5 star weekend

This weekend has been absolutely amazing! I went down to NYC right after work and met up with Melissa, Rina, and Sevag at 230 5th. Ended up partying it up at Pink Elephant, and finally sleeping in on Saturday.

Later on Saturday we had drinks at Rockefeller, followed by an awesome dinner at Sangria.

Sangria is a Spanish tapas place on restaurant row in Restaurant Row on lower Manhattan. The food was really good and we ended up sharing three bottles of wine and requesting Teddy, the guitarist, to play Hotel California multiple times. It was one of those really magical evenings when everything was just right and laughter was always in the air. In fact, we were such good customers we were invited to take shots of something really strong. Our waiter came over with a huge bottle filled with a brownish liquid and grapes and filled glasses for us, of course we convinced him to fill one for himself as well, we also got to taste some grapes and man were they strong!!! Like little vodka grapes!

Next morning we woke up at 5:45 am and headed to the park to get tickets for Shakespeare in the park. We apparently made it there too late at 6:30 am, because we were way too far back in the line to get tickets. Instead we hung out on a blanket for a couple of hours, had coffee and bagels, and watched a movie on Melissa's laptop. It was awesome to watch a movie an the early morning in the park! Perhaps watching Anne Hathaway in The Twelfth Night would have been cool too...

After that we headed to High Line. An elevated park built on the old elevated railroad tracks in lower Manhattan. It was very nice. Lots of people out strolling and hanging out on the giant wooden sun chairs.

Since we woke up so early, the day was not over yet! We continued on down to the Staten Island Ferry and went over to Staten Island. Once there we stumbled on a baseball game. Staten Island Yankees and Brooklyn Cyclones were playing at a really beautiful stadium overlooking the water and Manhattan on the other side. I can tell you it felt really good to sit down and get lost in baseball after such a fun-filled weekend! It was also enough rest for us to get enough energy to play singstar a couple of hours before going to bed.

I give this weekend 5 stars!! 

July 4th weekend

This weekend was full of fun stuff at my parents' house in NJ. Mom, auntie, and I prepared food for all the guests. We also saw the parade in Haddonfield and went to Atlantic City. Then it was time for me to drive back to Westchester County again. Got stuck on the NJ turnpike so it took forever to get back!!!

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.