonna have to do a lot of brown-nosing this summer.

Other than my questionable internship and my obnoxious boss, life here in New York City couldn't be better. I have two great roommates, Ali from Ohio and Kirsten from Holland, and a HUGE dorm room. We lucked out and got a corner room so we have two walls of windows and a lot of space to do with what we please. My space is still filled with luggage as I have only unpacked half-way. Don't judge me, I like to do things in my own time.

Ali and Kirsten are tons of fun and I'm so glad we get along well. I can already tell we are going to get into a lot of trouble together! (Don't worry Mom, I'm the good kid, remember?) Ali has some friends from home that live in Manhattan and we hung out with them a lot this weekend. One of them had a party on the roof of his apartment building last night and not only was it fun (flip cup, beer pong, etc.), but the view was sooo incredible from up there, it was pretty surreal.

This whole week has been pretty surreal, actually. I still can't really believe that I'm here! Everything is so wonderful and different and crazy and exciting and even a little scary, in the best possible way, of course. And once I figure out how to put pictures on this thing, I will certainly post some!

Four Days and Counting......

Welcome to my first blog everyone!!!! Thanks for visiting! I have decided to keep a blog while I am living in New York so I can keep everyone updated (and by everyone I mean anyone who cares) plus I'm bound to get myself into some interesting situations, so those should be fun to read at least!

I leave for New York in FOUR days and I can barely contain my excitement. It's like Christmas Eve when you're nine years old and you can't sleep because you're too excited for Christmas presents, except I'm not nine anymore and it isn't the night before I leave, but nonetheless it consumes my thoughts and I can still barely sleep. It's a little pathetic, I know.

Besides being excessively excited for my trip, I have also noticed that I'm becoming more and more nervous about it as well. I'm certainly having a lot of freak-out moments, here is a sampling of some of my crazy thoughts: What if I fail miserably at my internship? What if I get mugged? What if I get attacked on the subway? What if all the people there are a bunch of rude, cynical assholes? What if I become a rude, cynical asshole while living there? What if people detest me? What if I detest them? What if my roommates are weird or smelly or both? WHAT IF I HATE IT?

While I highly, highly doubt that I will hate NYC, I can only think of the bazillions of other things that have been overrated and left me disappointed (all my attempts with Nair products come to mind.) Maybe I'm a worry wart just like my mom, but while I'm stuck here in Austin for four more days that's probably all I'll be able to do, that and finding anything to do besides pack up all my crap.