230 5th & Sutton Place

 

 

 

 

This weekend was a lucky weekend as Ramzi came over on a last-minute trip! I miss him so much when we're on separate coasts! 

We spent Saturday in the city. We went to a nice roof-top bar, 230 5th, on 5th ave which was the perfect place to rest our (my) tired feet and enjoy some Mojitos in the sun. Interestingly though, the skies over NYC decided to open up an pour buckets of water on us and evalyone else lazing in the sun. After about 15 minutes the sun was back and so were we on the patio.

Later that evening, we met up with some good friends and had fun at a different rooftop, Sutton Place, in midtown.

NY Tourist

 

 

Today was the last day of my mini-vacation. I had a week off from my internship and I spent it with my family down in Jersey. It's been amazing. I've been spoiled with good food, drinks, nephew and niece, wii-playing, shopping, and lots of fun. The parents were sweet and decided to drive me back to Elmsford NY and as a fun stop we went on a tour to Ellis Island and Liberty Island. Seeing how people traveled before really amazes me. So many people packed everything they could fit into a suitcase and traveled for months over the ocean to an unknown land and future. 

Although my trip over wasn't that dramatic, I think I know what some of them felt leaving everything behind and starting over somewhere new. It's thrilling, exciting, lonely, and sometimes scary, and for me it's one of the best things I've done :)

Cape May

 

Second time I encounter a snake in NJ!!! This is a state I'm never moving to! I'm extremely scared of snakes. I've only seen snakes live two times before this year, and then this year I've seen two snakes in NJ, that doubles the number of snakes I've encountered total in my life. Unacceptable! My mom was brave, and chased after it with the camera.

 

 

 

My niece and nephew are spending a couple of weeks at my parents' house, so luckily since I'm on the east coast this summer, I got a chance to see them as well. We spent yesterday in Cape May, a beautiful nature reserve, it was one of the few sunny days this month...

Midsummer celebrations!

Last weekend my parents took me to the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia for a traditional Swedish midsummer celebration. It was a week early, but I guess they didn't want to compete with the big Swedish midsummer celebration in NY's Battery Park this Sunday. The one in Philly was very nice. They made lots of flower wreaths and I got the prettiest one, the one with large roses! Also, there was Smörgåstårta, and Swedish pastries. 

And of course no midsummer celebration with out singing and dancing "Små Grodorna" (The little frogs). Little known fact outside Sweden, this song was featured in Minority Report, check out this clip.

All that was missing from a truly traditional midsummer celebrations were drunk teenagers standing at the outskirts of the field watching the pole dances while saying things such as "can you believe people do this?, this is so lame!" followed by loud burps. I think deep down they wish they didn't have to be so cool... :)

NYC - Andrea's see-you-later-party

My friend and long-time New Yorker (the cute one in white) has decided to move back to Sweden and lucky for us we were in town for her not good-bye but see you later party. As always, she picks fun and exciting places. This time we went to Bar 675 in the meatpacking district. It's a place you can't find unless you know about it as there are no signs and you have to walk down to a basement to go in. Apparently it used to be an underground sex club, but now it's a bar in which each of the former eeehhhmm sex rooms? are game rooms! I ended up loosing big time in Space Invader. Others were playing Scrabble, cards, foosball, and of course there was the bar and the dance floor.

The Wålk around the Cårner...

Saturday brought everything that is expected from NYC, meaning the unexpected. 

We had brunch with Andrea at VYNL, a disco inspired restaurant in Hell's kitchen. Although the Omelette with spinach and goat cheese was amazing, the best part of the place was unexpectedly their restrooms. In the back you have the choice of five doors marked with different stars. I chose the Elvis room. The bathroom was a tribute to the King in the form of a big mosaic completely covering one wall and also in that you get to enjoy hits such as Suspicious Minds while you do your business. Obviously this is the ingredient for an amazing start of any day!

The next unexpected thing happened on our walk to Central Park. We're walking down a random street in the theater district, and two famous Swedes (Filip & Fredrik) walk past me on the sidewalk. I point them out to Ramzi who thinks it's a great idea to follow them and see what they are up to. It turns out they were shooting some scene for their TV show so we stopped and watched them retake it 5 times. Comedy is a lot less funny when it's done many times... Anyways, I don't really know what these guys do, I had already left Sweden when they got famous, but I'm amazed I recognized them! Since then, I've youtubed them and come to the conclusion that they're really funny! I'm now a fan!

The not so unexpected was the contrast between busy New York traffic and mix of activities and sereneness in Central Park as well as the blisters on my feet once we got back. But what are a few blisters when you get to experience all that on a walk through town?

 

NYC

After a week of excitement in White Plains NY, Ramzi and I made it down to NYC to see off Andrea before she goes back to Sweden (hopefully not permanently ;). We had great Thai food with dear friends, went to Buddah Bar in the meatpacking district, and then to a club whose name I cannot remember but in which we danced until the early morning.

In the early morning, we also realized Ramzi's rental car got towed... so no perfect ending for an otherwise amazing evening.

NY NY

I made it to NY! Ok, it was almost two weeks ago... I've just been too exhausted and busy to write. 

Anyways, the flight over was a red eye, I had plenty of leg room and slept most of the way. The flight is too short to get good sleep though. Got into La Guardia around 9 in the morning. Ramzi had been so sweet and made sure I had cash for the busses and trains I would have to take, so I just walked outside and there was M60, the bus I needed to take. I managed to lift my extremely heavy suitcase up on the bus, and handed over my dollar bills to the driver, he gave me an annoyed look and said: "no dollar bills... coins!" and then he looked away. Great! Alright, I took myself and my heavy bag off the bus and back into the terminal to get some coins and try again. I got the next opportunity 20 minutes later.

I got to the metro station after about 30 minutes on the bus. The train to White plains NY was to leave in a couple of minutes so I hurried to get my ticket from the machine and rushed toward the train. Great again! No elevator and the tracks were two flights of stairs above me. I started dragging my bag up the stairs. It was so hard, it wanted to stop halfway up each step and fall backwards, and when I looked back towards it I could see that there a line of angry New Yorkans had formed behind my bag. They looked like they were gonna run me over and have a stampede. Then on my left a guy shows up and asked if I needed help! First I felt worried, this is NYC, he would probably try something, but then I realized that this would be my only chance of getting up the stairs and on to the train, so I said yes please. He carried it all the way up and saved me from the lynch mob. He couldn't have been from NY...

Then a 45 min train ride later I got to White plains. I grabbed a taxi to go to my hotel, the taxi driver grabbed two other passengers and then took off. Odd, but ok car pooling is better... He dropped them off first and then he started driving out of White plains. I was getting a little worried again, thinking this guy is taking me for a ride... (ha ha literally). So, I used the maps on my iPhone and saw that indeed he just missed the exit for the hotel and is driving outside the town! Yikes! I told him that I can see on the map that he missed the exit, that my hotel is called Extended Stay and is located in White plains and he just missed it. But he explained to me that no, my hotel is in Elmsford. I didn't believe him, but what could I do... He takes me to Extended Stay in Elmsford, which turned out to be the right place. For some reason the state of NY has a problem naming roads and likes to reuse the same names over and over again. So apparently there is a 118 Tarrytown rd in White plains and another 118 Tarrytown rd in Elmsford. Furthermore, Google claims that both these addresses host Extended Stay hotels... Today I had another experience with two different 9A roads, but more about that some other time.

So the room above will be my home for the next 10 weeks while I intern at IBM research!