New York, I Love You.

Wow, I really haven't gotten any better at updating this thing frequently have I? Been crazy busy with work, friends, and just life. I feel like over the past few weeks I've literally spent a grand total of 5 hours actually awake at my apartment... no complaints though, busy is good. Guess I'll just have to be more realistic about my blogging expectations of myself :)

So Thursday was my *one year in New York* anniversary. One of my longer and more serious relationships I have to say. New York and I have had our ups and downs, but we're doing really well now - better than ever. Sadly we didn't truly get to celebrate the anniversary since I had a 7 a.m. flight to LA on Thursday, ah the life of a jetsetter. Okay my life isn't that glamorous, but I did have an early flight on Thursday...

Well, that early flight didn't keep me from semi-celebrating the big one-year anniversary on Wednesday night.. eh I guess technically Thursday morning. Being the silly girls that we are, my friends and I bought 12:01 a.m. tickets to Sex and the City 2. Yes, the movie got horrible pre-opening (and post-opening) reviews, but we just had to see it. And we had to be among the first to do so. I saw the first movie at the 12:01 premiere two years ago with my roommates at the time at the Times Square theater (insanity) and it only seemed right to repeat the ritual. I'm not going to lie, I liked the first one better (or if we're being honest, the TV series blows either movie out of the water).. but I still love those girls and could have just stared at their shoes for two and a half hours and would have been content. I was a bit disappointed at how little of the movie really took place in NYC, it could have more appropriately been titled Sex & The Desert... but that's just my personal thought. Anyway, still glad we went - no matter how awful the movie was, the energy in the theater was so fun and so New York. I know they have midnight premieres all over the country (right?) but something about seeing it in the city is just fun.


Anyway, enough with that random tangent and back to work. New York, I love you. It's been a great first year and I see many many more together in our future.

Thought it would be appropriate to end with this quote that I recently heard and just love...
"The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding." - John Updike

New Yorkiversary

So after my post yesterday I did a little research (via google, duh) on various opinions about when you become a New Yorker. Obviously there is no correct answer, however I did stumble upon this article on Examiner that kind of rained on my parade of celebrating a certain number of years in New York (but doesn't the fact that Sex and the City 2 comes out on my One Year New Yorkiversary seem like fate??)...

I guess it's true that you can't arbitrarily pick a number of years and decide at that point you'll become a New Yorker, and I'm sure it varies from person to person how quickly they adjust to life here. I guess I have to agree with the author of the Examiner article that there are just moments that you realize you've become a New Yorker. This is my favorite from the article...

“...it's the little things that really make you know you're a native... I decided I was a real New Yorker, when my friend Reid drove me home from dinner one night and, upon arrival, I instinctively reached into my purse to pay him. As though he were a taxi."-- Lara Naaman, quoted in the New York Post

Even after my mere 11 months (and 1 day!) here, I do feel like I have these moments where I really feel like a New Yorker rather than a tourist, like when I'm visiting my family in Sarasota and I can't sleep because it's too quiet, and when I come back into the city after that weekend in Florida and am comforted by bright lights and honking taxis. And I definitely feel like a New Yorker when I'm shocked that my friends in other cities pay "only" $800 for rent, or a Cosmo is "only" $8. I know you can't become a New Yorker in less than a year, but I do feel like I've adjusted to life here much better than I would have expected...

I'm curious about other people's "I know I'm a New Yorker" moments though, any to share?

Street Fair, Tim Burton and Naked People

My favorite thing about living in New York is there's always somewhere new to go or something new to see. I was talking with a friend today about how I feel like you could spend your whole life in this city and barely scratch the surface of trying all the restaurants, and visiting all the galleries, museums and landmarks. Having a "9-to-5" job (do those even exist anymore?) makes it even harder to get out and experience all the city has to offer, but since moving here I've tried to squeeze as many fun activities into my little free time as possible. This weekend was the perfect, filled with interesting experiences...

Saturday we went to the Hester Street Fair, which just opened this weekend and is filled with vendors of all kinds - food, coffee, smoothies, art, clothes - you name it, it's there. Apparently this area was once the home of NYC's oldest and largest pushcart market, who knew? Anyway, it was fun to roam and around tasting everything and checking out the art and jewelry... They're open for the next few months so stop by and check it out if you missed the crazy opening weekend!

Unlike Saturday, which was a beautiful spring day in the city, yesterday was completely miserable and rainy. Fortunately a friend and I had already snagged tickets to the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA, which was in its last weekend after being sold out basically since it opened so we spent the day indoors and quite entertained.

The exhibit was really interesting, and definitely made me want to go watch all of Tim Burton's movies immediately. Must finally get around to signing up for Netflix...

We also wandered through a few other random floors (I've been to MoMA a few times and can never manage to see everything), but the exhibit we still needed to see was "The Artist is Present," by Marina Abramovic. I use the word "by" loosely, since the artist actually is the exhibit. You can read all about the idea behind it in this article from the New York Times, but essentially she's sitting at a table staring at whoever is next in line to sit across from her. Based on the picture on the Times article, she seems to at least wear different clothes day to day... it's a pretty bizarre exhibit, and continues upstairs with people in various positions, some clothed and some not.. I won't go into all the details, but it's definitely worth checking out. If nothing else, it seems like it'll be something everyone in NYC will be talking about soon so it's worth knowing what all the fuss is about. New York just may be one of the only cities in the world people will pay and stand in line to see someone sitting at a table and staring straight ahead..

PS, if you're a Sex and the City fan, you may recognize the picture with the ladder from the episode where Carrie meets the Russian... remember the crazy woman on exhibit not eating, drinking or sleeping? Same as the one we saw today :) Who said Sex and the City isn't cultured?

No Day But Today

As I mentioned in my last post, I started a "picture of the day" blog about a month ago.  Each day, I post a picture of something I did that day or something that caught my eye.  When I started this, I figured it would just be cool to look back on in a year.  I know, without a doubt, that this first year after graduation will be the most exciting and life-changing thus far.  I'm living in a new city, interning for the summer, and for the first time paying my own rent and supporting myself the best I can (hello, 2 jobs).  I literally have no idea what I'll be doing in a year, which I'm actually really excited about for once.  Up until now, I've always known where I would be a year from the day.  Life was always dictated by what I was "supposed" to be doing... elementary school, middle school, high school, college, with some traveling, jobs and internships thrown in the mix.  For the first time ever, I have no plans, which is a great mixture of thrilling and terrifying.

Anyway, back to what I intended to write about.  Rather than something I'll look back on, my picture blog has turned into a part of every day.  Now that I have an iPhone, I find myself snapping pictures of random things I pass in the city that make me smile.  There are so many cool/funny/quirky things going on at any given moment in this crazy city, and I always end up with many pictures to choose from. 

Taking a picture every day makes me truly appreciate what I did that day.  Even those relaxing days where you do nothing but read 100 pages of Twilight and watch an entire season of Sex & the City (oh... just me that has days like that?) are special, and everyone deserves them every now and then.  It will definitely be cool to look back at the end of the year (well, May 2010) and see what I've done and where I've been, but for now I'm enjoying every day and what it has to offer... even if it's just vampires and HBO re-runs.