I’m leaving New York City this week. I’ve been here for seven years and there’s still so much I haven’t done. I haven’t eaten a Cronut. I haven’t performed with my guitar at an open-mic night. I haven’t auditioned for a Broadway play. And until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t been to Red Hook, Brooklyn.
I have been more than a little preoccupied this month, only writing two posts, but I have many reasons for this. I will be able to reveal all in next month’s recap, but until then, just know there are many changes happening and I am incredibly excited about what’s to come.
I’ve been dying to try out Big Gay Ice Cream for years but the moment was never right whenever I walked by. The moment *was* right on Monday. Aubrey, Emmy, and I celebrated Aubrey’s birthday at the West Village shop at Grove & 7th Ave – the original location is in the East Village on 7th St between 1st & A. When I arrived, I attempted to convince a French bulldog owner who was leaving to stay for a few minutes to surprise Aubrey, but the arrangement didn’t work out. What *did* work out was the ice cream situation I had in my hand minutes later.
I’m lucky that my summers are always full of things that summers are supposed to be full of – tons of beautiful beach days, time with family and friends, and margaritas. But this summer was also full of things I don’t typically encounter and that were quite lovely surprises.
Going to Governors Island has been on so many of my to-do lists – my 26, 27, 28 lists, endless lists of the summer, and a long-standing list of things to do with Kat. GI is a small island about a 10-block length off the South Street Seaport. It is only open during the summer months and only reachable by ferry. Kat and I finally made it this past weekend. It was a little chilly as summer is ending, but hopefully next year we won’t push it to one of the last weekends possible.
On Saturday, Kat and I visited the Big Apple Barbecue in Madison Square Park. If you recall, two years ago, I went to my first Big Apple Barbecue with Kat. In that post, I joke about it being a record that we were able to meet up twice in one week. I am proud to announce that Kat and I now hang out ALL THE TIME. It certainly helps that we live only a few blocks away and have a designated meeting spot whenever we have a play date.
Guys. Unofficially, summer is here. It may not seem like it at this exact second I’m writing this because it looks disgusting out and I did get splashed with tons of what I imagine to be sewage water from an excessively large puddle on Canal Street while commuting home, but Memorial Day has come and gone.
NYC is expensive. No one will argue this, especially not me as I just signed a new apartment lease (yay!). But, just as I believe the city tries to make up for urban life by bringing us suburban experiences, it also tries to make up for the cost of living by offering tons of free events. One of these free events is every Sunday night at Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB). Another is Summer Stage in Central Park, which recently featured UCB.
On Saturday, Caitlin, Tracy, and I met up in Brooklyn to eat our faces off. We went to the “Smorgasburg” flea market for artisan food vendors in Williamsburg, open on Saturdays all summer. This was another suggestion that was repeated by a few people for my 28 Things list, but I am counting this as one of Caitlin’s since we went together.
I feel a little badly for Staten Island. It doesn’t exactly have the best reputation, recently perpetuated further by the world of reality television. As someone who grew up in NJ, I understand how annoying it is to have people think that all of NJ is big hair, muscles, and garbage, (although my muscles these days are looking good) and I would like to redeem Staten Island of all of the above a little bit. One of the most fun summer nights I’ve had this year was indeed in this borough off of the island of Manhattan.
Happy 4th of July, readers! I hope you all enjoy your Independence Day celebrations! My vacation has been amazing so far!
My parents came to visit this weekend and I was so excited to spend my Saturday with them. I won’t be able to make it home for the rest of the month because of my charity event and two weddings and I was at my college reunion last weekend. It was so nice of them to drive up so that I didn’t have to travel two weekends in a row because I get overwhelmed with things like that easily. I’m working on it. So we celebrated Father’s Day a weekend early and did the item my dad suggested for my 28 Things list yesterday.
Happy Memorial Day, folks! Now that summer has (un)officially begun, I wanted to share some of my favorite summer-related posts from the archives of this blog. I hope you will put some of these on your summer to-do lists. I have a pretty packed summer weekend-wise, but I still hope to have a few weekends where I can enjoy all the wonderful things that summer brings to New York and I should have plenty of time after work this season as well.
When I am bored on the subway, I do one of three things: play Angry Birds, eavesdrop on tourists’ conversations, or go through my photos on my iPhone or my camera. I recently realized there were so many pictures from this summer that I hadn’t shared with you guys (does anyone still read this?) that might not be worthy of their own complete blog entry, so I decided I am going to do a seasonal download of these random pictures that I think are worth remembering.
It is really necessary to get out of the city in the summer once in a while as I mentioned before in my Hahhhhmptons post, especially when it is as consistently hot (read: sweaty and gross) as it has been the past few weeks. Luckily, for those of us who still need to be in the city during the week, there are lots of fun outdoor events to reward you for sticking it out in the hot hot concrete jungle. Two of these events are Central Park’s Summer Stage and the HBO Bryant Park Summer Film Festival. Last Monday I did the former, this Monday (today) I did the latter.
10 miles behind me 