Relocating
Blogger, I have abandoned thee, and I am moving on to bigger and better things.
Trips & More Free Wi-Fi
Posted by Carina at 2:50 PM 0 comments
Sometimes, I wonder if I really like New York as much as I think I do.
I went to Pittsburgh and back yesterday on a megabus. I paid almost no money at all to sit on a bus and on a bench for about 20 hours. I'm not really sure why I did it. I suppose I knew that I wasn't going to be doing anything productive anyways, and I figured I'd be able to get a lot of reading done. Well, joke's on me, because those buses have Wi-Fi and of course I probably spent 4 of those 20 hours on Facebook.
The bus made a stop at Penn State. At first, I was like, "Woah, a real college! I wish I could go here! This is so cute!" Then, after about 2 minutes, I realized that I was already bored. The charm of college towns never lasts very long.
Pennsylvania is really pretty. I caught myself thinking, "I want to quit school and just go be Amish," a couple of times. We don't get a lot of full, green trees and rolling hills in Manhattan. The Pennsylvania countryside is probably the most beautiful place I've seen in real life. If Pennsylvania is the Caribbean, Texas is the East River.
But when I got back and stepped off that bus at 7th Avenue and 28th Street, I felt relieved. Other places are nice, but they're nothing like Manhattan. I'm comforted by the endless sidewalk and the shouting halal cart workers at 2 in the morning. I embrace the cry of police sirens. I don't like being away for too long. I think 20 hours was cutting it close.
Note: I bring this blog post to you readers via free Wi-Fi in Union Square. Score.
The First Week of Summer
Posted by Carina at 5:49 PM 0 comments
So far, I have been out of school for one week. So far, I have not accomplished anything important. Perhaps it was a well-needed week of laziness in order to set off my summer of productivity? We'll see.
I volunteered at the Museum of American Finance yesterday for the first time in a few weeks. I forget how much I enjoy spending time there. Over the past four or so months I've developed a new interest in colonial and early American history (I used to just be all about that medieval European stuff). Alexander Hamilton is kind of fascinating. There is a cute little room dedicated to him at the museum. I'll have to look into doing some more reading on him and some of the other Founding Fathers.
After work I walked all the way home, taking a few detours on the way. City Hall Park is one of my new favorite parks in the city. It has a lovely fountain in the middle, with some pretty sizable trees all around if you're looking for shade. It's quieter and less stimulating than Washington Square Park, but not eerily silent like Fort Tryon Park. If you want to read a book without being distracted by half-naked people on unicycles, City Hall Park is your place. There's free wi-fi, which I wasn't able to test out because I didn't have my computer on me, but I trust it. When has a New York City Parks Commissioner ever done anything wrong?
I read in the park for a while, and then I wandered through the Lower East Side. I've never really walked around down there for an extended period, and I ended up really diggin' the vibe. That's good, because I'll possibly be spending a bit of time down there since the King's men are moving down to live in SVA's Ludlow Residence. Okay, so maybe it's a little bit of an eyesore, but everything else around it is pleasant. And as long as there's a Duane Reade and a McDonald's within a block, I'm good to go. If it's not convenient, it's not Manhattan.
From there, I made my way northward. I ended up stopping in at the Buffalo Exchange on 11th between 1st and 2nd Avenue. I scored some awesome clothes for not a lot of money, which is totally fine by me. Now, by this point, I had a blister on my right pinkie toe from walking so much in my black flats, but I didn't want to pay to ride the subway only twenty blocks. So, I sucked it up and walked the rest of the way home, running into some movie shoot in the Flatiron District. I already forgot the name of the project. Call me spoiled.
Summer Readin'
Posted by Carina at 9:07 PM 2 comments
Okay, all of you dedicated followers of my blog, here is my summer reading list. Feel free to nag me on occasion to make sure I'm getting it done.
- Mere Christianity
- The Hobbit
- The Fellowship of the Ring
- The Two Towers
- The Return of the King
- The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy
- The Canterbury Tales (that should be fun)
- The Jungle
- The Grapes of Wrath
- Brave New World
- 1984
- A Little Princess
- Oliver Twist
- The Oxford Book of Oxford (I just need to finish this darn book already.)
- The Power Broker
- The Epic of New York City
- A Moveable Feast
- The Federalist Papers
