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@acrosstheriverspree
Took my freshman cohort out to the Highline this weekend! It's amazing how much greenery you can fit on the narrow stretch of abandoned railway.
It's a shame there were a ton of people there that day, but if it were a little more empty I can see it being a lovely place to relax and stroll, especially during sunset hours...
School starts tomorrow here in New York City, and as posts flood the #nyu tag I can't help thinking that at this moment, there is a whole class of people that have just arrived in Berlin, who are living in the same building we were and taking the U-Bahn to Eberswalder Strasse and only just beginning their story in Berlin.
And I'm jealous. I miss Berlin. I miss the food, the weird nightlife, the cold weather. I miss the cobblestone streets and bringing your own bags to the supermarket and not swiping a single card for four months. I miss foamy milchkaffee and the voice announcing train transfers and sales on Ritter Sport chocolate bars. I miss the Berlin Wall, the Turkish market, the brightly-coloured construction pipes. I miss the little two-floor Academic Centre, with its crappy 50 cent vending machine coffee and its endless printing and that day the snow blew past the windows and everyone in class stopped to stare.
I thought I would be done with missing by now, and ready to move on to fond remembering, but I'm not. I fell in love with the idea of Berlin three years ago, then I met it and fell even deeper, and so far absence has only made the heart grow fonder and fonder.
So to everyone at NYU Berlin right now, and for the years to come: live it. Breathe it. Soak in the sun and the rain and the snow. Never get tired of taking your visiting friends to the Reichstag. Everyone arrives in Berlin for their own reasons; some will be attached to the city, some indifferent, some curious. But if there's one thing I can wish for, it's that someone else will feel the same feeling when they leave, and know Berlin has etched itself onto their hearts as well.
Sometimes people get sad when school semester rolls around again after a nice long summer break. Sometimes people are excited to go back to school. Me-- I'm looking forward to the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.
Also known as the Moon Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival happens on the 15th of the 8th month on the lunar calendar, which falls on the full moon. This year, it'll be on September 19th. It's a harvest festival, much like Thanksgiving.
But what makes this holiday super special are these things: mooncakes. They're a little bizarre if you've never seen them, but they're essentially little cakes with a dense filling of usually lotus or red bean paste. The traditional ones (as seen above) contain a salted duck egg yolk in the middle.
And I am absolutely crazy about them. Since they're a seasonal specialty, it's really only possible to get them for about a month around this time of year. So when I see the first mooncakes hit the shelves, it's like going downstairs on Christmas Day and seeing that Santa has left you presents under the tree. It's that good.
As always, my life revolves around food-- but there's nothing like a delicious treat to get me excited for the fall semester!
It's official... August is ticking down, and September is creeping up on us. The weather might not have caught up yet, but my schedule certainly has.
This past week I wrapped up work officially for the summer. If all goes well, I'll be digging out some time in my schedule to keep interning in the fall, but for now I can hang up that pencil skirt (and invest in some more interesting office attire...)
Tomorrow, I'm starting a week of training to be a College Leader in CAS's College Cohort Program. So if you happen to be an incoming CAS freshman reading this blog-- who knows, we might meet each other very soon!
So sorry about the lack of pictures! My pile of unfolded laundry definitely isn't worth it.
New York is famous for its pizza, and Grimaldi's is said to be one of the best of the best. The famous original is in Brooklyn, but did you know there's one on 21st St and 6th Ave? I didn't-- but friends with a pizza craving and Yelp quickly fixed that problem.
I'm a sucker for fresh mozzarella, and add on sausage and mushrooms? Yes please. They only sell whole pizzas though, so remember to bring friends!
If hectic summer New York life is getting to you (haha, as if, right?), a little peace and quiet can be found-- ironically-- right around Washington Square Park. The Bobst stacks are generally left alone enough during the school year, but now you can't even hear the shuffle of books and papers from hardworking students using the study tables.
What am I doing in Bobst on an August Friday, you ask? I guess I'm a bit of a nerd...
You didn't think summer was only fun and games, did you? There's work to be done! More specifically, I'll be moving into a new apartment with my friends for the new semester next two years at the end of the month. And that means doing all sorts of grown-up tasks, from figuring out why Verizon FiOS internet is so expensive making sure we get internet to finding some snazzy furniture to deck out the place.
So here we are at IKEA, slaving away through hundreds of chairs and tables and amazing things. Okay, who am I kidding-- IKEA is 110% fun and games anyways. I could spend hours in there admiring clean, cheap, Scandinavian design. I'll be looking forward to coming back here to stock up on cute household everything really, really soon!
(Seriously, 40$ bed? Sign me up.)
Snow monkeys among skyscrapers-- definitely not something you see every day.
This weekend was so nice, we took advantage and ran off to Central Park for the zoo and a picnic. There's something about seeing animals that always makes me super happy, but nothing makes me happier than laying down a picnic blanket in Central Park and lazing the cool, breezy afternoon away with some of my best friends. Despite everyone working all week, free time in the summer is real free time-- no assignments, no upcoming exams, no obligations-- and it makes weekends extra fantastic.
Lower Manhattan and the Financial District are probably better known for its tall, imposing skyscrapers and businesspeople in suits, but it seems that I'm finding more and more gems, especially closer to the sea.
Where Fulton Street meets the East River is the South Street Seaport, and you'll know when you've hit it when the streets turn to cute cobblestone and wooden piers, and the shop facades take on an cozy brickwork quality. The place itself is already crazy cute, with an ocean breeze and grand historical ships floating in the harbour. But it gets better-- in addition to pop-up retail, there's a beer-garden style mini food fair, as well as an open-air film series and cultural events.
It's not huge, but it's a relaxing place to spend an evening enjoying a day without insufferable heat. You can find their list of events here (x); maybe you can catch a free movie or two! We watched Finding Nemo, a classic, while enjoying a milkshake-- it's nice to see the adults were probably more into it than the kids!
One World Trade Centre. For the past two years, I've been watching it grow out of a beam of light in the night sky. I went away to Germany, and while I was gone it became the tallest building in New York.
I'll be looking forward to seeing it in the distance on my walks to campus next semester.
Caught the sun behind a cloud on the edge of lower Manhattan this afternoon.
I'm guilty of leaving the edges of Manhattan island painfully unexplored (I blame the lack of convenient subway transport, but I'm only trying to shift the blame). Sometimes I forget that Manhattan is an island-- its existence is far larger than its physical size-- but the smell of the sea and the white sails on the water and the setting sun was a lovely reminder.
Found Iron Man as I was walking through the edges of Chinatown/Little Italy. I love it when I stumble on these quirky little things in the city when I'm not expecting it.
If there's one thing I'm thankful for in New York, it's that I have a reliable supply of decent-quality Chinese food. I consider myself to be Canadian by definition, but by culture I'm still a definite Chinese-Canadian. And with the East Asian population in Vancouver at a solid 27% (approximate number, sources are from Wikipedia), I've developed a heavy dependence on familiar meals.
On Elizabeth Street in Chinatown, there's a super small restaurant very descriptively called "Shanghai Asian Cuisine", serving up generously-portioned plates of Shanghai-style dishes. Xiaolongbao, or these buns, are a Shanghainese specialty-- they're steamed buns with meat filling. The catch is, they're full of hot soup! So if it's your first time eating them, don't make the mistake of taking a big bite (or worse, putting a whole one into your mouth); you'll get a huge mouthful of scalding hot soup. The trick is to bite a little hole on the edge, drink the soup, and then enjoy the bun and filling.
A hearty way to enjoy a nice cool summer afternoon. Yum!
A happy belated Fourth of July! It's my first serious Independence Day celebration, since I usually spend the summer at home, so I thought I'd make the effort this one time to go see the Macy's fireworks live.
I camped out for 4 hours for this (although I don't think it was necessary in the end, there were much less people than I expected!) but I got front row seats to a really, really spectacular fireworks show. Huge! It's the perfect temperature when the sun goes down, and there really isn't anything like the boom and sparkle of live fireworks in the sky.
Who knew New York had this much Canadian Pride? Central Park today had some early celebrations for Canada Day-- which is actually on July 1. Everything was decked out in red and white, and included intense hockey and Mounties in uniform (x). We didn't stay for the evening concerts, unfortunately, but it was a nice day spent with cool people despite the heat!
It's too bad I'm not home for Canada Day, but not all is lost. And look up on July 1-- I hear the Empire State is lighting up red and white in celebration. :)
Alright, I'm going to be honest. Post-Berlin, summertime New York... is not the most fantastic place I've been.
I'm having to get used to the big city life again. Yesterday I sucked-- majorly sucked-- at jaywalking. Today I forgot that you have to check if the stairs down to the subway say "Uptown" or "Downtown", because sometimes they're completely separated. I can't see the Alexanderplatz TV Tower, nor can I see mountains, so I've lost my sense of direction continuously throughout the day. And there are just so many people.
Also, it's hot. Okay, I'll admit it-- I'm a complete wuss when it comes to heat. As soon as it hits 20 degrees Celsius, I'm pretty much in a tank top and shorts and hiding in air conditioned basements... and here it's about 28 on an average day.
But in good news, I landed the internship I came to interview for, so I'll be doing my best to suck up the nicht so gut weather and enjoy the opportunity to say I've been in NYC year-round.
A good night's rest desperate last minute packing, and tomorrow it's back off to the big city! Because of study abroad, I haven't been there since December-- time to test if absence really has made the heart grow fonder.