Random New York

As I mentioned, last weekend we celebrated D's birthday. I made his favorite dish for dinner, baked ziti, and it was quite delicious if I do say so myself. On Sunday morning I went to play soccer (of course!) and D met me down at Atlantic Center - the closest thing we have to a mall - afterwards so we could try to find him a wool coat. There happens to be a big grocery store, so we stopped in to pick up a few things for dinner.

We decided to get a loaf of bread and the things to make a yummy salad. We wandered over to the produce section to try and find some iceberg lettuce - unsuccessfully - there was no iceberg, anywhere! I've never seen anything like that before - especially since I just moved from the state that is the iceberg capital of the freakin world! It took me by total surprise. I feel so iceberg - deprived. And empty.

PS, we bought a bag of spinach instead. I chopped up a bunch of fresh veggies, threw it all together and stuck it in the fridge. The ziti finished and we forgot all about the salad. Nice.

Politico

I heart Barack Obama.

Saturday. With Pictures.

Saturday happened to be the Boyfriend's birthday. Because we are incredibly not cool, we hardly did anything out of the ordinary to celebrate - but still had a fantastic time. And I took lots of pictures.

We decided to get up early on Saturday morning - which did NOT happen - to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge - which did. After lazing around and a trip to the post office we set out on our little adventure. First, we had to figure out how to get there, which proved to be much more difficult than we thought it would be. We figured we had to get to the Blue line on the subway, which gives you access to the A and C trains. When we got there, we noticed a sign that said the C train wasn't running - no big deal, we can take the A. So we jump on the next A train and one stop over we end up at the East Broadway stop in Manhattan - exactly where we wanted to get to, but by foot! Turns out, the A was running on the F track, so we had to backtrack and walk. Which wasn't a big deal, except we were already walking a mile and a half across the bridge and then some. Either way, we made it to the bridge and started the trek over.

If you've never walked across a bridge in your life, I'd recommend it. Here are pictures!

Starting the walk over...

Boyfriend!

The first of the two big towers

View of lower Manhattan

Having fun yet?

Upper Manhattan - Empire State Building!

When we made it to the other side, we headed over to Park Avenue where the city was hosting something called Summer Streets. Each Saturday in August the city shuts down Park Ave from the Brooklyn Bridge alllllllllllllll the way up to Central Park. Let me stress to you: shutting down an entire road in Manhattan is no small thing. I'm sure the surrounding areas were a total nightmare (more so than usual) but we sure enjoyed it! And, as you can see, so did a LOT of other people:

So many people were out enjoying the day - biking, walking, running, whatever. There were several stations set up where you could learn how to ride a bike, and people of all ages were taking advantage of it. It was really pretty funny to see women old enough to be my grandmother learning how to ride a bike for the first time!

And this shirt... Please excuse the language, but I had to take a picture of it because IT IS CLEARLY A KIDS SHIRT. Kayla... I'm going to buy this as a onesie for Wes... (it says "eff you you effing eff")

Here is boyfriend being a dork... the street sign says "Avenue of the Strongest".

At some point we turned off Park Ave, which turned out to be great because we stumbled across a little street market. Right near Chinatown. Hello, cute and cheap knockoff stuff. I bought a really cute scarf - its never too early to stock up for winter, right?!?!

From there we continued wandering - we stopped into a random shop that turned out to be the Opera House thrift store - all the clothing, props, etc that are used at the theater are sold at this store. I bought a beautiful long, grey wool coat for $50 - its never too early to stock up for winter!! We grabbed lunch at a tiny little place near NYU - best falafel ever. Then we were absolutely and utterly exhausted, so we headed home for showers and naps.

The rest of the day was pretty low key - we went to Chili's for dinner because we have like $200 in gift cards. Then we decided that we were exhausted from our 6 hours of walking around the city, so we went home early for dessert :)

Weekend Recap: Friday

As I've mentioned before, D and I have spent most of our weekends outside of the city. This has happened not necessarily by choice, as both of us really enjoy wandering around and getting to know the place a little better. We haven't really had much of a chance to do that until this weekend rolled around, and then we spent more time with the city than I think either of us expected or wanted :)

Friday we had a movie date. The neat thing about NYC is that various orgs put on cool free things. This summer, for example, has been jam-packed with free concerts, sporting events, performances, etc (that we have missed out on... no I'm not bitter). One of these free events is a Friday Night Movie series. Its put on at the beach park near Pier 40 - right on the Hudson River overlooking Jersey City. A large screen was attached to the side of a van, on which we enjoyed Shrek and free popcorn. It was a whole lot of fun - there were a ton of little kids running around, and did I mention it was free? And it was Shrek?

Afterwards we decided to wander around a bit. We were somewhere in the whereabouts of SoHo/the West Village, so we stood out a bit from the uber-trendy crowds enjoying dinner at one of the many outdoor cafes, or getting drinks at an upscale bar. We made fun of them a lot... but made fun of ourselves even more :) We ended up at what seems to be our new favorite place, Union Square - we've ended up there at least 4 times in the past week alone! We stopped to sample some of New York's finest frozen yogurt (FroYo, for those of us in the know) at Red Mango. This place is the epitome of the fashionable-but-grungy looking, work-hard-play-hard, its-cool-to-be-green crowd that populates NYC. They offer only 2 flavors, Original and Green Tea. We ordered one of each, and the proverbial jury is still out. The tea was... interesting. Definitely tasted like tea, which I'm not sure I like in my dessert. The original was delicious, though, real-tasting yogurt with dark chocolate and strawberries on top. Yummm.

After dessert, we decided to call it a night - we had a busy Saturday planned - so we jumped on the subway and headed home. I, of course, didn't take any pictures despite toting my camera all over the city. I suck. Don't worry - I took PLENTY of our adventures on Saturday - but you'll have to wait til next time to see them!

Hilarity in the Kitchen

I registered for the GRE this week. That's kind of a big, scary step... especially considering I gave myself exactly 5 weeks to prepare. I don't know about you, but holding down a 40-hour-a-week job, playing soccer (YES it is a necessity), eating, and sleeping takes up most of my life. I don't exactly have the time to re-teach myself math I learned in high school, or review billions of vocab words only to have 1 of them show up on the test. I especially don't have the time to do that in the next 5 weeks. Unfortunately, I need to take the test in September because one of the programs I'm applying to has an application deadline of Nov 1st. So, five weeks it is.

Ah, the joys of Graduate School have started already.

Boyfriend, being the wonderful and supportive Boyfriend that he is, has accepted that the next 5 weeks will be full of a grumpy girlfriend who will try her best to ignore him. (Last night I almost smacked him because he kept distracting me) He is even wonderful enough that last night he told me to focus on my studies, he would cook dinner for me. All together now: Awwww.

Boyfriend promptly learned that man-left-unattended-in-the-kitchen is a bad, baaad thing.

He prepared a scrumptious menu: Turkey melts on English Muffins, Scalloped Potatoes, and Broccoli. Assembled the ingredients. Formulated a game plan. Bent over to get the griddle out (for the turkey burgers) and SMACKED his head on the counter top. The granite counter top. Congratulations, Boyfriend, you just gave yourself a concussion.

Since he is a determined (read: stubborn) man, Boyfriend refused my offer finish cooking. He was going to do it, damn it. So he boiled, baked, chopped, toasted, the whole nine yards. He even decided to chop up some hot peppers to sprinkle in the melted cheese on top of the turkey melts. And then he itched his eye. Yes, he put his jalapeno-juice-covered finger ONTO HIS EYEBALL. I've never heard a grown man yelp like that. Congratulations, you idiot, you just blinded yourself.

I finished cooking dinner.

He rinsed his eye and iced his forehead. I don't think he'll be cooking for a while.

Oh, and the best part is that he boinked and spiced the same side of his face, so from the right angle he looked like he'd gotten his ass kicked. Hilarious.

Fun Friday

It seems like I like to write on Fridays. I think it has something to do with getting done with work at 10:30 in the morning (yay!) then having the apartment allllllll to myself until boyfriend gets home after 6. Its a wonderful thing. I accomplish a lot... take today, for example. I took a long walk, ate some chips and salsa (I miss spicy food!), napped on the couch, shopped online... I'd call that a productive day! Never mind all the things I SHOULD be doing - studying for the GRE, cleaning, laundering, making sure my brother is still alive, etc. I much prefer my lazy Fridays.

Another reason I think I like Friday is because all week I'm waiting for something good to happen. You know, something worth telling other people about. By the time Friday rolls around I come to the conclusion that my life is totally boring and I should just admit that to all the world. So, you have it. I live a boring life.

Oh! I did think of something exciting. It's looking like we will be making the trek back to Arizona for Thanksgiving. Mark your calendars!!! D's dad has a whole slew of frequent flier miles to use by the end of the year, and we will be more than willing to see the sun by that point.

Speaking of sun... why the heck are the leaves ALREADY changing colors here? Doesn't nature know that its only August, and that means I still have a good 2 months of summer to enjoy? Apparently August means the beginning of fall, given the crispness of the air in the mornings and things like that. Oh, I am dreading winter already.

We did have a great time last weekend - we went up to CT to visit some of my family. My grandparents were up to see my aunt, uncle, and 2 cousins so we rounded out the pack. First of all, I love love LOVE my grandmother. Seriously... she is the sweetest woman in the whole world. Second, whats up with my cousins? I remember when these kids were born - now they are 11 and 14 and act like grownups. The 14 year old has a girlfriend and is playing football at his high school and has muscles and a deep voice... what is that all about? Did I give them permission to grow up, because I definitely don't remember that. Man I'm starting to feel old. Oldness aside, its always great to get out of the city for the weekend, away from the hustle and bustle. My aunt lives on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere and it was so beautiful. We went quadding down the mountain, for a hike, and down to the farm to pet the cows and llamas. You just don't get covered in mud in the city like you will after a rainstorm in rural CT!

I think I am going to check out the dollar store now... I swear, you haven't seen dollar stores like the ones out here. I bought a cute scrub top at the dollar store the other day, and D bought 2 hard cover books. In AZ you get gross cookies that are wayyyy past their expiration date and Jesus candles at the dollar store. Out here they just don't mess around. Wish me luck!!

Life as Usual

I think its safe to say we have successfully settled into life in NYC. We get up every morning and go to work, come home every night to cook dinner, relax, and head to bed. For living in such a neat place, we lead rather unexciting lives.

The weekends are where we really get to have our fun... unfortunately, we have only spent 2 weekends in the city since we moved in! Ridiculous. We have been all over the place... Newport, RI/Nantucket, Elberon, Elberon again, and we're leaving to visit my family in Connecticut in about 6 hours. Busy busy!

The time we've had in the city has been, at least, awesome. One free weekend we explored Ground Zero, which I posted about earlier... So incredible. The other weekend we headed out to New Rutherford, NJ to watch the New York Red Bull. That particular weekend they were playing the LA Galaxy, and for you non-soccer folk, thats where David Beckham plays. Unbelieveable, I tell you. First, the lower level of Giants Stadium was filled to the brim... for a soccer game! I almost cried :) Here are some pictures!

The Stadium on the way in

Warmups. I was so excited when I sat down with my game phamplet - I opened up to the Galaxy roster and there were 4 players from AZ! And, I know them all - fantastic much? One, Greg Vanney, is the founder of a club in AZ that I played for. Alan Gordon is a kid from Gilbert, I worked with his sister for a while. The other two, Brandon McDonald and Michael Gavin, played for Sereno with me - they are the same age and played on the boys side. The best is that Michael dated a girl on my team for the longest time, so I remember him as the kid who gave her hickeys! Now he's playing pro soccer with David Beckham... not bad.

Beckham didn't warm up with the team for the whole time - I imagine he'd just be a big distraction. When he finally came out on the field, Jesus Christ the place got nuts. Everyone was trying to snap pictures or screaming or both.

The game, finally, got underway. It was an incredible game - great goals both ways, and Becks made some fantastic plays. Its so funny to watch him on the field - he is literally light years away from anyone else there. Its so easy for us to think in the US that our soccer is getting better - until you put someone like David Beckham on the field and you realize that we still pretty much suck.

View of the packed house - last year (shortly after Beckham signed) the entire 70,000 person stadium was sold out. Can you imagine? (Please excuse the strange Asian man)

I don't think thats a half-bad way to spend a Saturday night - especially for me :) But the game was really great, D got really into it at the end - he's a sucker for sports, even soccer! Hopefully we'll make it back to a game before the season wraps up. Living in a city with pro soccer is new, and I think I like it!