“I like it when somebody gets excited about something.” ― J.D. Salinger

Prof Milner and I!

This morning I don't think I've felt so much excitement in a really long time - one of my professors was coming to de-brief the UN in advance of the September Summit on refugees!

HOW COOL IS THAT?!

So I made sure to e-mail and take some time off work so I could sit in on the conference and enjoy.


I did a little bit of work in the morning and then when 9:50 came around, I headed straight to the conference room, excited to go see him speak (Like a proud student).

In GA, just hanging

A few of my friends with the missions were there and it was super cool to sit there and tell them "Oh yeah, that's my professor btw." I felt super insanely cool. It was awesome.

Well, 10 rolled by... then 10:20... and then he showed up - gave me a wave and it was great.

Ottawa, in a way is home to me, since it's somewhere I've lived for so long and felt so used to and accustomed to. So having my professor come to the UN and speak felt like a little piece of home. It was nice to see a familiar face - especially at work.

Yup.

I went up to him afterwards and gave him a big hug and then had to bolt - unfortunately I had another meeting (busy, busy).

I ran over to UNFPA, which unfortunately is in another building far away from the Secretariat, who
was doing a session on careers in the UN and different tips surrounding it.

He took the selfie. <3

It was a pretty okay meeting, I felt like I was a bit more informed (after talking to so many people) and then headed out (since I felt like I had missed so much).

I ran back to work, did a little bit more stuff for my projects and then was called down to another meeting to drop something off (I guess this is going into too much detail, eh?) and met another friendly Canadian! Networking, I can do it -kind of.

Went back to work, hung out for a bit, did some more work on different formatting ideas, waited outside for my professor, unfortunately he is such a busy guy, we had to post phone the meeting. Afterwards, had some wine and cheese with our USG and the whole office, went for a quick drink and then headed home!

"Spending time outdoors makes you feel great." Elizabeth Hurley

This is a small decimal
of what we originally
walked into

We slept in a little bit today since it was a Sunday morning (even though I totally did wake up super early) and planned to head over to an American Diner.

When we stepped out, we were greeted by closed streets and thousands of Puerto Rican flags. Turns out it was the Puerto Rican day parade. We had just randomly stumbled upon it. It was a bit difficult to get around because they had closed off so many streets (I can see why the gridlock is so bad) so Chris and I went the very long way around, walking past Times Square until we hit the Evergreen Diner.

yeah....

We got seated pretty quickly, and actually, the first thing that Chris noticed was that the menus were really old. How? There was a silhouette of the twin towers on it...

Other than that bump, the food was pretty delicious, we had some normal bacon, eggs and home fries and sat for a bit before we headed out.

We kind of tried to see the Puerto Rican parade, but the streets were closed up so bad we didn't even attempt to try. So we went on our way.

Hit the spot more than it should have..

I brought Chris over to the Rockefeller centre, which was filled with lots of tourists. They had finally switched out all the flags so it wasn't just the American ones flying everywhere (as it was for Memorial day). We went inside (I had never been inside before and I feel like when you have another person with you, it always makes things easier because you go in a group [group mentality man]) and it was quite beautiful actually. There was a lot of art deco style decorations everywhere and I didn't realize it, but the whole lobby and the area around it is actually filled with stores to shop in! Kind of like a mini-department store.

Just roll with it faces

We headed all the way to the back and walked around the NBC gift shop for a bit when suddenly...

A lady who works in the gift shop went up to us and asked us if we wanted to take a tour of the NBC studios. For free.

We immediately said yes without really thinking about what was happening.

Turns out two people who had bought the ticket before didn't show up and they had two extra tickets that were going to waste!

Great timing on our part.

We walked through the security entrance kind of in awe, shock and disbelief that we just got handed two free tickets for a tour of the studios where they film SNL, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.

Outside the Rock

We started off by sitting in this mini theatre room where they gave us a brief history of NBC and their history of filming in 30 Rock. I don't really remember how much I was told since I was still kind of in shock.

We were led around the building by two NBC pages and it was seriously a really cool behind-the-scenes tour. We visited the sets of the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, the Show with Seth Meyers and then Saturday Night live. The seats for the Tonight show are actually made from the same leather seats as the inside of a Ferrari.

Wow.

Unfortunately, we were unable to see the NBC news studio as it was actually in use (they were busy because of the Breaking news because of the earlier Orlando shooting).

It was quite interesting because everyone who was working in the studios were working in these glass areas so tourists (like us) could see everything that they were doing. They were not closed and boxed in rooms.

One of many bridges!

At the end of the tour, we were able to create our own NBC Late night show! It was super exciting (and a bit confusing since I had no idea what was going on and had to kind of go with everything they told me to) and fun. I got to host my own late show! PLEASE WATCH IT. http://onair.thetouratnbcstudios.com/717AB704

After the tour, they let us keep the pins. Chris and I headed out and started our walking up to Central park. We tried to grab some Starbucks along the way, but... their frappucino machine was ... broken.

Bethusda Terrace!

We asked if there was another Starbucks nearby and the guy said across the street.

Literally, across the street. Why is this even necessary?! WHY DO YOU NEED MORE THAN ON PER STREET BLOCK?

Anyway, we fulfilled our craving.

We tried to go through Central Park but it was quite difficult, considering the fact that the whole East side with Balto, Hans Christen Anderson and other things to see were closed off because of the parade. I was quite sad about it but I showed Chris around the other areas and some of the things that were highlights for me when I did my walking tour beforehand. We checked out all the main stuff, like the main promenade, the besthusda fountain, the Belvedere tower, strawberry

Too bad we did'nt get a row boat...

fields, la rambla and more.

We actually walked up to a map in the park at one point at a really lovely older lady came right up to us and asked if she could be of assistance and tried to give us some suggestions and recommendation. So kind of her. We walked around for a bit more before headed over to the metro, hopped in and took it downtown.

We kind of missed our stop because we were checking out stuff online but afterwards, we went back on our merry way.

We walked around for a bit and I realized that we were in the Grenwich village area and I brought
Chris over to Stonewall Inn to take a look at a piece of HISTORY.

The rally to show support, love and solidarity.

Pizza with almost
everything

Outside, I was not prepared for what happened next. But I was honoured to be there. For those of you who do not know what happened, there was a mass shooting - the worst shooting in American history - in a Gay club in Orlando where 50 people died and dozens more were injured. Outside, the Stonewall Inn was a rally, a rally of love and togetherness. Everyone in the neighbourhood had come together in support of each other and those in Florida. It was actually quite beautiful and moving to stand outside and be a part of an event that is so much bigger and larger than myself and anything I've ever been to. It's a very humbling but heartwarming experience. The speeches were beautiful and carried with them an emotion that hit you like little waves on the beach kissing your toes.

Chris and I left after a little while, as there was more for us to see and we headed over to Joe's Pizza, which is in the neighbourhood and grabbed a pizza pie and oh my god, Chris went hard. He ordered the pizza with all the toppings and, my oh my, did they oblige. They went super heavy on the toppings, to the point where you could just BARELY see the cheese underneath. It was pretty damn good.

Beautiful sunset

Chris and I walked a few blocks over and I showed him the highline (which he loved, I mean who doesn't love it) which is an above ground park! We walked and walked until we found a nice place to sit and eat our pizza. It was pretty filling and delicious, just kind of overflowing with toppings, to the point where we looked like pigs eating because the toppings kept falling off.

We then grabbed some gelato from the place close to us which had a lemon/orange sorbet (Chris loves citrus fruits) and sat down at ate it for a bit. The gelato we got was actually the exact same gelato that was being served by the Italian mission!

Empire State on the
Rooftop!

But the gelato. Bad idea. The highline is right by the West Coast of Manhattan island... so you can imagine how windy it is. And it wasn't just wind, it was the kind of wind that really hits you hard and gets straight into your bones and freezes you. *Shudders thinking about it*

We walked down for quite a bit and felt the sun go down. It was quite beautiful to see.

Afterwards, we looked for a metro to go to, but realized it would be a nice walk since the weather was nice and it wasn't rainy. We headed up and bought some flowers and passed by Madison Square Gardens and then headed home.

:D

At home, we sat down for a little bit and then headed over to to Refinery Rooftop where we got to sit outside for maybe 10 minutes before they had to bring us inside because they had a noise thing that started at 11pm. But we got to be outside and have a really
sick view of the Empire State building!

We sat there for a bit, talked and then headed home and to bed (we didn't watch Game of Thrones this week).

"My life is not that glamorous. I actually live a pretty simple life, really. I just work. I don't have time to do all these glamorous things. I just do my thing, just work." Olga Kurylenko

He came all the way to see me!

This morning I walked into work pretty pumped since I was going to leave early. I headed over to work, started doing my own thing, skipped lunch and did as much work as I possibly could. The morning was quite hectic as I had to put together some materials for a huge meeting my office was about to have with the EOSG.

I got called out a bit early so I could go out and find some office supplies (that were not available at my office) and then headed over to another place to pick up some plants... It was an

In the TCC. 

interesting morning, to say the least. 

After doing my work and then heading over to pick up supplies, I walked over to Grand Central Terminal to pick up Chris! We met up at the Opal clock (that's worth millions of dollars) and just stood there for a bit (I hadn't seen him in over a month). 

Two loves of my life.
And Chris

I grabbed him and then took him home to drop off his stuff and then we headed over to the UN! There, one of my colleagues was kind enough to bring us both upstairs and then we took a mini tour of the building with Nan and Chris bought some goods. He saw a bunch of the artwork and the Trustee Council room which was empty. Afterwards, Chris got to meet everyone who worked in the office (except for the USG). We headed over across the road and went into a building where the night before, my friend with the

"Day of Portugal"

Portuguese Mission invited me to a Portugal day celebration! I hadn't RSVP'd so when I went up to the guy, I showed him the online invitation I got and told him I RSVP'd late and he just told me "it's ok, 12th floor". I'm sure my UN badge had something or another to do with this...

We headed up to the 12th floor and there, we were greeted by a bunch of large posters celebrating

View of the UN, Secretariat and East River. Best party ever

Portugal day and, knowing no one there (The person with that Mission wasn't there yet and my friend who sent me the invitation information wouldn't be there all night since they had work to do), I headed over to the balcony where I stood and talked for quite a while.

The view was completely and utterly spectacular. It was a view of the East River with a perfect shot of the UN, Secretariat and all the (empty) flag poles. I was lucky it was so sunny and bright out, since it gave me the best view of the UN and beyond.

After a little while, we headed inside, where it was starting to really fill up and as we walked in, there

Enjoying our open bar

was an open bar with orange juice, red wine and vino verte (green wine). We grabbed a glass each and walked around to take a look at all the decor, the piano and the flags all around. We stood for a bit by the piano and had an excellent view of the proceedings when they started.

Unfortunately, quite a lot of it was in Portuguese. I caught a few words here and there (English really does steal from every language, doesn't it?) but I didn't really get the gist. There were a few speakers throughout the night and some of them actually did speak English, which was nice to hear. After the speeches, we were delighted to hear some musical accompaniment by a Portuguese student playing on piano. As we walked around, we were served many Portuguese dishes, including deep fried cod balls, Rissóis de Camarão (Portuguese Shrimp Dumplings), Black-eyed beans salad and pasteis de nata (egg tarts). It was a delicious night. Before we left, everyone got a small "Portuguese day" gift bag with catalogue stuff, a mouse pad and a box of "science (the event was cosponsored by a Science and Tech Organization)." As we left, I ran into my Portuguese friend and thanked him for the night and left him to his party and thanking delegates.

On the Patio of the Delegate's Lounge

Afterwards, Chris and I headed over to the UN where we were let in by my friend from the "Mission of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta." Yes that is a thing. She led us into the Delegate's Lounge and since it was so many people's first time there, I had to show them how to get in.

When we got up there, the weather was beautiful! So there were many people both inside and outside of the Delegate's Lounge just relaxing and enjoying themselves. It was the first time I had been to the DL and there were that many people.

Dinner was SO GOOD

I ended up pulling Chris all around the outside patio and inside of the building to show him around and see all the different people, artwork and other stuff around the DL and I'm sure he loved it, hanging out at the "local" UN drinking spot and seeing everyone talking, enjoying and unwinding after a long week. I got to talk to quite a few of my friends (introduce them to Chris) and found out that they had actually been in meetings all day long and my heart is actually crying a bit for them since a lot of them, at the missions, have to stay really late - like sometimes 8 or 9 pm late.

Corner to corner!

Afterwards, Chris and I headed out of the DL to meet up with some other friends (yes busy day) where we grabbed some late night dinner and drinks at a local and delicious restaurant/bar in the neighbourhood. We were sitting in an area that was both half in and out of the restaurant, and we ended up not only watching part of the football game, but also watching an arrest scene... We got to see cops run down the street, arrest someone and then spend about 30 or so minute writing down the arrest. Chris really got the full New York experience today. 

It was interesting. To say the least.

Afterwards we headed home from the fun night and enjoyed the beautiful weather. We dropped by Grand Central Station (since earlier we wanted to try this) and we went downstairs where it was mostly empty and did the WHISPERING WALL!! This is right in front of the Oyster bar and it is engineered so you can whisper into the corner and hear the person on the other corner perfectly fine! Actually many guys propose to their girlfriends this way... (wink wink)

"Success is not a destination, but the road that you're on. Being successful means that you're working hard and walking your walk every day. You can only live your dream by working hard towards it. That's living your dream." - Marlon Wayans

FRIDAY! Finally - Friday. I woke up really early today again, at around 7 am and then thought it would be a good idea to go right back to sleep - but you know when you close your eyes for what you hope is 10 minutes but then it turns out to be an hour and a half? Yeah, that happened to me. I woke up and I needed to be at work for 9am, which isn't a problem usually since I live so close.

...But this morning I had to go and pick up some stuff for the office. I was a bit late - but not by much! Though that was with no help from Staples. I headed in, found the exact thing I needed within 2 minutes of being ni the store and then waited in line for twenty minutes.

HOW DOES STAPLES HAVE A TWENTY MINUTE LINE ON A FRIDAY MORNING AT 8:50AM?! How. I don't know. I guess they're super popular or not very quick with their stuff.

When I finally did get into work, it was pretty busy, our boss, the USG (Under Secretary General) was coming in today. We had a working lunch, so all the plans I made with my friends to go to the Green Fair at the UNICEF building all went down the drain.

But that was okay because I learned far more from the working lunch than I would have ever learned to a fair. I believe very strongly in learning first hand in learning through experience.

My Co-worker kindly
gave me this!! :D

if I went 

I tried to power through my other work because I really wanted it to be finished as soon as possible, but I was pulled away to help out with something else - the Secretary General's Report.

Yup. I, a lowly intern got to help out with editing and giving my opinion about the Secretary General's report.

Yeah.

YEAH.

MY MIND IS STILL BLOWN AWAY, I DON'T CARE THAT MY NAME  (No one else in my office's name will be on it either, only the SG will get his name on it) ISN'T GOING TO BE ON IT.

I KNOW I HELPED.

I KNOW I DID WELL.

I TRIED.

Mussels and Meatballs!

And man did I learn a lot. Just hearing about all the edits the report had already been through, the formatting, the footnotes, references, etc. It's all insane how much work goes into it. I also got to learn a lot about the language, the "legalese" and the "UN-speak" that is used, and being able to go

through a document first hand and provide support for it was a pretty damn good feeling.

THE MOST DELICIOUS PIZZA

I ended up staying pretty late, late enough that I had to cancel all my plans for the evening and we were probably the last ones to leave the building. But it was totally worth it.

Afterwards a friend hit me up and asked me if I wanted to go to food, so I agreed and dinner ended up turning into a few drinks and going to bed at 3am.

Good day.

"Tell the truth, work hard, and come to dinner on time." Gerald R. Ford

I am a bit overwhelmed by how much I love this city and how much I feel like I've integrated in. I feel at comfort here, but not too comfortable - still challenged. I feel good. I also feel like I'm not getting enough sleep - which I'm probably not. There's just so much to do here! And with a lack of homework I have my evenings free to fill them up with friends and events and things to do! There's just so much to see and do here and I just don't want to stop. Part of me won't let me because I know that I'm only here for such a finite amount of time and there's so much for me to do.

The place setting and flowers were beautiful!

Even though I arrived only three weeks ago, I feel like I've been here for a while. I feel like I know the city and the things here pretty well. I fell the history, culture and atmosphere really surround me and take me in. It's actually a really great feeling.

So today was another Monday blah. But it wasn't too bad. I took some photos in the morning and went into work and did some work on specific things. At lunch, I went outside and really enjoyed the weather! I met another Canadian friend (who we actually have a mutual friend with) and we headed out to sit and just enjoy the weather.

Dinner! :) 

At work, I worked on my project again before it was home time. I headed home and clean up a bit, worked a bit on my blog, tried to take a nap and before I even knew it, it was already 8pm! My friend headed over to watch some Game of Thrones (I've never cried so much for a fake character so much my whole life) and afterwards we cooked dinner together. We had some really delicious tilapia fish with fresh key lime pie. To die for,

It was actually really lovely, my friend, my roommate and I all sat around and we talked about anything and everything. I really enjoyed their company. All in all, a good and relaxing day.

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

It's hump day! Woo! Means that I don't have to do too much today, just sit around and do some work. Today I was tasked with the job of looking through GA and Security Council resolutions. Woo, so much fun (Actually it was cool to learn more about the subject). 

At lunch, I decided to go out and look at what was going on! 

Turns out every Wednesday, on 47th, there is a market that goes on there. The market has fresh food, baked goods, drinks, pretty much everything a good market should have. I went over with a friend and we walked around to check stuff out. It was actually quite nice. 

Afterwards, I headed back to my cubicle, watered the plant there (It was dying but now I'm trying to bring it back to life!) and did some more work. We had a meeting afterwards where we were trying to figure out the different responsibilities of different departments and who has "accountability" to who.

The Market :)

It was so confusing. My god, I don't think I've ever walked out of a meeting even more confused than I went in. I thought I had a general idea of what each department, for example, DPKO, DFS, UNICEF and OIOS were in charge of... But I guess that's not the case. There's a lot of cross accountability and some things that just fall into different categories. It's a bit complicated.

It was, in general, a pretty relaxed day. I mean my boss, the special coordinator, was in today so everyone sounded like they were high stress and tired. There was a lot to be done. 

It was nice afterwards, I meet up with two of my friends to go grab some dinner at place called Dee Daa. We headed out for Thai food at a nearby restaurant... But unfortunately... they ran out of pad thai. Literally their signature dish. I could not believe it so I grabbed their "drunken noodles" instead. It was okay, not anything great and only a little bit spicy, and I realized it was a fast food take out place. The guys were super nice though, they were rocking out to hard hip hop music and they gave us two extra servings of spring rolls so it was a nice time to visit. 

We sat and talked for a while, which was really nice considering the fact that it was so hard to meet up sometimes with our schedules.

Afterwards, I headed home and just relaxed for a while. All in all a good day. 

Dinner with Friends!

"A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work." - Colin Powell

Mondays are super blah.

Today I didn't have much work to do other than my normal project and some notes. So it wasn't all that exciting. Around lunch time, I went outside simply so I could walk around. Man the weather has really plummeted down and it was cold!

On my walk out, I actually ran into another intern who's mom came to town to visit (how sweet is that!). We talked for a bit and it was really nice to just be able to run into someone in the city. I'm already integrated! Haha.

Dinner! So delicious.

I went out to buy some flowers for my supervisor and then headed back through the security where the security guard jokingly took the flowers, said thank you and left. He was a funny one.

I spent the rest of the day working on my project. I couldn't actually leave because there was a big meeting happening behind me and I was kind of scared of leaving with all the High Level people behind me in the meeting.

When I finally did get to leave, I went over to the dollar store by my house and oh my god did it have SO MANY ITEMS. I could not believe how much it had, they even had frozen produce and things like cheese and yogurt. Just wow. It is amazing.

I headed home and got some food ready and baked TWO PANS of food for myself and my roommate. Whoops, may have been a bit over excited. We had dinner together with another friend of hers, had some white wine and for dessert, some peanut butter cups and chocolate almonds! It was super delicious.

All in all, a good day. Work is wearing me down a bit but the nights after, walking back home in a crowd of people that just have this amazing one track, goal orientated mind, where they walk so fast and are so determined... that's a really amazing atmosphere to be around. It's actually more inspiring than I thought it would be. It's nice and really keeps me going. I think just being around people who are so successful and so driven makes me even more determined about my job. It makes me want to be more and experience more. It makes me want to go out, conquer the world and be everything that I could ever want to try to be! It's an amazing feeling.

"Monday night blahs" - Me

Monday blah. Today was my second day at the UN and I'm not going to lie, definitely boring and not that exciting... Not too much to do. I couldn't really do anything anyway because I didn't have a computer. There were also a lot of meetings that I 100% was not invited to. So it was kind of lame. But I got to talk a lot to my supervisor, get to know her, and find out about United Nations laissez-passer.

How cool is this?!

Literally.

The.

Coolest.

Wikipedia says this about it: United Nations laissez-passer (UNLP or LP) is a travel document issued by the United Nations under the provisions of Article VII of the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations[1] in its offices in New York and Geneva, as well as by the International Labour Organization (ILO). As with national passports, some countries/regions accept it for entry without the need for a visa (e.g., Kenya, United Kingdom, Schengen Area, Lebanon, etc.), while other countries may require a visa before it can be accepted for entry to the country (depending on the nationality of the UNLP holder). Most officials hold a blue UNLP (up to D-1 level), which is similar in legal status to a service passport (however, diplomatic status may be conferred on the holder if the visa issued in the UNLP is a diplomatic visa). A red UNLP is issued to particularly high officials (D-

We both bought dessert! Haha

2 and above), and depending on their rank, this may confer diplomatic privileges and the red UNLP may therefore be similar to a diplomatic passport. HOW. COOL. IS. THIS. LIKE. I DON'T EVEN. I need one. This is my new goal. I can do this (I think).  

Dinner :D 

It was generally a pretty lax day. After work, I bought some food and some groceries from Fairway (which is actually pretty big and not too bad). Groceries in comparison to Canada are expensive here, but that is okay! Groceries and fresh produce mean eating healthy - right? Right?

When I got home I took a bit of a nap and then when my roommate came back, we cooked dinner, ate and sat together! It was so super nice, I really really enjoyed it. It was a great way to really end the day (we even both bought dessert).