Saturday, August 30, 2008

I went to Coney Island and all I got was ...

To celebrate my last Saturday before school starts for the year, I dragged Stephanie to Coney Island quite against her will. At the very southernmost tip of Brooklyn sits Coney Island, the beach and small amusement park that has seriously declined in cleanliness and popularity since it's pique early in the 20th century.

After an hour and a half ride on just two subway lines, we arrived, and went straight to the original Nathan's Famous Hotdogs, which was founded in about 1916, or so says Wikipedia. Here is Stephanie in front of Nathan's:


After hotdogs, lemonade and cheesy fries galore, we felt ready to hit the amusement park. But first, we stopped for a little balloon racEing ... notice that extra E in there. God bless Coney Island!


Here's a view of the amusement park from the beach/boardwalk:


I took this photo for Robby:
Unfortunately, we did not ride the pirate ship, because Coney Island rides are absurdly overpriced. However, we did end up riding the Cyclone, the roller coaster that I think was built in the 1960s. It was very scary. Not in the scary roller coaster way, but more in the way that you think constantly "I just saw the wood creak, omg the coaster is going to break and we are all going to die" sort of way. Quite the adrenaline rush. I guess I forgot to take a photo of it. Here's a pretty picture of Stephanie and the beach instead:

After sticking our feet in the Atlantic Ocean, we decided that we'd had enough heat, humidity and hot dogs for one day, so we headed back to good Ol' Manhattan.

On the way home, in a random subway station in Brooklyn, the most remarkable thing happened. Bogart was resurrected!! An advertisement on the wall somewhere near the Manhattan-bound Q train contained a picture of, I kid you not, an exact replica of my precious, prized and now very sadly broken ceramic coyote. Here is a picture of my dear Bogart from the Subway station:

Anyway ... While I was uploading these pictures, I realized I never posted pictures from when Mom was visiting. Here are a couple of those:




That's really all I've got going for now. School starts on Tuesday, and I'm temporarily at the awesome PS 73 in the Bronx. I just don't know how long that will last. My future plans include reading some Wheel of Time, eating a cupcake and maybe, just maybe, seeing the sing-a-long version of Mama Mia! that is playing in Chelsea ...

Sunday, August 10, 2008

A Week of (non)Vacation

I've officially been free from Institute for eight days now, and while I haven't been waking up at 4:30 a.m. anymore, I wouldn't say that the last week has really been a relaxing vacation, either.

Mom flew out on Saturday morning to help me move from the dorm at St. John's into my new apartment, which was quite the process. We rented a small SUV, piled it full of mine and Becca's (my roommate) stuff from St. John's ... for having such small living quarters at the University, you'd be really surprised how much junk we actually had. We filled the car to the brim. One of several times we would do that over the next two days.

After several trips to Ikea, Costco, Canal Street (everyone should check out the free stuff on Craigslist, btw... it's awesome), Lowes and Home Depot, some in a car, some on the subway, we finally furnished the apartment. Whoo hoo! But then we had to build everything. Thanks, Ikea furniture in a box.

Mom left on Wednesday, after working 10 hours a day, with only one tourist day thrown in there on Tuesday when we took a boat ride around the Statue of Liberty and ate dinner in Little Italy.
I finally finished unpacking and building furniture on Friday. Good times. Here are some pictures:

My Room:

View from the living room window:

Though this week has been a lot of work, it's been fun too. It was nice having mom here for a while, and it was definitely fun doing the touristy stuff we did (Little Italy, tour of downtown, walk through central park). I've also eaten a lot of cupcakes, and yesterday I went to a music event at the museum PS1 in Long Island City with Stephanie, who was one of my roommates in Rome.

This week brings TFA orientation at New York University downtown, where we'll start writing our investment, management and unit plans for school, which starts in about three weeks!