the most updatey of updates

this summer has thus far been a dedication to spending time with friends from home on long island, seeing friends from nyu [most of which are also in manhattan!], continuing my job at nyu stern, interning for a production agency called humble, completing my professional certificate at nyu in public relations, and building my creative portfolio for advertising.

i kicked off being back in the states after returning from london in late may with a trip to california with doctor hilarious herself . what a great trip: unique from all of my other journeys over there. for the first time ever, i stayed in, and not just outside of, la in los feliz [pronounced feel-liz .. the source of much confusion for me]. most days were spent walking down sunset or hollywood blvd with lauren and her cousins, going into sketchy thrift stores, and buying children's sunglasses that were one dollar and still fit my head! time well spent.

after a few days there, my friend of about 10 years now who i actually first met at a resort in california, sebrin, drove down from her place in ventura, picked us up, and we rode the coast down to san diego. erica, catrina, and eileen were there waiting for us. stayed for the first time not in downtown san diego but instead in carlsbad, about 40 minutes from the downtown area. a secluded, self-sustaining, relaxing resort like the one at which we stayed was exactly what i needed after a semester in london and a 17-day backpacking experience. idle time spent with old friends cannot be beat.

at lauren's cousin's place in los feliz.

more to come on thoughts/musings/my mind's meanderings/alliteration, but for now, this is strictly business. i hope you've enjoyed the most updatey of updates. off to the jersey shore [for the first time ever] this weekend for my friend julia's 21st birthday and july 4th.

happy fourth all. yay america!

the quiet things that no one ever knows

i've been listening to this song all week ('the quiet things that no one ever knows'). thoughts of my imminent journey home have triggered thoughts of long island which have in turn triggered thoughts of friends and brand new. no wonder i've been playing them so much on my ipod. i just got home from a night with a bunch of friends, checked my facebook, and was reminded by my sister how horrible a blogger i've been lately. my room mate isn't home, so i can play music--i figure now's as good a time as any to publish some updates. since i haven't blogged for a month (and over half of that month i was traveling throughout europe) i've made it a bit hard for myself for this blog post. i suppose i'll have to post a few sentences about spring break on this post. i'll also publish a picture for each city i visited, and if i have to i'll publish a new post to include more pictures.

paris: i reunited with three fellow nyu-ers--one studying in madrid, one in florence, and one in prague. it (both the city and the reunion) was magnificent. the parisian weather was incredible, our location was amazing--we were in the latin quarter--and we took full advantage of the city. we were about an hour walk from the eiffel tower, but paris is a big city and the walk was a beautiful one along the river, so we did not mind one bit. my friend studying in prague, sarah, and i wound up walking the city for about 6 hours one day. we visited the eiffel tower around dinner time, then purchased a bottle of wine and drank it while we watched the sunset in the park overlooking the eiffel.

florence: possibly my favorite city. the food, the people, and the friends i visited were all incredible. the weather was stellar and the culture was authentic and charming. i visited from a monday to friday. i was a little nervous that i'd run out of things to do there since i'd be there for five days, but it wound up being some of the best times of my vacation. i find i like to get to know a city not by merely doing the touristy things but by also doing exactly what i would do in my city at home: people watch, go to cafes, sit in parks, and take aimless walks. florence was perfect for this. my four friends whom i was visiting were in class for a good portion of the week since it was a school week for them, so i wound up spending a lot of time walking/exploring/meandering on my own. florence is small and very navigable, so i didn't mind one bit.

rome: i have to admit, i was a bit nervous going to rome on easter weekend--would we get to see the vatican? would it be crazy crowded? would basic prices be hiked up because of the tourist appeal that weekend? i am incredibly glad i went during easter. my two friends and i were lucky enough to travel to the coliseum on good friday and see and hear the pope speak. the sermon he delivered was predominantly in latin. it was such an incredible experience. we also did all of the essential things like the vatican, st peter's basillica, sistine chapel, the ruins, etc. rome was something that i've always wanted to do and that i'm glad i did, but i have to admit, the city itself did not have as much charm as other parts of italy. walking by foot, i enjoyed florence more.

athens: athens was exactly what i needed after rome. juxtaposing rome and athens was the best unintentional travel decision i've ever made. if rome offered all of the ancient attractions indoors but a surprisingly commercial interpretation of italy out of doors, then athens was the perfect blend of ancient history and contemporary beauty. it retained the most authentic ancient quality, but its being rooted in such an epic ancient history in no way made it inaccessible. i know many people have told me that athens would not be one of my favorite cities and that it's something i should do but that i wouldn't love, but i truly loved it. i think i felt more that way about rome than about athens. there were so many moments in athens that i literally had to stop in my tracks--usually up a mountain, a hill, or the acropolis--and just smile and think how lucky we were to be there. lastly, alex, morgan and i met a canadian couple, about our age, in athens. emilie and arlan, originally from vancouver island, were touring europe for almost two months and were staying at our hotel in athens. we immediately hit it off, spent the remainder of our stay in athens together, and then travelled to santorini together where we spent the remainder of our time there. emilie and arlan actually visited us in london this past weekend on their way back home to canada after two months. they stayed with us for the weekend, so we were able to show them what our semester has been about. we all bonded a lot, and i'm gonna miss them, but alex, morgan and i are working on them coming down to manhattan this summer.

santorini: utter bliss. sun, beach every day, riding ATVs, endless cocktails, and incredibly friendly greek people. santorini did not have the historical charm that most of the other cities i visited had, but then again, after 15 days of traveling across europe, i was ready to abandon history and embrace the beach. once again, unintentional travel decision, to make santorini our last stop, that worked out perfectly.

just about the day i returned to london after a 17 day vacation, my parents were greeting me in london. what was supposed to be a 6 day vacation for them turned into about a two week vacation because of the volcanic ash. it was bitter-sweet:in no way, shape, or form did i mind having them here; in fact i sort of loved making it a habit to reconvene with them after my school day, just like old times before college. at the same time, though, i knew that they didn't plan for it and weren't very prepared to stay in london for two weeks. we had a great time while they were here. a full two weeks here, and not a DROP of rain. it was gorgeous and sunny just about every day they visited, which i'm happy about since they visited my sister last year and it poured every day. overall, an incredible time with them. lots of walking and exploring different areas. i felt lucky to have a reason to play the tourist in london after i had been away on spring break for so long.

its 3am, and i fear i may fall asleep on my computer. i want to get these pictures in before i pass out.

view from the park during magic hour in paris
ponte vecchio bridge in florence
the pope speaking at the coliseum on good friday
top of the acropolis in athens
me and emilie, sunset in oia

'night all. xx

spring break

i'll be traveling for the next 17 days. a couple of my hostels have internet access, so i'm going to blog wherever i can. heres the itinerary:

paris
florence
rome [on easter--yikes.]
athens
santorini
back to london on april 11!

until then!
k

long time no post

since when did blogging creep onto my list of activities that i procrastinate doing? i haven't updated since before my trip to madrid. katie showed me such a good time in madrid. i'll let the pictures speak for themselves, since this is really a fake blog post just so i can say that i blogged, but two coolest things: el prado museum and el retiro park (both of which we spent hours in). oh also, the street-food corn on the cob=exquisite.


both of retiro park
chocolate con churros

first continental-europe experience, you treated me right.

i just chatted with my friend sarah who is in prague right now and i realized i have yet to post about my adventure over to her. i told myself i'd wait until i'd caught up on all my work, but since that is not going to happen, i decided to allow blogging to actually take me away from my work. im drinking a cappuccino from pompidou cafe. not sure if i ever mentioned this place, but it's become a daily addition to my schedule. it's also the 7th day in a row that london is absolutely beautiful, so it's going to be hard to convince myself to stay in and write my paper today.

prague is the first place in continental europe i've been to, and i'm so incredibly happy i decided to choose it as my first. i feel like prague is automatically a whole different ball game than say, london or madrid or florence, just because of its political history. it's so crazy how much it shone throughout the city. i travelled with a friend of mine from london who also had a friend in prague, so we spent most of our time together the whole weekend with our friends. from the minute we got off the tram to the minute that we went to the airport to go home we were on the go. i don't think we had a minute to relax, and i loved it. sarah took me around her area, which was sort of comparable to where i'm living in london. it's a young, hipster, and up-and-coming area (to euphemize), but i loved it because it wasn't too touristy. we went to some quiet, local pubs to relax and read and, on the other end of the spectrum, went to a massive five-story club that was infiltrated with internationals. we had an incredible time. i also got a brief taste of the housing accommodations in other nyu study abroad sights, which i'm not sure was the best idea. sarah's huge apartment, with a kitchen that one may actually like to cook in, made my dickensian closet, i mean dorm, pale in comparison. ultimately, though, i actually found myself getting a bit homesick for london by the end of my stay in prague, and though i never thought i would say this, i found myself missing Nido, my dorm.

other things to record here, since it's been some time since i blogged: i accidentally stumbled upon one of the coolest exhibits i've been to in london the other day with my friend alex. we had intended to pass by the east end festival in the city of london, and, thinking we could walk there (a mistake), we naturally got a bit lost. it totally worked out, though, as we wound up seeing a few things that the festival involved, AND passed the barbican centre, which is the largest performing arts centre in europe, and saw Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's "The Curve"

i finally ate, with gabe, at a pub that i absolutely love called the angelic. they have a dining area upstairs, with delicious food but a totally un-pretentious and laid back atmosphere. i'm going to drag my friend alex to it sometime next weekend.

finally, the dave matthews band concert was kind of incredible. we had general admission tickets, got there about half an hour before they opened doors, and still managed to have great spots on the floor. the concert has catapulted me into a sort of dave kick now, and i've been listening to all his live albums ever since. some pics are below!

view from the cab, if you can believe it, en route to the o2 for dmb

sarah's beautiful campus in prague

also found blake's grave at bunhill fields burial ground with alex.

at dmb!

another one of old town square near sarah's campus in prague


off to madrid tomorrow morning! will be sure to blog next week.

missing everyone immensely,
k

pictures of my campus!

that is all. cheers!

the o2, the theatre, the british library, the walk

first, i realized that i hadn't yet posted about the eric clapton concert at the o2. i don't even think i have too much to write here, but suffice it to say that it was one of the best concerts of my life, and one of the weirdest concert experiences of my life. the o2 was trippy-looking at night time, and new/clean/pretty inside the arena. we had GREAT seats (thank you gabe), and clapton was ideal. i take back everything i've ever said that may have included his being overrated and mediocre. silly silly me. now, to the weird part: the audience. i know that i may have had a particularly intense reaction--i really found it hard to grasp just how talented someone could be up on that stage--but the people around me (most were british, though we did come across a few groups from outside the area) seemed to be enjoying the show, but not really manifesting it. they sat, eyes wide, mouths open, in utter amazement of clapton (and beck), but they didn't stand, or scream, or cry, or laugh, or anything. i guess it's a testament to the british way to stay calm on the outside even if you're doing somersaults on the inside.

i got "out of zone 1"--a phrase whose importance NYU reinforces to us whenever they get the chance--the other day to see the importance of being earnest. my "english novel in the 19th century" class ventured together up to highgate -- about a 30 minute ride on the tube -- to see the production of it, which was quite witty and entertaining. the production was at a quaint local pub with an intimate theatre upstairs, so we were practically on the stage. overall, i loved the production.

on friday, i took yet another trip with my english novel course to the british library. this time, we went to check out some of the exhibitions they have right now: "points of view," which detailed the history of photography from the early 19th century onward, "treasures of the british library," a permanent exhibit that contains a wealth of VERY cool manuscripts (the manuscript of virginia woolf's mrs. dalloway, one of my favorite novels, and manuscript of charlotte bronte's jane eyre, opened to the page in which jane tells us "reader, i married him"), and an exhibit that holds some of shakespeare's folios. the library is just down the block from my dorm, and they do permit public studying on the first couple of floors even if you don't have a membership, so hopefully i'll find time to do some reading there.

as london was nice enough to share some sunlight on friday, i spent the rest of the day taking a seemingly never-ending walk around the city. i walked south to the somerset house, where there was a lot of stuff going on for fashion week, and where i consequently felt less than appropriate walking through in my hanes teeshirt and nearly destroyed vans, and then headed to the east side of the victoria embankment. i walked along the river thames on the embankment all the way west, passing the london eye and the aquarium until i reached big ben. after taking some pictures of big ben, i strolled past westminster abbey and the parliament buildings, deciding thereafter to venture north and east back home. it was a long but very easy walk back, and i was just about ready to pass out by the time i reached home.

i'm going to prague this friday to visit SARAH! which i'm so excited about, so hopefully i'll convince myself to take it easy and relax this week. i miss everyone at home!!!!

a city like london

"...for a city like london, as we have seen, could not easily be described in a rhetorical gesture of repressive uniformity. on the contrary, its miscellaneity, its crowded variety, its randomness of movement, were the most apparent things about it, especially when seen from inside." -- raymond williams, the country and the city

in the depth of winter, i finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

it's been a week since katie came to visit. i can't believe how quickly time passes here. katie and i had a perfectly exhausting time. london's been atypically sunny lately (sorry to rub it in, new yorkers), and i've been taking full advantage: we went to oxford street and hyde park on the first sunny day. i hadn't been to hyde park since i was in london last year, and the sun and the dogs and the birds and the green everywhere and the lake were perfect. we passed by buckingham palace on our way home--or what we thought was our way home--and inevitably got lost in the depths of soho, which i've discovered is one of my favorite parts of london. we went back to oxford street the next day with a strict goal to buy shoes, and after about 3 hours of unsuccessful shopping, we finally both found the right pair in the same store. go figure. i loved having katie here, and i love having people here in general, cause it gives me a reason to 1. neglect my homework and 2. explore and get ridiculously lost.

what i really wanted to post about was my first british culture class this week. we listened to our first guest speaker, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a journalist and regular columnist for london's the independent...she was so incredibly charismatic and insightful, especially on the status of the british cultural dynamic. since i've been here (and i remember thinking this last year, too), i've noticed a certain comfortableness in social situations among all londoners--regardless of the race, ethnicity, sexuality, whatever. but i couldn't really reconcile that with the fact that on a more official, legal front, london doesn't seem to be too far past new york. yasmin brown opened on this exact point, saying that "although society is much more open [in social settings]...when it comes to power, to the people who we have up there [in government], it is going to be a very long time until we have our own obama." mrs. brown's lived here for quite some time now, so it was really interesting to get her take on it. the rest of her talk centered mostly around immigration and national identities within london. i'm actually really excited for this class, despite its taking from me my otherwise free mondays, as we have the opportunity to hear some insightful, important, and respected people throughout london.

today's once again sunny, and i've already walked down to the oxford street/st. james park area and back. i'll be doing homework the rest of the day, going to a few pubs tonight, and continuing to be really excited that jay sean is british and listening to his songs! i can't believe i just found this out, but now i love him all the more.

some pictures of hyde park/katie's weekend here, at your leisure, below:

"wow, dublin."

i think it was on about the second day, as kristin and i walked along grafton street (one of the main shopping/pub streets there) that i said this. i knew dublin would be a great experience, since kris and i come from a pretty irish family, and we absolutely love the UK in general, but i had NO idea how charmed i would be by this city. the trip began really smoothly, with a great plane ride and a super easy and cheap commute to our hotel (which was in an incredible location in temple bar area), and now that i think of it, i dont think we hit a single bump throughout the trip. we jumped right into the local flow of things, heading immediately to trinity college, just up the block from us, and watching a college football match (pic below) with some of the local students. we met some people who told us a few of the hot spots for local college kids around the area, two of which we went to that night.


the days following were filled to maximum capacity with both live contemporary irish pop music and traditional irish jig music. the river was in the center of everything, so that we were forced to cross and appreciate it numerous times a day. there were a ton of local cafes and coffee shops. our favorite was a seeming hole in the wall, panem
, that had delicious coffee and belgian waffles that we ate while overlooking the river. kristin and i fell in love with a pub call Quays Pub, which had live music thursday through sunday from about 2pm to 2am. every single guy (it was mostly guys with acoustic guitars playing some irish pop classics like u2, van morrison, etc) was so talented. and yes, i did get asked by one of the musicians to sing with him, and i did so (i never thought i'd do anything like that, but it was actually incredibly fun--i sang u2: "one.").

we ventured to the financial district--or what we found out was a lack thereof--one night to see if we could mingle with some corporate locals, but it turns out that dublin's financial center pales in comparison to london's and manhattan's. oh well, i guess dublin can't have it all. we wound up returning to the temple bar area, which we could basically count on every night to be filled with locals, good food, and good music.

probably what i loved most about the weekend was the fact that we combined uber-touristy things (dublin castle, guinness storehouse, grafton street shopping, james joyce landmarks) with some awesome mingling with the locals. i'm proud of us for taking the initiative to really immerse ourself into the irish culture, which we found out mostly consisted of drinking and music. this weekend made me realize how awesome it is going to be to travel on the weekends here. next trip is prague during the last weekend in february to visit my friend from nyu studying there! kristin won't be my travel buddy, so it wont be AS epic as it was, but i can't wait to see prague. i'm attaching some pics below!



a seaside town called howth thirty minutes outside of dublin. absolutely gorgeous!




will be blogging about katies visit (room mate from home!) sometime at the beginning of next week.

happy birthday robert burns!

deciding which of these events to go to for the celebration of the scottish poet's birthday! my friend justin and i were thinking of going to one tonight after our class. i have to go to one tonight since i'll be in dublin this week while the rest of the events take place!

finally got my hands on a usb cord for my camera, and wanted to post first these pictures that i took of my first-witnessed london sunset! quality's not great because i had to take them through the window in my room, but you get the idea.

wake up in the morning...

feelin like pdiddy? not so much. but i do wake up and relish in the fact that my hugeeee window with a great view is right in front of me, and i can pull my blinds up and greet london without moving anything in my body except my arm. i decided i'm going to do it every morning, as long as my room mate's up before i awake. today, she was, and i pulled the blinds open and said "hey cutie" to london. i hope i didn't freak her out. yesterday was an awesome day. despite the rainy weather, i took a great trip to greenwich for one of my classes, the english novel in the 19th century. turns out that a bunch of my friends went just for fun, and after getting a tour of the historical landmarks of greenwich (the castles of the queens and kings have now been turned into facilities for the university of greenwich -- imagine your dining hall being the former dining room of the queen!), we decided to venture up to the observatory, where the prime meridian is. we all stood on either side of the prime meridian, standing in two hemispheres. it was a really cool feeling, and i took tons of pictures, most of which i'll post here as soon as i get my camera chord from kristin. last night, i decided i'd better stay in for the first time and catch up on some much-needed sleep. i paid a visit to camden town first, though, which i hadn't done since st. patrick's day last year! kristin and i revisited our favorite london pub, the world's end, where we spent st patty's day last year, and reaffirmed our love for it. we also discovered a few other really cool places just around the block. i absolutely love camden -- it's sort of the hipster/ rock n roll center of central london nightlife. there's a place called the dublin castle that has a pretty awesome lineup of bands over the next couple of months, so i plan to frequent it.

tonight, kristin and i are going to the brand new concert at the wembley theatre! it'll be sweet to get out of central london again, and we're going to head over a few hours early and check out the area. some friends are going back to camden town tonight, so i'll probably meet after the concert. other than some reading and homework, today has some possible camden-market shopping in store for me! can't wait to go back there: the markets have awesome finds for clothes and jewelry (and candles if i remember correctly, which i'll love!)

home sweet home

for the next four months! i've been in london now one week exactly, and i figured it's time to document all of the havoc i've been wreaking on this wonderful city. i think this may be the first time i've sat down and had about twenty minutes to myself. i sit here in my incredibly small, but nonetheless charming, dorm room in kings cross london. the area's vaguely reminiscent of the lower east side--unimaginably fun during the night time, and a bit difficult to look at during the day time. i live just a "stone's throw away," as they say here, from angel, though, and i'm slowly realizing, as i tackle more and more areas throughout the city, that angel is in fact my favorite. living in a city that borrows not only certain names of areas from manhattan but also streets (i ran to regent's park the other day, and travelled along delancey street!), it's difficult to refrain from comparing every single experience to its counterpart in my mind. i've promised myself that i'd try to stop doing that as much, though. while i explored the local pubs/cafes/coffee shops the first few days solely in kings cross, i've recently branched out to a ton of more areas: i've gotten to know many of the areas that branch off of tottenham court road, such as bloomsbury, soho, leicester square, and picadilly circus (from north to south, respectively). i was really excited to find out during my orientation that bloomsbury was the "intellectual center of the city,"--it only makes sense that i go to "uni" there--and that right below it began the theatre district. when i visited london a year ago, i measured distances and locations solely by pubs and cafes and actual venues, so it's just about the craziest feeling to revisit places from last year while understanding how far north or south or east or west it is. i still have a LOT to get to know, though. soho, only about 4 or 5 blocks, was incredibly quaint and charming. before meeting up with some of my american friends in the nyu program in picadilly circus (the tourist center of the city) to watch the jets game, kristin and i went to a pub in soho completely infiltrated with locals. i haven't had too many chances to talk to native londoners just yet--i'm embarrassed to say that thus far in an attempt to settle myself into the nyu lifestyle here i've mainly gone out in obnoxiously large crowds of americans--but i'm learning the places that they frequent and i can't wait to learn their culture. i did meet one person who bartends at the local restaurant down the block and who's pretty knowledgeable about the local "underground music scene," whatever that means. in any case, i'll be in touch with him to find out certain local music events going on so that i can go to some. speaking of music, this weekend i'll be going to the "brand new" concert on saturday at the wembley theatre. it's not in "zone 1," which is the center city, so it'll be a bit of a trip. kristin's going with me, and she and i decided we'd venture over to the area a bit early and spend some time in the area since we don't know a thing about it. other than that, i've already been assigned two books to read this weekend, but i'd still like do conquer a few things before classes start up again on tuesday:

- do some shopping on oxford street
- take another run to regent's park -- it's so beautiful!
- book my trip to prague to visit my friend sarah, which will most likely be the last weekend in february!
- i also have a required day trip to greenwich tomorrow for my class, the english novel in the 19th century. it shouldn't last the whole day i don't think, and it's another excuse to get out of central london, so i can't complain.

this is the first of MANY posts in this blog, and i really want to use it as a way to 1. allow people who i may not talk to as much as i'd love to at home to stay in touch and 2. allow me to have another medium besides my moleskines to document my experience here, so please do comment/suggest/recommend anything to me!

cheers!