Beach Party!!!

Friday I had the chance to work at the Discover magazine beach party instead of going to the office. Obviously, I jumped at the chance. The party was at the publisher's penthouse apartment at Long Beach, on Long Island....about an hour train ride from Manhattan. When I first got there, we were put to work pretty quick (me and the other 3 interns that went). I somehow got stuck outside alone for awhile with this bossy woman that was a slave driver, I sweated so much that my hair was wet for the rest of the day - not kidding. But other than that, the rest of the day was great! The other interns and I just rotated between a few different locations, and all we really did was help direct people various places while we ate and drank. I had two dips in the frigid water, but it felt wonderful! I got a bit of a sunburn, but its not too bad. Overall, it was a fabulous day, and I'm glad I got to go to the beach at least once, and on a Friday no less!


Our first task (the intern's that is) was to put up this tent. There was a table inside for lunch and dinner.




This was the building that the publisher's apartment was in. Not the swankiest thing I've ever seen, but I would guess a penthouse with an ocean view still costs a pretty penny!



Me enjoying the beach.

Things Are Looking Up

This week has by far been the best week yet. In general, work is going much better and it seems like I'm more in the loop for things to do. I still don't think I'll be writing like all the other people in my program are, but at least I'm getting interesting experience. I did get my first story assignment today though. For this special issue I am working on, I will be writing something about extrasolar planets. Right now, there have been 307 planets discovered that orbit other stars, and I will be picking my 'top 10 exoplanets.' So I think I will get to do a bit of reporting and then writing about the 10 planets I pick. Sounds fun to me! I also did some fact-checking this week about a guy that is a plant scientist (Dr. Pedro Sanchez, who won the World Food Prize in 2002 for bringing sustainable agriculture practices to areas with poverty and hunger) so that was fun. I went out for drinks last night with some co-workers, so it was my first real social outing with them.....its just nice to actually know some things about the people you work with all the time. AND THE BEST PART - I get to work at a beach party tomorrow! The ad sales team at the magazine is having a party for their advertising clients on Long Beach, and they needed some extra help, so me and three other interns are going there to help. Not only do I get to hang out at the beach with free drinks and food instead of working, they are going to PAY US. Probably only like $100, but damn, I would have done it for free! And the weather is supposed to be gorgeous, so I can't wait!
This weekend I am heading to Philadelphia. I love anything that's old, so I'm sure I'll enjoy wandering around. I'm also going to meet up with Keith and Shirly who used to be grad students at Wash U, and I'll stay with them Saturday night. So it will be nice to see some familiar faces!

Not Bad for a Monday

Today work went by relatively quickly. After work, I went down to the Lower East Side to buy tickets to a show that Erikka and I are going to see when she's here (the band is called She and Him, I haven't heard their stuff, but the 'she' is Zooey Deschanel, Will Farrel's love interest in Elf). The place where I bought the tickets was right next to Katz's deli, which is a famous Jewish deli that's been there since 1888. So I decided to eat dinner there - I had a combo sandwich so I could try the pastrami and the brisket - both were blissful, but the pastrami was particularly fabulous. When I got back to my apartment, I was welcomed by FOUR pieces of mail, so that made for an exciting evening. So thanks Jen, Ang, and Jessica for the cards! I especially liked the one from Jessica - the front read 'My bologna has a middle name....And its Marie'. Very funny. My other piece of mail was Kevin sending me my InStyle magazine, and my new credit card since someone stole my old number. Hooray for mail! To top it all off, Weeds was actually interesting for the first time this season. Only four more days of work til the weekend....

My Saturday In Pictures

I did a lot of random things on Saturday, so I'll show some pictures and say what I was doing.

I started my day by heading towards a place in Nolita (NOrth Of Little ITAly) that I had read about in this book about shopping that Erikka sent me. Its called The Market, and its a place where up-and-coming designers sell their stuff every weekend. There was lots of jewelry and some clothing and handbags. It was my personal heaven! Lots of really nice jewelry, and it was all pretty reasonably priced! I wanted to buy something at the first table I went to. I ended up buying this necklace, and I love it! Now if only I come up with $150 to buy the handmade Italian leather purse I saw (it was the softest most beautiful leather I've ever seen!).




After wandering around to a few other shops, eating gelato at 2 places (yes, I know I'm a dork, but it was my lunch!) I walked through Chinatown on my way to South Street Seaport. My sister Jenny had told me about this art installation on the East River called 'Waterfalls', which was pretty cool. I could see 3 different waterfalls (there might be 5 total?) but the coolest one is underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.




After South Street Seaport, I went to another yarn store called Seaport Yarns. It was the largest place I had been to, and of course, I bought more sock yarn. After I left the yarn shop, I got out my book to figure out where the World Trade Center site was relative to me, because I thought it should be close. It ended up being right around the corner. I thought there was supposed to be a memorial park, but I guess that was temporary until the new buildings are built. There was a WTC Tribute Center, but it cost $10.....so I tributed from the sidewalk. It is just so strange, a huge gaping hole among so many skyscrapers. Very sad. I'm just grateful that Kevin and I were able to experience the top of the WTC, which ended up being just about a month before 9-11.




This is Trinity Church, the oldest church in Manhattan, and maybe one of the oldest buildings there in general. I have a picture of this church with the WTC in the background from summer of 2001; I tried to take the same picture again with the emptiness behind it (that's not this picture though).





Next I walked down Wall Street briefly. The streets down there are so narrow, and the buildings are so tall. Its a strange feeling. Did you know Wall Street is called that because there used to be a wall there? The wall was built around the northern part of New Amesterdam in the 1600's to protect the town from Indians and whatever else. This is Federal Hall, where George Washington took the oath of his presidency back in 1770-something....



It was a long day with lots of walking, and I was beat. I thought about not doing anything today, but decided to go ahead and go to a museum. I went to the Whitney Museum of American Art. They have a new exhibit about Buckminster Fuller, the guy who made geodesic domes kind of famous (he designed the Climatron in St. Louis). The exhibit was pretty interesting. Other than this exhibit, they had an exhibit by Paul McCarthy, which was a bit weird. There was also a collection of Polaroid photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, which varied from interesting to somewhat strange. They didn't have many paintings from their collection on display, but what they had was pretty nice - quite a few Edward Hoppers.
I'm sad tomorrow is Monday. But I am planning to go to either Boston or Philly this weekend, so I'll spend my week at work looking forward to that!

Celebrating America's Birthday With Free Museums and a Sprinkle of Tiffany Glass

All week I was looking forward to, but also dreading this weekend. I enjoy checking out the city, but it just gets kind of lonely. At first I thought I might try to go to a beach, but the weather is just too iffy to go that far. So I decided I'd try to go to the New York Historical Society (I had read that they had a lot of Tiffany glass) and to MoMA which is free after 4 on Fridays. I called the Historical Society to make sure they would be open, and the recording said it was free if you wore red white and blue. I can do that!
At the Historical Society, they had all kinds of stuff going on, with people dressed up like Revolutionary War people and doing re-enactments. Interesting. I quickly found the Tiffany glass, which as usual, was fabulous. They had a whole big room filled with the stuff, but it was in the part of the museum where it wasn't all set up for display, it was just in glass cases (some center where you can study design?). But I could still see some of it. It was worth the trip, but I'm glad I didn't have to pay to get in because there wasn't much else there. One of the things they have at the Historical Society are all the original watercolors of Audobon's birds. But they are in a part that is only open by appointment to researchers. Oh well.
Next, I decided just to walk back to midtown instead of taking the subway. So I walked along Central Park from 77th to Columbus Circle, which I'm not sure I've ever been to. Not much exciting there, there are just lots of new buildings being built and that is where CNN's headquarters are in the Time Warner Center. Then I walked on towards MoMA on 53rd. It was only about 3, and the free tickets weren't til 4 so I figured I'd shop as I walked, but I didn't really see anything interesting. I decided to go on to MoMA and see if there was a line - its a good thing I went because by 3 the line was already pretty long. Then they let us in at about 3:45. I really liked MoMA when I went in 2001, but it is amazing now. The new building is beautiful...I just kept thinking of my sister Jenny cause I know she would have really liked it - just very simple and modern. I tried to take pictures, but they don't do it justice. Thankfully I was forewarned from the website that Starry Night is currently not on display (damn them!) so that was disappointing (but I'd seen it before). But I had read about a special exhibit they have about prefab housing design where they actually have houses built outside to walk through. Unfortunately, this doesn't open til July 20th! I will need to go back for that - I could see the houses on the lot and they looked very interesting. My favorite stuff there were all the Matisse paintings - there was one cubit Matisse, an homage to Picasso, which was really interesting.....the goldfish that he paints so often were just orange marquise shapes. I really wanted to buy a poster of my favorite Matisse, but I am out of wall space at the house - maybe someday. But I loved MoMA, and you can't beat going there for free!
I went back home, waiting for my roommate to call. She invited me along to two parties with her friends. I was so grateful! First we went to a place right by ours. Everyone at the party was an actor/actress, so they were all small beautiful people...but all very nice (lots of them even hugged me when I left!!). I got to meet this girl Autumn who is on the Legally Blond reality show on MTV, she was cute and nice (and way smaller than I could tell she was on tv). She came with another of the Legally Blond girls that I think was already kicked off the show. I also met a guy who just finished recording a pilot episode for Adult Swim....but I don't know whether it was voice over or if they do shows that aren't animated? Regardless, lots of nice people - and grilled meat! Oh, how I've missed grilled meat.
Next we walked a bit farther to another party, where the people have roof access so we could try to watch the fireworks in Manhattan. These people were all nice too, but they were mostly coworkers of my roommates from the restaurant. One girl there is leaving soon to go play Nemo in the Finding Nemo musical at Disney World, which was interesting. It was raining a bit, but we still went to the roof and we could see fireworks going off in every direction. I was just so glad to be with people watching fireworks, drinking, and eating as opposed to sitting on my couch. It was a good day.
Now I need to plan out my day today. I think I'm going to go to Brooklyn Brewery, and then who knows?



A Tiffany window at the Historical Society. This was cool because the lead that formed the magnolia branches was three dimensional and sculpted. And because I love magnolias.




Columbus Circle. I almost got ran over by a girl on a bike right after I took this picture.




Inside MoMA. The building is just so simple and perfect, I felt like I was walking through one of my sister's architectural models.




I tried to take a picture of the outside of MoMA from the sculpture garden.





My best attempt at capturing the fireworks that were going off in the East River.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!!!

Last night, I spent about an hour trying to figure out what to do today. There are still about 8 (probably more) museums that I would like to go to. When I looked up the museums I wanted to go to, I found out when a lot of them are free or pay what you want, so I think I'll plan around that in the future. So I had narrowed it down to a couple museum choices, when the news mentioned today was the gay pride parade. I of course have no problem with gay people, but rather I try to avoid large masses of people in general (lesson learned after my encounter with the Puerto Rico parade)....so I figured I'd avoid the museums because most of them are along 5th ave, where the parade was supposed to go.
I decided to head to some flea markets in Chelsea. I guess they're not what they used to be thanks to ginormous condos being built and taking up the lots they used to be in. The best one was actually in a parking garage. I really really wanted to buy (and nearly did buy) an old white gold ring with a large oval citrine....but I held back. It was cheap! I may at some point regret not buying it....
At one point, I was walking to the subway station, and walked in front of the New Amsterdam theater, where Mary Poppins is. People were standing in line for tickets, so I figured I'd see if there were any $30 tickets available (I had seen online such cheap tickets existed). What do you know, I got a ticket!!! So that's what I did this afternoon, and it was fabulous! I always loved the movie, and the musical was just as good (or at least close). So at least I saw one Broadway show this summer.
Oh, funny story. While I was waiting for the show to start, I thought I would go down to Magnolia Bakery for a cupcake (on Erikka's recommendation). But, when I tried to get off the subway, I had to stand in line to walk up to the street - it was so crowded because I ended up right on the parade route. Figures. So I just turned around and rode back uptown, rather than trying to fight through a sweaty crowd for a cupcake.
I'm sad tomorrow is Monday, but starting another week means I'm another one closer to coming back home.

A Saturday in Brooklyn

Thank God for the weekend. Even though I still haven't worked a full week (haha) I was still ready to not work for a couple of days. This week at work I researched the history of automobiles, fact checked a short blurb about morning glory clouds (rare wave-light clouds in Australia that pilots surf on), and finished this space image thing I had been working on. I've resigned myself to the realization that I probably won't be getting any writing experience. Which sucks. But I digress.....
So today I went to Brooklyn. My goal was to get to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens before noon...there is no admission fee before noon. However, it took forever to get there on the train...and I was walking in the gates right at noon. But, they still were letting people in for free, woohoo! So I walked around the gardens there. It was nice, but I think I'm just really spoiled from spending so much time at MoBot....
I walked around there for awhile, and found this overlook walk with lots of shady benches. It was nice and breezy so I decided to sit down for awhile and knit and enjoy the day.
Next I walked right around the corner to the Brooklyn Museum. I didn't know anything about it except that it was a cool Beaux Arts building, but I figured what the hell. The Brooklyn Museum kicked the ass of the Queens Museum of Art....the main exhibit right now is some japanimation stuff that I didn't pay to see. An exhibit I did see was by Ghada Amer....very interesting embroidery on canvas contrasting images of Disney princess and porn. I've never seen art like it, that's for sure. The highlight was the decorative arts area. They had a beautiful Stickley desk, and of course my favorite, a pair of Tiffany glass windows.
I asked a guy at the museum if there was anywhere close with an area of interesting shopping, so he sent me to 7th Ave in Park Slope. I didn't wander a whole lot, but I found a knitting shop where I once again bought sock yarn. By this time it was getting later, and I decided to go ahead home, so I got on the train. By the time the train surface to cross whatever bridge I crossed back into Manhattan (maybe the Manhattan bridge?) it was absolutely pouring....to the extent that I could hardly see the Brooklyn Bridge right next to the bridge I was on. I was grateful to already be on the train.
There are still other things I'd like to do in Brooklyn, but they will require more planning...I want to tour the Brooklyn Brewery, and look around Prospect Park some more. But I intend to go see Beth Orton for free at the park in 2 weeks, so maybe that will be another Brooklyn Saturday.
Now I'm home, guess I'm going to make dinner and watch my Netflix dvd (27 dresses) and sock knitting.



The lily ponds and conservatory at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.



Overlooking the gardens from the spot I sat to knit. There were people getting wedding pictures taken in the rose garden.




Brooklyn Museum. It was a pretty cool looking building, but they had built this crazy ugly modern entrance below the pretty Beaux Arts facade....what were they thinking?




Tiffany glass, part 1 of 2. I sat on the floor to take this, and people probably thought I was crazy. This was just beautiful...the way the glass was layered in the waterfall part actually made it look like running water. My blurry suppressed flash picture hardly does it justice.





Tiffany glass, part 2 of 2. Both of these windows were originally in some church in Brooklyn. I like how this one makes it actually seem like light is shining through the trees. Did I mention I like Tiffany glass?