A partridge and a pear jar...

We have finally put up the wall hangings in our "living room" (aka our only room) and so aside from the coffee table - it's done!  (Redoing the coffee table in a Moomins theme is in the works.)  It took me a while to pick a fabric, but this new Marimekko print won me over.  For those of you who have yet to visit, also in this photo is our lovely couch and bright yellow bird pillows (a big thank you to Silvia for those!) and our Anthropologie rug that we picked up on Craigslist.  Joey and Kevin hauled it home in a deluge (another big thank you to Kevin for helping with that and for somehow talking a cab driver into letting it into his cab).  So anyway, here are a few photos of what the apartment is starting to look like.  More to come as the projects get finished!

The Cookie Monster

***WANTED***

It seems this unidentified man has taken a liking to my Trader Joes Mini Mint Ice Cream mouthfuls.  Insider sources are saying the suspect does not even like these tasty treats, but rather only eats them in an attempt to appease his beastly appetite.  Any true dessert aficionado will agree, this is unacceptable and downright shocking behavior.  If you have information as to the whereabouts or anything else on this man, please contact me immediately.  There are cookies out there that have no protection folks, and I'm just trying to keep this from happening to you.

Tour de NYC

This weekend a few of Joey's friends were in town and decided to take a bike ride up the Hudson.  The whole escapade ended up being about 18 miles round trip.  Less than 1/4 mile into it I crashed into the curb and flipped over my bike.  Lucky for me I ended up in a flower bed so I was saved by a very mulchey landing- not so luckily it was a rose bed so I did get a few scratches (see the war wound photo below).  Having gotten the inevitable fall over with, I completed the rest of the trip with (relatively) little incident.  Over all it was a beautiful ride and I am now seriously considering getting a bike sometime in the future so that I can make it a regular pass time.  This time I rented one at the 42nd Street Boardwalk.  I was originally nervous about the idea of riding a bike in the city, but all along the Hudson there is a nice wide bike path completely separate from the highway.  It is a beautiful trip along some of the nicest parks and skyline views of the city.  We went all the way up to the George Washington bridge (up the purple line on the map) and over into New Jersey (first time I've been there) and then rode back to Harlem for some barbeque (red star on the map) and then back down to 42nd Street.  We left the restaurant at a pretty fast pace to get the bikes back by their 7:45 due date before they turned back into pumpkins.  We clocked the last 5 miles in about 20 minutes.  Those of you who cycle out there probably laugh at that stat but for a non-cyclist with a full belly of bbq, that's not half bad.

View looking South towards Manhattan on the George Washington Bridge and the bridge itself

Joey looking pretty tired at the half way point on the bridge and my rosebush ravaged leg

Planting some roots in the city...

We have planted a window garden!  This has been coming along for about two and a half weeks now and I'm happy to say everything (except for our white not-so-flowering plant all the way to the left) has not disappointed.  We have several herbs and a few plants that smell nice or have flowers.  Joey has pretty much taken over watering duties and seems to have a real green thumb.  We have been cooking with a few of the herbs already (the basil especially has taken off) and we just made a pork and veggie dinner that we seasoned with just one of our chilies and boy did it pack a punch!  I'm listing out a detailed map of our window garden below and also posting better photos of our lovely sunset view out of our windows (facing South West).

I <3 NY

Here are some long overdue photos from my mom's visit.  These were taken on our lovely sunset cruise.

The Grand Tour

This past week my mom and I embarked upon a whirlwind touring spree of the city.  The first one (and one of my favorites) was of Grand Central.  Knowing nothing about the building going into the tour, I managed to not only orient myself (with the exception of where the metro exits lead up to, on those I still take a random guess and follow the suits to the great hall- but to be fair the metro was not covered on the tour) but also have a newfound respect for the building itself.  I'll give a few of the tour highlights:

1. Grand Central not too long ago went through a complete restoration that pretty much was just washing the grime off of everything with soap and water.  Before this, the powers that be had just left it without any maintenance in the hopes that New Yorkers would determine it was outdated and needed to come down.  This way they could build larger and more profitable buildings in its place.  This tactic sadly worked for Penn Station.  Finally they did go for the restoration and cleaned the entire place... almost.  They actually left a small square on the ceiling of the great hall uncleaned so that you can see the difference.  If you check out the picture I posted and follow the line that runs through the crab down to the bottom right of the photo, just to the left of where the line comes to an end is the small dirty rectangle.  

2. The entire building of Grand Central is three stories up from the ground.  In fact, a good chunk of Park Avenue is three stories up.  There is an entire train yard down there.  The buildings are rooted through the pavement on steel beams.  This is why the ground shakes so much on Park.  Also, it is why you can't take an elevator in the buildings in that area until you take an escalator up to the second floor (elevators require one floor of space below the bottom level for all the mechanical parts).  If you walk out on Park Avenue and look East or West you can see that you are up on a hill.  It's not a natural hill, it is because you are on a platform hovering above an entire train yard!

3.  There are translucent catwalks between the East and West walls of the great hall.  These are here because original plans of the terminal called for a luxury hotel to be built on top, and it would help guests walk through without having to go into the terminal.  But for some reason it was never built.  You used to be able to walk through them on yours, but unfortunately they have been closed to the public since 9/11.

MOMA and Roller-Dancing

Well the past few days have been pretty busy so here is a quick update of the highlights:

On Friday I went with my friend Corwin to the Museum of Modern Art (which is free on Friday's after 4).  We made it through the top three floors (including lots of Dali, Picasso, Warhol, Miro, and many many others) and then decided considering we live here, we would come back for the rest.  It's nice to have that option considering the top three floors of MOMA is really the half way point.

Saturday I went to Central Park with a few friends and was introduced to the wonderful world of roller-dancing.  It might be my favorite thing about New York so far.  For those of you like me who did not know what this is, roller-dancing is exactly what it sounds like- dancing around on roller skates.  It seems to be best preformed in elaborate costumes... bonus points if you incorporate hats and/or live animals.  People of all ages participate and are obviously in great shape and surprisingly agile (as can be seen in the photos).  We think these people have more fun than anyone else in the city.  We have plans to acquire costumes and skates and join the party with Devan (Elyssa's sister) for her birthday that is coming up.  Stay tuned for that post.  Meanwhile I tried to get a few photos of it for everyone to see, but I forgot my camera so forgive the quality as this is from my phone.  Also here is a link to a video that gives you an idea of what goes on.

In the beginning...

Hello everyone!

 

I know I'm a little late to get this going, but it has been a very busy week!  I flew in to New York last Friday, just in time to see the 4th of July fireworks over the East River.  Unfortunately, it was a little bit rainy, so our view was blocked by some cloud cover and a few poorly placed umbrellas.  Even so it was still a patriotic start in city.  

Joey and I found a place to stay on Saturday, the first day we started looking!  We love our new place and we are all set to move in in about one week.  We are moving to Tribeca (on the map I posted it's the teal neighborhood at the South West tip of the island), and we love the neighborhood and how central it is- close to almost all of the subway lines!  Here is the link to our new building. We have one of the alcove studios.

Right now I'm staying at my friend Elyssa's apartment (she and her sister are double-leased right now so I have my own room and bathroom before I move into the new apartment).  It is a three bedroom but right now it is just me and Elyssa's old roommate Rebecca who is packing up to move home to Louisiana.  Her place where I am staying now is in Gramercy (the hot pink square on the map South East of Midtown) just on the border of Stuyvesant Town (where Elyssa and her sister moved to and live now).  Stuyvesant Town was built in 1947 for WWII vets and their families.  The apartments are now being bought up and remodeled and are a trendy place to live because of their relatively large size.  I can see Stuy town across the street from my living room and bedroom windows here.  I can also see double-decker busloads of people at eye-level thanks to my second story location (see the photo at left). 

The past few days I have been job hunting and orienting myself in the city.  It helps that I have a lot of friends up here that I can hang out with after they get home from work!  Please keep the phone calls and emails coming!  I would love to hear from all of you.

Much Love,

Karen