New York City Stories

Oh my gosh NEW YORK CITY!!!  What a wonderful city.  It is awesome and there about a billion thousand things to do there.  Kristin and I had to squeeze whatever we could into 2 and a half days and we were pretty much shameless tourists.

 I know that hearing about other people's vacations can be capital b Boring, so I will spare you and only tell the stories of the ridiculous things we did.


Thing Number 1:  Stay with a complete stranger
Being the starving college students that we are, Kristin and I opted to not get hotel reservations for anywhere we went and instead depend on the kindness of others for a place to sleep.  Luckily we knew people in every city except NY!  So we ended up staying with a man named Mbe who is Nigerian and in his late 30s!  Not to mention, neither of us had ever met him before.  I make that sound SOO sketchy.  Haha.  But Mbe is a really good friend of one of Kristin's current roommates, so that is how we got that hookup.  Plus he is Mormon, so there is that automatic Mormon trust thing.  He had such a sweet place.  Here is the view from his apartment:

Yep, he lives on the corner of 110th and Central Park West on the 16th floor so his apartment literally overlooks the beauty of Central Park and then the city.  It was awesome.


Thing Number 2: Sleep on the subway
Trying to save money and minimize the time that we would stay in a stranger's house, we bought a red-eye flight from Friday night to Saturday Morning.  It left at 11 pm and got in at 7 am.  We figured we would be fine after a crappy 7 hours of sleep to go explore the city.  What we didn't realize that with the time change, a crappy 7 hours of sleep was really a crappy 4 hours of sleep.  So by 2 pm on Saturday afternoon, we were EXHAUSTED.  Like incoherent strings of words and going into free museums just for the warmth and not knowing where we were.  So we got on the subway for the sole purpose of taking a nap.
Because we were soo completely tired, and we had a Broadway play to go to that night, and we did NOT want to fall asleep for that (which is good because Memphis is now my favorite musical of the ones that I have seen).
We took a train as high as it would go, and then back downtown.  The only problem is we got interrupted by some teenage boys who came on to sing/play the guitar to "Come Together" by the Beatles for money.  And maybe I was just half-asleep, but they sounded really good. 
I do remember saying to Kristin, "Do you know who sleeps on subways?  Homeless people."  And then she responded, "Well, in NYC, we are pretty much homeless."

We were completely fine, and nothing got stolen (except I was wearing a pair of really cheap dangly earrings that are now missing, but if someone stole those I'm too impressed to be mad), but still, I don't think I'll do that again.


Thing Number 3:  Taking the Peep World bus. 
On Monday afternoon, Kristin and I got ready to take a Chinatown bus from NYC to DC.  We had looked up a super cheap bus that left from Penn Station that would take us from there to the Chinatown in DC.  So we got ready to head to "Chinatown Express"  for our trip.  When we got there, it was a restaurant.  A restaurant!  We were there at about 1:10, we hadn't yet bought a ticket, and the bus we wanted was supposed to leave at 1:30.  We frantically tried to find the bus and ask the Chinatown Express people if they knew where to go and figure out a way to get ourselves(and all of our stuff which we were carrying), over to DC.  Kristin turned the corner on 33rd to see a bus that had DC 2 NY written on the side and a line of people.  The bus was parked in front of this classy establishment:

It says Peep World, if you can't tell.  It ended up being $30 as long as we paid the driver right then, and in cash, but we got on the bus and made it DC without stopping or danger of being raped.  It was actually a really nice bus with free water and they played a really cheeeeeeesy Bruce Willis movie called Red on the way over.  It was actually quite enjoyable, despite the mass amounts of stress before getting on the bus when we didn't know if we would be able to go on or not.


So besides those 3 stories, and the normal getting lost in the subway system stories, I only have normal tourist stories about how much I LOOOOVED the bagels or the street food or watching Memphis.  Seriously, you should all go see Memphis.  It won 4 Tony's last year, so you don't just have to take my word for it. 

Oh New York City, I will miss you.  Hopefully some day I can live on you.

East Coast Tour!

Hello blog-lings!

Did you have an awesome time over the last two weeks?  The week before last was my finals week which was pretty much torture for me (it was probably my hardest finals week ever).
But then I went on an amazing tour of Boston, NY, and DC all in one week.  KTrone and I were super tourists.

Since I currently lack the mental capacity to put something cute and creative together, I will rely on the amazing foresight that KTrone had.  At the end of each day, we made a list of everything we did that day.  Probably a lot of it needs explaining, and it's kind of a long list, but I'm going to post all 8 lists.

Enjoy!:

First Saturday:

JFK -> Airtrain -> Trains to Mbe's

Tried to go to Times Square, B line off on weekends

World Trade Center

Times Square

Hotdogs
Tickets

Brooklyn

Grimaldi's

Awesome View

Train to Bull (Wall Street)

Battery Park

Native Museum

Nap on the subway

Dudes played music, "Come Together"

Katz's deli, food too expensive

Gelato in lower east side

Cool Earrings

Knish

Memphis

Magnolia Bakery

Sunday:

Church in the Temple

Mesa Grill!!

Jacque Torres

Garment District

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Central Park

Shower

Middle Eastern Street Food

Columbus Circle - Random Mall

Duane Reade

Indian Food

lost at 50th street station FOREVER

Mbe's

Monday:

Carnegie Deli - Too Expensive

Shoes

Times Square Bagels!

Mbe's, Stuff

Penn Station

Chinatown Express = Restaurant

Buss to DC

Cheesy Bruce Willis

Lost at Dupont Circle

Metro to Sarah's

Mason Building

Thunderstorm

Ghetto Grocery

Whole Foods Memory Lane

Tuesday:

Wait for mattress - bust

Holocaust Museum

American History

Natural History

Capitol

Washington Monument

State Signs - Pics

Big Lincoln

Meet Jared

Temple

Baptisms

Sachi and Julie

Georgetown

Wisemillers

home

silly

Wednesday:

Burnt Cheese Sandwhiches

Arlington - JFK, Unknown Soldier

Freer Art

African Art

Air and Space

National Archives

nasty peanuts

Natural History

Good Stuff Eatery

Thursday: 

King Street - Potomac

Bruegger's Bagels 

flight to Boston

Scott Runyon

Faneuil Hall

Driving Tour

Mike's Pastry/ North End

Back Bay

Newbury ST

Whitney!

BYU game

hangin out

shower

Friday:

Freedom Trail

USS Constitution tour

Italian Grocery Store - bread and cheese

Mike's Pastry

Hahvahd

Ruth Tour/ Observatory

Institute

Burdick's hot chocolate/canoli

Walden Pond

Temple

Lexington/Concord

Fenway

Legal Seafood

JP Lick's Ice Cream

Hangin out' / bed

Saturday:

Yummy apple pancakes and good sauce

airport

Phoenix

starving - Becky

starving - Judy

best friends

San Diego

San Jose

Timmy, Jair

Chipotle

Grocery Store

HOME - exhaustion / east coast time

Dear Frank,

It's been real.

I really appreciate the way you helped me out in a pinch.  I really wouldn't have made it through the last week and a day without you.

We really got close, you know?  I bet it was all those times that I held you in my arms.  And the time that you got that boy to carry you up the stairs and then the boy and I got to talk.  I think you did it on purpose.  You were there the day that I tried out my new bright pink lipstick.  And you gave me the chance to study for my finals.

But even through all of that, you still have that look of disgust on your face when I tried to kiss you on the cheek.  Let's be real here, we didn't exactly bring out the best in each other.  You forced me to stay in my room and then I got annoyed and made some rude comments about your weight.

So even though I really appreciate everything you did for me, I got to let you go.  Plus, Betty is feeling better and she is just so much easier to have around.  There were really just too many people in my room at once.

I'm sorry Frank.  Truly I am.

Your Friend,
Genevieve
(or as the Russians at Kangaroo Mobile like to call me, Gen-vee-ehhv)

Oh, the One Girl Dance Parties.

Can I even tell you how many one girl dance parties I have had in the last two weeks?  No, I could not, because that would require me to count them, which I am totally incapable of doing.
And could I help it if my new song obsession is Rocketeer and that it is a good dancing song?  Also, is anyone else obsessed with Far East Movement?  Because I SO totally am.

Sometimes (like right now for instance), I stop and look at the things I say and I think, wow I sound like a prissy, annoying spoiled girl.  I promise I'm not.   Most of the time.

Does this post have a point?  No.

Am I just spouting words for the sake of procrastination?  Yes.             Very yes.

Reading Nat the Fat Rat makes me think it is normal to put a webcam pic of yourself in every post.  

Another story so that I can satiate my desire to not have a post of complete nonsensical babble:
Today was my last day of tutoring.
I have been tutoring a 12 year-old girl named LaShea for the past 8 weeks or so. (Her name is pronounced La-Shay).  Favorite phrases of LaShea include:

• Oh Lord.  Imma pray for you.  
• Don't make me get gangster on you.  
• Jersey Shore.  Now that's my show.  
• So .... do you have a boyfriend yet?

I worry about the generation of 12 year-olds that grew up on Jersey Shore as entertainment.  A lot.  

Once I asked LaShea what would happen if she did get gangsta on me.  She said it would involve her AK47. Then I asked if she knew what that was.  She had no clue.  I love America.  

In the two months that I spent knowing LaShea, she fell in love with me as a tutor.  My friends, this is a pretty big deal for me.  I'm not really the type that 12 y/o girls become best friends with.  In fact, I would say I am bad with adolescent girls in general, unless they are close enough to my age that I can treat them as an equal.  Maybe this means I can start adding girl names to the dozens of baby boy names floating around in my head.  

Not that I spend time thinking about baby names.  (But really, find me a Mormon girl in her 20s who does not think about baby names, and I will exchange her for a unicorn.)

Oh, the dance parties.  I mean, the 12 year olds.  I mean, the baby names?  .... let's stick with the dance parties.  

A little flirt never hurt.

Interwebz, meet the new guy who is staying in my room.  He's kind of huge and obnoxious, but I have to house him for the next few days.  His name is Frank:

As in, short for Frankenstein.  Because the lady at the PC repair place called him a monster.  

I'm actually growing quite fond of Frank, I held all 29.2 pounds of him in my arms across a street and up three flights of stairs, and we bonded because of it.  

Let me tell you the story of how Frank and I came to be roommates.  

Yesterday, my computer broke.  Out of nowhere. But luckily, it was just the screen that broke.  When I turn it on, it looks like this:

One stripe.  And I din't drop her or anything (my computer's name is Black Betty).  I love Betty and I would never do anything to hurt her.  

So after waiting overnight to see if something magical would happen, and waking up to realize that the computer fairy is not real, I decided to make phone calls to PC repair places close by.  

I ended up at Kangaroo Mobile for a free diagnostic of the problem with Betty.  Betty has a broken LCD screen.  Which they have to special order and then install, and it is NOT cheap.  

But you guys, it is finals week next week.  And I have to create a website by this Friday, and all of my files are sitting in Betty.  I need her.  This week especially, Betty is sooo important to me.  So I went to kangaroo mobile, and I played the girl.  I batted my eyes, I made extra eye contact, and I was smiley.  

And kangaroo mobile let me have Frank for free.  Yes, he is all mine until a new screen comes in the mail for Betty.  

The guy at kangaroo mobile even carried Frank to my car for me.  So either I am good at smiling, or kangaroo mobile has some good customer service.  As I made the quick drive back to campus, I thought about how things have a way of working out.  And then I had a one girl dance party to Rocketeer in my car to celebrate. (Note to self: that song is going to play REALLY loudly next time I turn on my car.)  

But f'realz.  It's good to be young.  

In other news ( and I know this is not a fashion blog and I am not about the fashion), what do you think of this outfit?

Too many colors?  I actually wore this today, except I wore flats that were more neutral.  But the yellow sweater and the blue shoes and the pink earrings?  I like the bright colorz, but I'm thinking this might be a little too redonk.  Also, over half of these items were obtained from my fashionista older sister.  

Oh and be tee dubs, what are you giving up for lent tomorrow?  I am giving up using my sister's netflix account and the soft serve ice cream that they have in the dining halls and most importantly, I am giving up needless worry. As in when you worry about things that you have no control over.  

In this corner: Weighing under an ounce, with a record of three buttons and a ripped seam...

The other night my big toe got in a fight with a needle.

A needle in the ground.  Why was there a needle in the ground?  I don't even sew.  It was sticking straight out of the ground, just looking for someone to fight.  That needle was malicious.
And my big toe, just minding it's own business, was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I bet you all have your predictions on who won this fight. I am proud to say that my toe came out champion.

Pics:

Two things are important about this picture: 1.  There is now an actual picture of my actual foot on the internet.  Hopefully the first and last.  2. I hate blood.  This is actually after I wiped most of it off.  And I didn't even freak out.  very much.

And the needle....

...was rendered completely useless.

My Big Toe, although a little bruised the next day, is still a useful part of my body, and thus I think it's the winner of this fight.

This post is part of the "me trying to turn everything into a little victory" part of my life.  It's been a rough couple of weeks, but I'm hoping that will turn around now.  Although the timing isn't great seeing as I have a week left of school before finals, notoriously the two worst weeks of any quarter.  

But at least my Big Toe came out champion, right?

Three.

"Genevieve, please tell me the significance of the number three for you right now.  Oh please, oh please, oh please."

Well interwebz, because you are basically begging me, I will tell you why this post is titled, "Three".

In the last month, I have made no less than 3 decisions late at night because I have wanted to make a change in my life.  Decisions that I thought, "What's keeping me from doing that?"  and then took the plunge and went for.

Decision Numero Uno:
Changing My Name.  Or at least changing the name that I use to refer to myself. The most permanent of the the three decisions.

Decision B:
Rearranging my room.  My room has undergone some pretty drastic changes in the last week or so.  I know without a reference the following pic doesn't really show change, but it does show how huge my room feels now.

And when your entire living situation is about 20 square feet, that feels pretty huge.  Also notice how my desk keeps me trapped against the wall.  I like it because it forces me to stay back there and do work, but I still have an entry/exit path.  I call it my Cave of Wonder.

and finally
Decision Number 3:
I cut my own bangs into straight across bangs.  The idea popped into my head at about 11:45, and after consulting my brother (who does so many crazy things to his hair that of course he was going to tell me to go for it), I did it.  The whole thing was over and done with (including me washing and then restyling my bangs) by about 12:30.  Pic on fb the next morning (social media addict, I know).

So why do I do it?

I don't know.  I used to be so the opposite of impulsive.  Plan plan plan, stan.  But now I think of all these things, and I think that there is nothing stopping me from doing them, and I just do them.  I take trips across the country and I take classes on web design and negotiation and ebonics, and I read about what life would be like managing a restaurant.  Maybe I still plan, but now I just plan to be impulsive.  Or, because it is impossible to plant to be impulsive, I plan to do things I want, just because I can and I think they'd be good for me.


Maybe I'll grow out of it, but hopefully I won't.