A couple weekends ago, my family and friends (who are my family) came into Newark to visit from the great state of Kansas! My mom, her boyfriend Dave, my brother Andy, and my friends Matt and Kelsey all made it up and decided to see what the Northeast had to offer. Kelsey and Dave had been to this area and to NYC before, but nobody else had.
While most of the party hadn't been to the city, the touristy things were things that absolutely had to happen. The first day I played the tour guide and took them all into Manhattan. We began with a walk to the train station which is about a 15 minute walk through downtown Newark. The walk consists mostly of walking on Market Street which is mostly shoe shops, clothing stores, and places to get weaves/buy wigs. I have taken this walk countless times now and it doesn't effect me anymore, but I could tell that it was kind of a culture shock for some of the others in the party when they noticed that they were the only white people on the street. I embrace this and can't say enough about the diversity that this area and the school and going back to Clemson will likely be a challenge to me.
We get onto the train to the World Trade Center and land on the South side of the island in order to walk to see the Statue of Liberty (again). We get great placement on the Staten Island Ferry and actually ran into a fellow KU grad in which we shared "Rock Chalks" before we went on our merry ways! The view of the symbol of freedom doesn't get old (and I'm not the biggest patriot for sure), but the looks on my mom's face was worth it. She never stopped taking pictures the whole time and enjoyed the experience thoroughly.
After that adventure, we had decided to go uptown to the Museum of Natural History! If you haven't been there, its the most intense museum ever! You could literally spend your whole day there and not even get close to seeing everything. The most noteworthy thing to see there are definitely the films that they play. We bought tickets to the space themed film that is shown in the planetarium. All of the seats in the room tilt up in order to see the spherical screen above the audience. The screen essentially makes you feel like you are watching a 3D movies except way better! You literally feel like you are zooming through the universe and learning crazy stuff about the forming of planets, stars, and everything else! The other awesome part of the museum is the dinosaur bones! Every kid/adult loves dinosaurs and want to see the remains of these dominant beasts. My mom couldn't keep her excitement within herself and we had an absolute blast looking at things within the museum and sharing a great experience. Not being used to the walking, the rest of the party was so tired that we decided to go back to Newark.
While in Newark, Dave was determined to find a liquor store within walking distance, which I assured him that there wasn't one (I would've found that a long time ago son!) and after a while, he returned saying that he had found a bar that was close to where we were. We went to this bar that was about a block away, in which there were only about 4 other people in when we first arrived. By the end of the night, it was totally packed with people. We also noticed that we were once again the only white people within this bar. You could tell that all of the people within the bar were frequents to the karaoke night that was about to start and were excited to see some new people! One man came up and asked who was going to sing and of course, everyone said that they wouldn't sing... and I said I would! If you know me at all, you know that I only sing songs that are pure gold, so I quickly flipped until I found a Phil Collins song and found, "Another Day In Paradise" (youtube it). I, as you expected, absolutely killed the song and people wept with how beautifully my rendition was. Phil himself would be proud. Either way, the cranberry vodkas I had been drinking, which were about 99 percent vodka, helped sing that song for me. I was quickly asked to come back the next week.
The rest of their trip was a lot of fun, but not particularly worthy of blogging... We had an excellent time and I enjoyed their visit so much!
The next Friday, my friend Nick, who is one of the other interns, and I decided to go into the city and find a cool place to have a drink or two (or however many fit in our bodies). While in the east village, we notice that we wouldn't fit in to many of these upscale places so we Googled anything that had "pub" in the name. We found an Irish pub that was really close to use and sat down to watch a baseball game and be served by legit Irish people! Our bartender was super nice to us and was an Irish chap named Patrick. After Nick and I had talked with Patrick and consumed a few drinks, Patrick offered us a free shot... we accepted and chose Jameson (what else would you get in the most Irish experience that NYC has to offer?) and decide to start making our way back home. We ran across a Taco Bell on the way back and decided, while its not as good as authentic Mexican food, it was about to fill our bellies with goodness. We hadn't had it the whole summer and the nearest one to Newark is about 15 miles away. It wasn't as good as hearing all the fun stories that Big T tells us in Clemson, but it did the trick. We made it back home and passed out in order to get up and have another adventure the next day.
Saturday, Nick and I decided to do what everyone had told us we should do from the first second that we accepted this postion... GO TO THE SHORE! We walked to the train station once again and on this occasion, while in the financial district, there was a particularly vocal homeless person that decided to sing, "white boys.... white boys" to us. We thanked him for his input and continued our venture. We missed the first train by about 3 minutes so we got our tickets and got Dunkin while waiting for the next train. We took two trains to get to Point Pleasant Beach and walked the 2 blocks from the train station to the beach. Side note: everybody calls it the shore up here and if you call in the beach, you may be corrected... Anyway, everyone was heading to the shore on this incredibly perfect day. We made it to the boardwalk in which there your juicehead gorillas and guidettes scattered about throughout trying to get into the various bars that are on the water. We, on the other hand, decided to get a good spot next to the water and take a dip. Meanwhile, I've seen a beach once before... in the winter and at night... so this is my real official experience with the ocean. The sight of endless water was overwhelming and my heart almost jumped out of my chest when laying eyes on how beautiful it was!
I was ready to get into the water and swim! I found out quickly that there is no slow way to get into the water when the tide pulls you in! My body bobbed around in the waves and the feeling of waves splashing on my head was something I enjoyed thoroughly! I could have stayed there the whole day/week/life. I even cut my foot on something below the water, but didn't seem to notice because of the fun that I was having!
After a while of swimming, we explored more of the boardwalk and saw a place that served quite possibly the most intriguing deserts ever... fried twinkies and oreos (I can hear all of the Southern mouths watering now!). I, while feeling absolutely gross, had to try these sinful goodies that are unique to the shore. Both of them are battered and deep fried and covered in powdered sugar... and yes, they are as good as that sounds, so you can be jealous.
We had had our fill of the Jersey Shore cast wannabees and made our way back to Newark. We quickly got ready and headed into NYC to go to a comedy show in Times Square starring Judah Friedlander (Frank from 30 Rock). We got into the place and noticed that Judah had just finished an earlier show and was signing things and meeting those that had shown up. This excited us and we hoped we would be as lucky! The show was absolutely hilarious! The first comedian stayed mostly on racial jokes, which I'm not usually a fan of, but he was very real and advertised the fact that we all need to make fun of ourselves, which I try to do quite a bit. The second comedian relied on jokes about how he can't get women, which was totally believable, but funny. Judah Friedlander came on and absolutely killed! His show contains mostly a huge bit on how he the the "world champion" and can do anything better than anybody else, which if you have seen him in real life, you would get the joke. Youtube him and you can see how hysterical he is, but we had an amazing time! Afterwards, we were at the front of the line to meet him and it turns out, he is a super nice and sweet guy to meet!
This was one of the best days of my entire life and will be a valuable memory of my summer here in Newark. I couldn't have asked for anything else for that day and the weekend itself was phenomenal. I can only hope that everyone else has as much fun with the things they are doing as I am right now!
I apologize for how long this post is, but it's been a busy time and I thought you all should know! As for my last weekend here (tear) I'm going to be sharing it with Tina Choi! It's time for the baby person to meet the big apple! We have fun to have and things to see! Please go out and find some fun for yourself and let me know how that works out!
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Friends!
The last couple of weeks has involved myself being a tour guide of New York City for many of my friends and family that are taking advantage of my living arrangement for the summer.
Before my friends got here, I had an impromptu dinner in the city with my supervisor and one of the co-interns at an Ethiopian place. Upon entering, it was really dark and festive looking! We loved the atmosphere they were trying to create and quickly were impressed by the place. Our supervisor showed up and we asked if we could move to the more "traditional" seating which involved sitting around a table made of some sort of straw. It kind of looked like you were eating out of a sombrero. We all ordered something knowing absolutely nothing about whatever it was we ordered. None of us had had Ethiopian before and the menus were either very vague, or they explained the tastes of things in ways that none of us could understand. The food gets to our little sombrero and there doesn't seem to be a lot of it. We had ordered a little bit of everything and it came on one big bread/tortilla/flat bread looking thing. Each one of the dishes was a sort of brown paste that looked kind of like excrement, but I'm not one to judge especially when I'm hungry! So we had to take the same kind of break that the pastes were on and scoop it up from the sombrero using our hands. Many of the pastes were good, but were very bitter. All in all, I liked the place, but its not something I would crave and make a trip to go to again.
The next day, my friend Mr. Tony Paquette (pronounced pack-it) showed up to visit for the 4th of July weekend. I had to go meet him in the city at the Port Authority Bus Terminal which is right outside Times Square. I quickly found him wandering in the terminal (to my surprise) and we decided to walk around a little before going back to the wonderful world of Newark. I showed him Times, which was right outside, then progressed to some street food outside of the 34th street Macy's (the largest department store in the world... no big deal). Tony was tired of carrying his luggage around and having to dodge all of the tourists so we headed back. After coming back, we decided to go get a drink in Newark. I have been to a place called Nick's (not that one Clemson people) a few times and enjoyed it, so we headed that way. We get to the door of Nick's and there is a tall, built woman in an all black security outfit with the doors shut (which I'd never seen before). The lady was nice, but told us that there was a cover... alright... and then she said that there was a lesbian party that night... I don't think we fit in and we didn't want to crash their party. We then went to the bar across the street which was a sort of Irish pub, but it was very inviting and full of cheer (and 90's music! Hooray!) so we had a few there.
When we woke up the next day, we decided to go into the city and do some exploring. We took the World Trade Center train into the city and were going to walk down to the Staten Island Ferry. The walk down is long, but full of interesting things to see. We went into the financial district (Wall Street, etc) and saw a lot of people observing the stock exchange and all the other settings of corruption. Eventually, we get down to the water and can see the place we are going. We remind ourselves of how many dead bodies/trash/whatever else makes it into these waters and continue on our journey. The sea of people in the ferry station is overwhelming, but luckily, I'm a New Yorker for the day and snake my way toward the front. We get a pretty choice spot on the railing of the ferry and have an excellent view of the Statue of Liberty (put your hand on your heart Jenna). I've seen it before, but this day was as sunny as it gets and on the most patriotic weekend of the year... it definitely meant something new to me this time. After coming all the way back, we continued into Central Park and wandered around that area for a while. While resting, we decided to people watch for a bit and see what crazies we could see in the park! We saw a guy trying to sell balloons that he had clearly bought from the guy further up the path and cat calling every girl that walked by (and failing miserably), a bunch of model-looking women, and, of course, a celebrity. After hanging out for a while, we decided to meet up with my supervisor at his friends swanky apartment that I have mentioned before! Tony and I journeyed over to the apartment and he had the same awe that I did when we were walking toward it. Also, there was some sort of kids playground that had been blown up like a bounce house, but it was all striped. It looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie, so it was pretty trippy. We get up to the apartment and the view is still unbelievably breathtaking and I imagine it was more so for Tony, who hadn't even really seen the city before. We enjoyed beverages on balcony of the 35th while Shigeo took pictures of us with his fancy new camera (look on my Facebook and you'll see them!) while enjoying the high life! Shigeo once again showed off the perks of the apartment complex, which the highlight is always the arcade. Tony was impressed by the bubble hockey, I was impressed by the Golden Tee golf, and we all were impressed by the bar-style multi-game touch screen game that includes Photo-Hunt. After a while, we said our goodbyes and came back to Newark so that we could get up early in the morning for the next part of the story...
In the morning we made our way to Queens in order to see... The Subway Series game! No, not the Subway sandwiches (which I refer to as "Sub-dub"), I'm referring to when the Yankees play the Mets. We got tickets the day before and were pumped about seeing this intense rivalry game and witnessing the occasion that few outside of NY have done. First of all, it was raining it **** off and we were worried that the game would get rescheduled for when we couldn't go. Luckily, by the time we arrived to Queens, the rain had lessened and the game had been delayed just enough to allow for some relaxation time. We arrived at the new Citi Field, which is just as impressive at New Yankee Stadium, to the gaggle of Mets/Yankees flooded into the stadium. We found our way to our nosebleed seats (which I still think were awesome) and quickly remembered that we are at a baseball game... beer! With the game being delayed, it gave us time to enjoy an adult beverage or two (at $8 a pop... not tooooooo horrible). Now that we are good and relaxed, the game starts and we decide to move around a bit to see if we can stand in a better place to see. We roamed around and saw the game from at least 7 different spots, but the game was so close the whole way. We enjoyed the chants that went "Lets go Yank-ees... Yankees Suck!" and viewed the game as it became heated. By the bottom of the 9th, the game had been tied with a series of great hits by the Mets, so we headed into extra innings! I will skip the play by play, but the Mets ended up winning in the 10th and we got excited that we saw the team that we root(root root)ed for won (if they didn't it would have been a shame). Overall, we enjoyed it and its something I will remember for the rest of my years!
On Tony's last day we had no real plans, but to watch fireworks! We roamed around the East Village, which was not touristy and full of artsy fartsy people! We went into a bar that looked like it should have been in Italy somewhere (hwhy hyello Majka!) and we enjoyed a couple very expensive drinks while admiring this establishment! We decided to venture on down the block and go into a less swanky bar to enjoy a baseball game. The bar we came to was about as wide as a residence hall room, but about as deep as 3. It was covered in that stuff that they make hula skirts in and had American flags weaved into them. The only bartender was the old man that was the owner of the place, which was a change to the obviously once art student from that midwest who is now a big city person because they where skinny black jeans and have white streaks in their hair and kisses both people's cheeks when they say hello... just making assumptions. Either way, this place was more our style. We enjoyed a few drinks and watch some of America's national past time before calling it a day and heading back to Newark. We came back and called Shigeo to see if he had any plans for the night to watch fireworks (and I had that stupid Katy Perry song stuck in my head the whole night... thanks Kristen!) and we found out we could get on the roof of the residence hall we were in. We had a great view of all of the surrounding fireworks displays, including NYC's which is the biggest in the US! It was a great way to end the night and Tony's visit to the city!
The next day Tony was on his way back to Ithaca to observe more of the crazy hippies that are up there and I went back to work with the crazies here! I enjoyed having him here and can't wait for more of you to come! My family's in right now and there may be a few of you coming in later... Until then, have a great rest of the summer and hopefully you enjoyed reading!
Before my friends got here, I had an impromptu dinner in the city with my supervisor and one of the co-interns at an Ethiopian place. Upon entering, it was really dark and festive looking! We loved the atmosphere they were trying to create and quickly were impressed by the place. Our supervisor showed up and we asked if we could move to the more "traditional" seating which involved sitting around a table made of some sort of straw. It kind of looked like you were eating out of a sombrero. We all ordered something knowing absolutely nothing about whatever it was we ordered. None of us had had Ethiopian before and the menus were either very vague, or they explained the tastes of things in ways that none of us could understand. The food gets to our little sombrero and there doesn't seem to be a lot of it. We had ordered a little bit of everything and it came on one big bread/tortilla/flat bread looking thing. Each one of the dishes was a sort of brown paste that looked kind of like excrement, but I'm not one to judge especially when I'm hungry! So we had to take the same kind of break that the pastes were on and scoop it up from the sombrero using our hands. Many of the pastes were good, but were very bitter. All in all, I liked the place, but its not something I would crave and make a trip to go to again.
The next day, my friend Mr. Tony Paquette (pronounced pack-it) showed up to visit for the 4th of July weekend. I had to go meet him in the city at the Port Authority Bus Terminal which is right outside Times Square. I quickly found him wandering in the terminal (to my surprise) and we decided to walk around a little before going back to the wonderful world of Newark. I showed him Times, which was right outside, then progressed to some street food outside of the 34th street Macy's (the largest department store in the world... no big deal). Tony was tired of carrying his luggage around and having to dodge all of the tourists so we headed back. After coming back, we decided to go get a drink in Newark. I have been to a place called Nick's (not that one Clemson people) a few times and enjoyed it, so we headed that way. We get to the door of Nick's and there is a tall, built woman in an all black security outfit with the doors shut (which I'd never seen before). The lady was nice, but told us that there was a cover... alright... and then she said that there was a lesbian party that night... I don't think we fit in and we didn't want to crash their party. We then went to the bar across the street which was a sort of Irish pub, but it was very inviting and full of cheer (and 90's music! Hooray!) so we had a few there.
When we woke up the next day, we decided to go into the city and do some exploring. We took the World Trade Center train into the city and were going to walk down to the Staten Island Ferry. The walk down is long, but full of interesting things to see. We went into the financial district (Wall Street, etc) and saw a lot of people observing the stock exchange and all the other settings of corruption. Eventually, we get down to the water and can see the place we are going. We remind ourselves of how many dead bodies/trash/whatever else makes it into these waters and continue on our journey. The sea of people in the ferry station is overwhelming, but luckily, I'm a New Yorker for the day and snake my way toward the front. We get a pretty choice spot on the railing of the ferry and have an excellent view of the Statue of Liberty (put your hand on your heart Jenna). I've seen it before, but this day was as sunny as it gets and on the most patriotic weekend of the year... it definitely meant something new to me this time. After coming all the way back, we continued into Central Park and wandered around that area for a while. While resting, we decided to people watch for a bit and see what crazies we could see in the park! We saw a guy trying to sell balloons that he had clearly bought from the guy further up the path and cat calling every girl that walked by (and failing miserably), a bunch of model-looking women, and, of course, a celebrity. After hanging out for a while, we decided to meet up with my supervisor at his friends swanky apartment that I have mentioned before! Tony and I journeyed over to the apartment and he had the same awe that I did when we were walking toward it. Also, there was some sort of kids playground that had been blown up like a bounce house, but it was all striped. It looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie, so it was pretty trippy. We get up to the apartment and the view is still unbelievably breathtaking and I imagine it was more so for Tony, who hadn't even really seen the city before. We enjoyed beverages on balcony of the 35th while Shigeo took pictures of us with his fancy new camera (look on my Facebook and you'll see them!) while enjoying the high life! Shigeo once again showed off the perks of the apartment complex, which the highlight is always the arcade. Tony was impressed by the bubble hockey, I was impressed by the Golden Tee golf, and we all were impressed by the bar-style multi-game touch screen game that includes Photo-Hunt. After a while, we said our goodbyes and came back to Newark so that we could get up early in the morning for the next part of the story...
In the morning we made our way to Queens in order to see... The Subway Series game! No, not the Subway sandwiches (which I refer to as "Sub-dub"), I'm referring to when the Yankees play the Mets. We got tickets the day before and were pumped about seeing this intense rivalry game and witnessing the occasion that few outside of NY have done. First of all, it was raining it **** off and we were worried that the game would get rescheduled for when we couldn't go. Luckily, by the time we arrived to Queens, the rain had lessened and the game had been delayed just enough to allow for some relaxation time. We arrived at the new Citi Field, which is just as impressive at New Yankee Stadium, to the gaggle of Mets/Yankees flooded into the stadium. We found our way to our nosebleed seats (which I still think were awesome) and quickly remembered that we are at a baseball game... beer! With the game being delayed, it gave us time to enjoy an adult beverage or two (at $8 a pop... not tooooooo horrible). Now that we are good and relaxed, the game starts and we decide to move around a bit to see if we can stand in a better place to see. We roamed around and saw the game from at least 7 different spots, but the game was so close the whole way. We enjoyed the chants that went "Lets go Yank-ees... Yankees Suck!" and viewed the game as it became heated. By the bottom of the 9th, the game had been tied with a series of great hits by the Mets, so we headed into extra innings! I will skip the play by play, but the Mets ended up winning in the 10th and we got excited that we saw the team that we root(root root)ed for won (if they didn't it would have been a shame). Overall, we enjoyed it and its something I will remember for the rest of my years!
On Tony's last day we had no real plans, but to watch fireworks! We roamed around the East Village, which was not touristy and full of artsy fartsy people! We went into a bar that looked like it should have been in Italy somewhere (hwhy hyello Majka!) and we enjoyed a couple very expensive drinks while admiring this establishment! We decided to venture on down the block and go into a less swanky bar to enjoy a baseball game. The bar we came to was about as wide as a residence hall room, but about as deep as 3. It was covered in that stuff that they make hula skirts in and had American flags weaved into them. The only bartender was the old man that was the owner of the place, which was a change to the obviously once art student from that midwest who is now a big city person because they where skinny black jeans and have white streaks in their hair and kisses both people's cheeks when they say hello... just making assumptions. Either way, this place was more our style. We enjoyed a few drinks and watch some of America's national past time before calling it a day and heading back to Newark. We came back and called Shigeo to see if he had any plans for the night to watch fireworks (and I had that stupid Katy Perry song stuck in my head the whole night... thanks Kristen!) and we found out we could get on the roof of the residence hall we were in. We had a great view of all of the surrounding fireworks displays, including NYC's which is the biggest in the US! It was a great way to end the night and Tony's visit to the city!
The next day Tony was on his way back to Ithaca to observe more of the crazy hippies that are up there and I went back to work with the crazies here! I enjoyed having him here and can't wait for more of you to come! My family's in right now and there may be a few of you coming in later... Until then, have a great rest of the summer and hopefully you enjoyed reading!
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