I like New York in June... how about you

Yes I know "some" people prefer Paris in the Springtime, but honestly New York is where it's at. I arrived after some delays getting of the ground in Toronto, always the worst when you just want to be GONE! I then made my way to Queens for the evening and had a lovely time.

Thursday morning, the last day of my twenties! I woke up early and had a leisurely morning with coffee and croissanty type food before heading back into Manhattan. I was fortunate when I arrived at our hotel to be allowed to check in although it was only 11.30am. So I was able to relax a little bit, but of course I'm a block from Times Square- who can relax?!!! I took myself off for a walk down 5th ave and a bit of a wander through the park. On my way back up I ducked into MoMa (the Museum of Modern Art) oh my gosh! I am in LOVE. The art there was amazing. Finally I had to concede to my bodies request for rest, I didn't sleep well the night before. So I made my way back to the hotel, found some food and had another luxury- a bath. Then I ended up watching American television and waiting for everyone to arrive. Of course, I got antsy and went out for a wander around Times Square at dusk. NEAT.

Everyone arrived in due course and we stayed up late catching up. The next morning we hit the streets and up the Empire State Building first thing. Now I'm generally not one for tall buildings, I wasn't impressed by going up the Eiffel Tower, I feel the CN building is pointless, but this was amazing. AND an excellent way to situate ourselves in the city. After that we walked down to the river and took a boat tour around half of Manhattan. The day was pretty hot so we were glad to get on the water and the views were amazing.

It was a race back to the hotel to get ready for dinner, first it was drinks at the Bubble Lounge in SoHo, champagne mmmmmmm. Then we were able to walk to dinner with only getting slightly lost. Dinner was at this funky Moroccan restaurant Cafe Noir, food and drink was plentiful. I was proposed to by some random fellow, obviously a complete scam artist, but hey it was nice to receive a proposal from someone who seemed to possess all of his own teeth and wasn't in line to start receiving his pension within the next year.

After that we taxi'd to Greenwich Village for a "bucket of beers" and a bit of a wander. Finally I had to plea tiredness and it turned out it was about 2am anyway!

Saturday was fun, we went to Central Park for a nice lunch (since we woke up a bit late) that we had grabbed at one of the awesome deli's and then walked up to the Guggenheim. I was so excited, Frank Lloyd Wright is a favourite architect of mine, however due to some structural problems (which I now hear are endemic in his buildings) the whole front of the Guggenheim was covered in scaffolding. Slightly disappointing. The interior was still really wonderful, although they were setting up a new installation in many of the galleries so they were cordoned off. The building is so tactile, there are hardly any square edges you just want to reach out and touch everything.

After that we headed to McSorley's which is a pub a la Big Bad Johns, but no bras, sawdust instead of peanuts and only two drinks. Light or dark beer which are served in two mini mugs. Deceiving. The fun part is they seat you with random people so we met some very nice individuals at our table. One suggested some betting on horse races and I surprised myself by deciding to do it. (I don't bet, because I don't win...) But! I got horse number 7, Rags to Riches, and I WON!!! I was shocked to say the very least!

Still I'm pretty sure it's a one off, so I don't think I'm hooked. Although it was pretty fun, I'd go to the horse races, but only if it meant I could wear a fancy hat.

Sunday was a bit of a day, the city that never sleeps was defeating us, we were tired and there was still so much to do!

After breakfast and check out we were going to walk down fifth to the Metropolitan Museum of Art- well. We get there and guess what! It's National Peurto Rico Day, there are a million people on fifth ave and we aren't going anywhere fast. Generally I hate parades, I just do not see the point, I hate standing around at the best of times.

We decided to head down into the park and then cross at 89th where the museum is located, well we get into the park and promptly get slightly lost... we make our way out only to find we've managed to go backwards a little bit. MAYHEM!

Anyway, we make it to the museum finally! Meet up with everyone, finally!

All in all it was a great trip and a thirtieth birthday I won't forget! Big Thanks to those who came to celebrate with me! - Chelsea, Laura, Robert and Valerie. And thank you to all those who couldn't make it but sent along your wishes. And of course thanks to my mum and dad for providing the genetic blueprint and for putting up with their wayward daughter as she fumbles through life. I'll get there, promise!
A sculpture by Brancusi. It is one of my favourites I was delighted to see it in MoMa

Me and Me Mum

Mid May my mother came to visit! It was very exciting as I've had a lot of visitors since I've moved out here but no family yet.

Fortunately the flight was on time although the luggage took forever, and so irritating that you can't go and wait with the people. We got home about 9 or 10 and got some hamburgers from the local grillways!

The next day we had an exciting spa day and pampering, it was really fun to get hands and feet all prettied up. Then we went home and had a relaxing night and watched a movie. It was also my parent's anniversary that day which is pretty neat, they've been married for over thirty years now that's a long time.

On the Saturday we went and checked out Kensington Market and walked all around there looking into the shops and checking out the cheese! I took mum out for Vietnamese for her first time, it was delicious!

Sadly I started to feel like I was getting a cold that day so we didn't do hardly anything at night and the next day I was definitely getting worse, but we managed a trip down to little India and bought a nice pashmina. Mine is blue! We also went to Greektown for some tasty food and then back to bed for me.

Mum went to Belleville the next day and I went back to bed. She came back for a night before she was to catch her flight back. We went to Dr. Generousity for a tapas style dinner.

I had so much fun when she was here I wish that I could have shown her more stuff, I've been checking things out more and more and there are so many neat places that I would love to take her. I guess that's all for next time.

It's Been A While

Well it's certainly been a while since my last post. Well over a month! Sorry my adoring public (read: mum & dad). But it's also been a busy month!


(this is the last picture of me in my twenties- finally it is done)

So let's see what has indeed happened since May. Well gosh, who can remember now?

Well:
My mum visted
I turned thirty in New York City
Back to school and reality

I'll cover all these in individual posts since this way I can procrastinate even longer.

Home again Home again

And so that concludes my one week adventure stateside... Back to school now. It looks intense as it always is with summer programs. But we found out today that we're getting Thursday's off so that is pretty awesome.

My first week back has been a bit hectic. I arrived back in Toronto on Monday morning about 6am. It was really interesting driving into the city as the sun came up. It seems so small compared to New York, and I have to admit the CN Tower did look very impressive with the dawn gleaming off of it.

If school started any earlier I would have made it on Monday, but my body shut down at 8am and that was me done. Tuesday I was really grumpy and irritable (thanks to those who put up with me!) and realised that I was just still very very tired.

Today is Thursday, I feel pretty damn perky about my situation. This week I got a letter from my brother! Thanks Don!!! My mum is coming to visit in exactly one week- at this time I'll be en route to the airport.

It looks like I'll have one awesome class this semester, The History of Architecture- Aces!!! The textbook looks awesome but it's over $100 and I think I learned my lesson the first Art History Degree... watch out for the shiny textbooks!

Hope I'll be hearing from y'all soon (hey I was in the US for a week, I had to have picked up something!!).
Hugs
This is me on the deck of the "landing" a restaurant in New Hope- it was really nice! I heart vacation (and my new shoes- yep I was wearing them!)

I heart New York

Tuesday of my holiday I went into New York City to meet up with Terrance. I have to say New York is pretty freaking awesome. I didn't have much time there so I just walked around Times Square (not so squarish- in your European town square sense), Madison Ave, Park Ave, Broadway.

And I bought shoes on Madison Ave!!! I'm not sure it get any better than this?! And they are perfect, exactly what I wanted. I leeeerv them. (I know it's weird to be this attached to your shoes, but hey I don't have a pet or a husband)

The City is just so amazing, I felt really safe all the time- and the people watching is out of this world. I cannot wait to go back to celebrate my thirtieth in June. I'm positively giddy actually. Chelsea and Laura are flying out from Victoria to meet up with me and Robert and Valerie will be coming in too. It should be great, I heard about this champagne bar "Bubbles" which I'll have to check out in honour of my friend Briana who turns thirty the week before me- (always older but never wiser... ;-> ).

The day after New York Valerie and I headed out to check out Philadelphia. It's pretty neat, I love all the public art work around these big cities. At this one building they had giant monopoly pieces all around. Although I couldn't find the shoe or the iron (the ones I usually was- que'lle surprise- I know).

The rest of the week was pretty mellow, which was so wonderful and what I needed. I did get to go into a Macy's and drool over the many many many nice things- I did shop in the Old Navy- yep it's more ghetto but hey I'm po. Best find were a really nice soft cream sweater with snaps and a hood for $3.97 and underwears with Tucans saying I love you to each other. Because if your underwear can't be ridiculous- what have you got??

SHADFest 2007- it's effical and fresh yo!

Hello from stateside!!

Well school is finally done and I managed to pass all my classes! Surprisingly math was one of my higher marks, beating out even english. Weird I know. I don't quite get it either.

Right now I am in Pennsylvania staying with Valerie and Robert who have quite graciously allowed me to come down for the week between classes. Getting here was slightly mammoth, I haven't been on an overnight bus for quite some time.

It's been a great mix of action packed adventure and relaxation this week thus far. Saturday was slightly zombieish although we did managed to head to New Hope and check out SHADFEST!!!!! That's right once a year these fish called Shad do something very very special and New Hope and Lumberville get down and PAR-TAY. I dont' know what the fish do but it's got to be pretty damn special.

Sunday was nice and mellow as well- we were all pretty tired, but Val and Rob bought a BBQ so we were able to have a stinking awesome dinner that night.

This is a post-holidaium post so I'll break it up/break it down into parts.

Examine yourself....

Well it's been quite some time since I last posted- nothing like another bout of exams to make me do all the things I have been putting off.

Thursday was my last day of classes! Hurrah, one semester down! It also coincided with a visit from my friend Pili, whom I met in Victoria but now resides in Sydney, Australia working in high finance. She's fancy! We had a great evening Thursday, we chatted with our LeMar via web cam, and then went out for yummy pasta dinner, with wine... Friday we got off to a lazy start and headed out to our church- and by church I do mean the Bata Shoe Museum. It was pretty neat and they had this great Rococco exhibit on. I am developing quite the penchant for yellow silk hmmm.

Afterwards we lunched at Pho Hung and went for a wander around China town and Kensington Market- the market is really great. I had been there once before in January, but now that the weather is warmer and all the shops have half moved to the streets it's much more fun. We even stopped and watched hippies play on their drums and some smellies dancing in the street- made me think of Victoria... and then we walked quickly away.

There are some amazing food shops in the area and Pili bought almost ten dollars worth of Mexican candy...!

And really that was that! It was a very fun day, I miss having girlfriends about where we can wander the shops and look at things and such.

The previous week and weekend was full of schooling and Terrance visiting, that was really great fun. (ha well the visiting part, school... not so much). But I got all my presentations done and did well on them so yay. I have am now learning to work with PowerPoint, it's kind of fun. And I'd always take a presentation over a paper- hands down any day of the week. Now if only we could do presentations instead of exams. That would be tops!

For Easter weekend I went out to Belleville to hang out with my grandma and my uncle. That was really nice, I took the slow bus out there and actually it was really beautiful driving through all the boonies at about sunset. My uncle made the most amazing turkey dinner on Saturday night, it was awesome and so nice to eat a dinner that was made by family again. Hopefully when my mum comes to visit she'll make me dinner (wink wink, nudge nudge). Due to the weekend and the very strange hours of the bus service I didn't get to spend as much time there as I wanted to. And while I was there it snowed- an Easter miracle!!!

But I do think that Spring has sprung; yesterday I didn't even wear a sweater downtown, never mind a jacket and mitts! The sun is shining and at 11am it is already a terrific 17degrees. Today is devoted to studying as soon as I get it a bit more together. And happily it will be studying outside in the sunshine!

This week is full of exams- three on Monday whooo hoooo and finishing up assignments by Friday. I hope to be hopping on a bus and heading down to Pennsylvania to visit Val and Rob for the week that I am off and heading into NYC as well for maybe a day or something. This time I hope to check out Philly and well just hang out in general. Val and Robert have quite the personal gym going on in their house and Val and I are going to do some working out. Maybe go for a couple of runs. I am looking forward to going for runs in High Park once it's all bloomy and parky.

So I suppose that is all for now- I could go on... but really should study.