"How about the quote 'how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." - A. A. Milne

Woke up a bit late this morning and was feeling a bit sick from the night before, BUT I MADE IT INTO WORK, more importantly, I made it into work before a few people. I mosey'd around a bit, just

a bit, and did some work. I got a new task today so I'll be populating some spreadsheets for the next little while. 

While doing that, one of my good friends (he is Brazilian and Italian, what a cool mix right?) wanted to meet up for a coffee before saying good bye. *cue tears here* 

I met him up for coffee and we spoke and talked a bit and the whole time all I could think of was how fast the time was going and how short this internship is and will be. Already, I'm almost a month into the internship, which means I only have about two months left - only two months left in one of the greatest cities in the world.

I am heartbroken. What's even worst is the friends that I make now...are leaving soon. So many people that I've met only just recently are leaving. They're going home, they're continuing their lives and they're doing other things. It's heartbreaking because the UN is so full of happiness and hellos, while walking hand in hand with sorrows and goodbyes. The friends I make here, who I clicked and got along with, those who are kind hearted and whose wavelengths connect with him will come and they will go. It's scary and it's sad - it feels worst than being left alone; it feels like being left behind. 

Reflecting on this now, I know it sounds immature and it sounds insecure and yes I will move on and do other things, etc. but in that moment, being told that a friend, a cherished kindred spirit is leaving, it does fracture the soul a bit as they take a piece of your heart with you. I experienced that when I lived in France in Grenoble and my friends were leaving one by one... I was lucky because I was one of the earlier people to leave, and unlucky because I had to leave so much behind. 

But of course, those moments fade and that feeling, although now lodged in my heart, will eventually change and evolve into fondness, fondness of the memories that I had with these people who will leave. When I see photos or hear words or phrases, I will reminisce and remember the kindness, always the kindness.

Dessert, main, appetizer, bread stick and apparently some guy
from New York Fleet week showed up.

As I walked back to my office, I did some more work on my project and then at around lunch time, it was time for lunch! One of the very, very, very lovely ladies at my office wanted to take the interns out to lunch at the Delegate's Dining Room! We headed on down to the floor and had our reservations, went inside and were greeted by this spectacular view of the river, the bridge and the island across from it. The plates and the setting was done beautifully and the atmosphere was calm and ambient. 

When we sat down, we were brought a basket full of different types of bread and these delicious, almost flatbread like baked cheese bread "sticks" to start off with. There were three tables full of food for people to go and get whatever they'd like to eat. 

The first one was the appetizer table and they had smoked salmon, smoked duck, crab bisque, different salads and sauces and more that I just do not remember. It was very fresh.

The second table had main course and there were options with smoked cod, chicken and sausage, season's vegetables, Korean beef and a chef at the end serving a delicious baked salmon with mango sauce. 

At the dessert table was all kinds of cakes, macaroons, mousse, fresh fruit and others. 

It was delicious, for the price ($35), all you can eat, it was pretty good. The waiters came by to refill our water constantly, but I was a bit disappointed that they never came back with the basket of bread again. 

I think everyone should go there at least once to enjoy the atmosphere and have that great experience to dine with foreign dignitaries and other UN personnel. It's definitely a cool experience and great for your taste bud and tummies. We ended up talking for quite some time, for so long that by the time I got back to the office, it was almost already time to go.  I talked a bit more to my office co-workers and then headed out back home. I was so exhausted from all my activities and other things that I was doing this past week that I got home and just passed out. 

Goodbye with smiles

Couldn't pass out for long though, my friend and a few of his co-workers were meeting up in the park by my place so I got up (begrudgingly) and out of bed and headed over. 

When I got to the park, they had great eyes because I honestly did not seem them at all, they were the ones that found me and waved. We sat and talked for a good long while, long after the sun went down. It was really nice actually, it was the kind of conversations I really missed, ones where we talked about language, history, all these different academic and cultural-based topics where I could very freely ask questions to try to learn. It was really wonderful having people who were from different places explain, for example, their political system and their experiences as a person living in that culture. 

I love conversations like this. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it's nice to talk about things that do not matter like the Kartrashians or Drumpf, but sometimes I'd rather talk about something that really does matter and will help me learn and grow in the future. I don't want to talk about the latest shoes or fashion trend (mostly because I have no idea what they are to be honest), I want to talk about the lastest news and the business trends. I want to know about what's going on in the world around me, how it'll affect me and how it'll affect those around me. 

At the risk of sounding like a complete loser - I thrive off this stuff. I'm such a news and trivia junkie (as you may have noticed after reading some of my blog) that I want to hear and learn more constantly. I may be curious by nature... but then again, I may just be nosy. I enjoy conversations that are intellectually stimulating and provoke curiosity.  

At the end of the night, everyone, unfortunately had to head home and say goodbyes. 

"Life is a lot like jazz, it's best when you improvise." - George Gershwin

When I went into work, it was definitely a party (not really). There were a lot of people there and now because there are so many interns it is difficult to have enough space during meetings for everyone to sit around. When I got in, I was told that we were ordering lunch that day and I got to choose some stuff for us to eat - lots of salad, pasta and pizza.

In the morning, it was all about killing time until lunch. Turns out it wasn't hard since we had another coordination meeting going on and may I just say, wow, there is so much though and there are so many complications when it comes to this. I am so glad I don't work for the UN.

Oh wait.

Champagne lunch, what what.

Right after the meeting, we had lunch altogether to welcome the new interns and our gratis personnel. It was quite lovely sitting around and talking to each other with our food and our glasses of champagne. We wall talked about our own personal experiences so far in the UN and learned a little bit from each person about their past. It was definitely nice.

Afterwards, went and got down to business. I left to head home and drop off my heavy bag and stuff but I still had things to do. My evening had just begun. I started off by grabbing a coffee with a friend for a bit and sitting down and catching up on her and some of the things she's been going through.

Afterwards, I headed over to the UNHQ and was denied entry. Was pretty great, gotta say. As I am a UN Intern, I am not allowed on the premises after 6pm. Great. So I had to ask a co-worker to help me go in. She did, she came straight downstairs, picked me up and brought me up to the Delegate's Lounge where I was able to enjoy some beautiful live jazz from a UN band with my supervisor and other co-workers. We got bottles of rose and a platter of charcuterie and fromagerie, a beautiful view of outside and got to really enjoy the evening filled with live music. It was actually very surreal,

Live jazz by UN personnel. So good.

sitting in the Delegate's Lounge in the United Nations listening to live jazz music (done beautifully btw).

There was a really cute little girl (I didn't take a picture of her, I'm not a creep) who was jumping up and down enjoying the jazz music and then afterwards, she ran up to us and offered us cookies that she had freshly baked herself. So cute.

After about 8pm, everyone was starting to leave so I went out onto the balcony where there was barely anyone there (unlike Fridays where ALL the interns go) and just enjoyed the sight, the weather and the atmosphere. It was amazing and the whole thing just felt very positive.

FOOD PLATTERS in the Delegate's Lounge

As we were heading out, we got a chance to meet a few other UN personnel and retired UN personnel. It was cool.

As I headed out to go back home, a friend invited me out to a bar, with the night still being early, I agreed and joined her. I was so taken aback and just humbled by her inclusiveness and kindness - I hope one day I can be even half as generous as ehr.

What happened next was not what I expected. It was quite a few people who worked for the UN and were from Murray Hill... singing Karaoke. It was an experience. An interesting one. I got to talk to some UN staff there as well about some of their experiences. Everyone seems to have this interesting and different perspective of the world and how it should be. It's always interesting to try to follow along.

"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

I woke up at a reasonable time today. Eight am to try to get into work at 9am. When I got in, I tried to do my thing, work on my stuff and in general get the job done.

Schnitzel Wednesdays at the Embassy

That is, until a new intern showed up and literally everyone in the office did not know what was going on. Turns out the office that interviewed us and told two of us that we would be the only interns... but hired three. So we got a new intern. We made do with it and I tried to give her as much work as possible.

Other than that, it was a pretty normal day - except! I went over to the German Mission. It was pretty big and imposing, I must say, it was about 23 stories high and half of it was the consulate and the other half was the Mission. As I found out, each diplomat had their own intern so there were (As far as I know) about 20 different interns. That's wild. Some of them have to stay and work on weekends as well so they seem to be also overworked. But the office I was in was pretty cool and there was a lot there!

We headed up to the top floor, the 23rd floor where they had this beautiful restaurant that overlooked much of New York and had some really delicious food. I grabbed some German Schnitzel with salad and potatoes and it was nice. We sat at the unofficial intern table and I got to meet some more of the German interns. Their work is definitely interesting (not that I should or can really talk about it, sorry).

After my nice lunch, I headed over to the card and identification office where they changed the office

The Germans have the best view!

that was on my card (They had originally put OHRM but I work for the EOSG) for me! No hassles or questions, just the way I like it.

Afterwork, my friends and I congregated outside, grabbed some pizza and dinner and walked down to Times Square.  Why? Because we had X-Men pre-screening there! How cool is that? We walked into the theatre and it was HUGE. There were massive amounts of seats and I noticed that the sizes of the drinks here are absolutely massive. I couldn't even believe how big their cups were (yes that is the first thing I noticed when I was there).

Gotta say, the movie was pretty Hollywood, but well done. I enjoyed it a lot and liked that they kept it open for the next few movies. They also had some really clever and funny jokes in it. Worth the watch boys and girls!

Movie screening with some buddies!

Even though I got home "early" I was still exhausted and had to flop into bed to sleep. So tired. But in reflection, it's been amazing being able to experience and do so many things that I haven't done before. It's been amazing just to push myself and do something new and through this become a better person.

"The great thing about new friends is that they bring new energy to your soul" - Shanna Rodriguez

Raining on the square

Today was a stupidly early wake up time. 6:00am. Too early for sleeping and eating late... but I had a good reason! Today at around 7am I was going to be admitted into the NBC studios to get into the studio for Good Morning America to meet and be there for the live filming and interview of X-Men Apocalypse.

Unfortunately, as I was walking down the street towards Times Square, it was raining pretty damn hard. As I approached the square (my first time there actually), I saw that there was a very long line up. It was good that my friend was already there waiting for me in the queue. Unfortunately, she did not bring an umbrella. Her reasoning was that she did not want to bring one because she did not want it to feel like Belgium. Silly reasons from silly friends.

We finally got in about an hour and a half after they told us to arrive (and about an hour after the paper said they'd close the line up to everyone) and were screened by the metal wands at the door.

Ballin'

When we got upstairs, part of the cast of X-men were already there taking selfies with selfie sticks.

James McAvoy was there. So were 4 other cast members.  It was cool. I stood at the side since I wasn't really sure where I should have gone and kind of backed up a bit. People were quite dressed up for it whereas I was wearing a blazer and dress pants (oops).

He plays young Cyclops

It was really cool being in the studio and seeing how much work went into a just 5-minute segment of interviews. There was makeup, hair, camera men, some other guys telling people what to do, people with clipboards...seriously a lot of people. So much goes into a few minutes.

After the very brief filming, I took some photos with some of the actors/actresses and then headed out back to the UN. But before I left, they gave me tickets to go to the pre-screening of X-men the next day! So cool.

I am so lucky that there is so much so close on the island of Manhattan where I can go out and explore!

The cast

Work was interesting, there were meetings and other things to do. I had a meeting with some personnel in UNDP and headed over to the other building (UN has quite a few buildings, not just the Secretariat one) to speak to them. In true UN fashion, no one expected me. I called up and was told that I slipped their mind. Woo. Went back to work. Did my thing.

The Set

Today though, I stayed a bit later so I could hang out with a friend. They had invited me over to their home (very kindly) and I got to enjoy a wonderful night of homemade dinner, great company and

enjoyable television (where they talked about travel and food). I walked home pretty late but content with the improved friendships I made that 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.

"Brooklyn's good. Brooklyn's funky. Brooklyn's happening." - Waris Dirie

Really boring mall. But nice architecture

Today I slept in a little bit today, woke up at 8:30am. So I had some time to actually catch up with some blogging and posting. I was so many days behind! To actually put it into perspective, I'm writing up this blog post... on Wednesday night. This is meant to be a post from Sunday. "Today." I spent most of the morning writing up blog posts and then watching my go to Netflix series, Malcolm in the Middle. Afterwards, I decided to head out, but I was a bit early since the tour started at 2 but I was pretty much done all the posts I wanted to and decided to head out at around 12. 

The metro to get into Williamsburg

I headed out and walked over to the "Mall of America" on Broadway because I always wanted to see
what a mall in America is like.

Honestly, it was amazingly underwhelming. It was like every other mall I've ever been to so I hopped on a train over to Brooklyn! 

Beautiful graffiti on the streets

The train ride was kind of horrendous and to all the parents and other people who care about me reading this right now - I am okay. Nothing is wrong with me and I did the right thing by getting away.

So on the train, Some creepy guy followed me off the train. I was a bit suspicious so I stopped to look at my phone. So he stopped and sat down. So then I started to walk towards the exit...he got up and he followed me but I stopped and looked at my phone again right before the stairs. He kept going I left and took a different exit. Later on, another guy tried to grab my arm while I was walking and when I looked back with disgust he just looked at me and winked. It was a bad first impression of Brooklyn, I'm not going to lie.. but like I said, I came out okay. And it was an "Experience" right?

Found this on my
walk and made me
think of my mom

Well, when I left the subway it got significantly better. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon andever). I walked around for a bit since it was so beautiful out and checked out the area. I wanted to see if Smorgasburg was up but it wasn't. Turns out it's actually put into a different place.
people were out - there were SO MANY people!! And even better, there was a company giving out yogurt so I had a nice light snack to go with my day (don't knock free stuff -

So as I was walking back down, I ran into my friend who I was supposed to go on the tour with and we walked around for a bit, grabbed a coffee and waited for our tour guide...who showed up with a Kylo Ren light saber. Classic. 

We started off with a bit of the history of the area, which included learning about where the name Brooklyn came from - It was actually named after Ben

Imagine how big a house is. That is
how big this graffiti was.

Franklin's grandson! I finally figured out the names of most of the Boroughs in New York. How awesome is that? I also learned a lot about the history of Brooklyn as well and how Williamsburg really started to expand and grow out into what we all know and love to be Brooklyn now. 

The bakery

We started the walking tour by talking about how the area used to be predominately very Polish. So we stopped at a Polish bakery and outside there were a bunch of little old Polish ladies sitting around and talking to each other. The tour guide waved quite a few times, talked to the ladies and really talked up the bakery. 

Fresh and DELICIOUS

While he was explaining the history of the neighbourhood (which I can't really recall right now), one of the little old ladies came up to us and actually opened up her bag of freshly bought bread and offered it to everyone of us. 

Yes. She walked around and she offered every one of us a freshly baked slice of bread. It was delicious and amazing. And then she went back to sit with her ladies. What. A. Sweetheart. 

But that was the sense of community they had. Much like Chinatown, Little Italy, Little India, there was a huge sense of community and family there. It was awesome to experience first hand.

Cool graffiti

As we walked down, the tour guide pointed out various pieces of graffiti and artwork that was spray painted everywhere. In particular, he showed us some artwork that was done on walls by famous artists! Beautiful. He told us that around the area, there are a lot of advertisements around and many times, those advertisements aren't done through posters or pre made, they're actually spray painted on - it's the Brooklyn way. 

With the apartments, many of them are actually done up with graffiti on the side because it gives it a bit of a really "cool" twist on it, makes it edgy and cool to live in. So landlords will let graffiti artists spray paint whatever on the side and graffiti artists will have an opportunity to expand their portfolio! Win-win. 

This was built in the last two decades.
Also the same street with the
Italian festival.

As we were walking through the city, he stopped to talk to a lot of locals on the way. One person in particular struck a chord with me. He was born and raised in Brooklyn but the only one of his friends who could stay there because it had simply gotten too expensive to live there. Once it got trendy to live there, rents skyrocketted and people were forced out. He said that the Brooklyn that exists today was not the Brooklyn from 15 years ago and not the Brooklyn he knew. The Brooklyn he knew was gone.

Russian Orthodox church

It was a bit sad to hear how much the neighbourhood had changed and gentrified but in a way it's also interesting because it is the way that life is meant to go - change is a constant force that no one can go up against. Sometimes change is for the better and sometimes it's for the worst. I would, personally, find it sorrowful if neighbourhoods never changed and things were never different. Not because having no change is boring - but because it would mean that there is no progression. One motto that I have always gone by and always go by is "Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation." I love that line and live by it.

In the back they have an olympic sized
pool. 

We walked by this big main street where the tour guide started talking more to us about areas and how when ethnic areas come in, much like the Polish, they still worship the same gods as before, eat the same foods, do the same things... it's not like when they came to America, they would drop everything and become Americans - no, many were still set in on their old ways and many miss home. Doesn't matter how much you want to go somewhere to live a good life - you will always miss specific things from your old life. So they brought this festival called "The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and San Paolino di Nola" in Williamsburg. It is a huge festival where they bring up a tower that is taller than 20 stories high (Dont quote me on this) and they celebrate with music, performers and most

Playing baseball. Used to be beautiful
park view but now all these buildings
are coming up... 

importantly - food. It's in the summer time so I'll keep in mind that I should check it out!

As we kept walking, we found this beautiful Russian Orthodox church. One way to know that it was an orthodox church was because of the way the cross was. As I found out, the top "bar" was there to represent Jesus. The second is normal, in the shape of the cross and the third, which runs diagonally is there because when Jesus was crucified, to his left, there was the person (do I call them the person?) who believed and accepted Jesus into his heart, and so lead his way to heaven, hence why this side of the diagnal points up. To his right, there was the person (???) who rejected jesus and hence the other side points down to the ground (to hell). It was also apparently the church from Seinfield.

The building that used
to make ink for the US
dollar bills

We headed next to the park where we heard a bit more about the history of New York and learned about how New York really was a gang city with the Serpico family and others. It was a bit scary to hear about. We had two New Yorkers on the tour who said that New York, back in the 70's was a dump. It was horrible - there was corruption and at one point, during one Commission, about 75% of the cops were actually found to be dirty and corrupt. How terrible is that?

We also learned about the pool that was build - Olympic size - back during the Depression. During the summer, people were poor, angry and jobless. To keep them from striking, the city build a pool! How smart is that? Instead of going out and picketing, they could go to the public pool, hang out with their families and enjoy. However, the poool turned out to be too much of an upkeep and ended up going down the drain. People demanded the city do something about it but they city refused. It ended up just being this gigantic waste of space until the 2000s when

The coolest bar ever, where they film
Daredevil and have the sketchiest of
people. 

people would actually, to protest the waste of public space, hold pool parties IN the pool. I wish I could get an invite.

We found out more about the different buildings in the area, such as one specific one that was recently rebuilt, it used to produce all the ink for the US bills! It's now more residential, however, I would never live in there because as I found out, there's actually a lot of uranium (or something to that affect) in the basement. Scary. They went bankrupt and were sued when the people found out that the waste from the factory was leaking into the river... the building had a "mysterious fire" and built something new. 

Heh. 

Wen found this out because there was a bar owner on the other side who found this stuff out from his customers. 

And this is one of the coolest bars ever - it's actually where they film some scenes from Daredevil (Never seen it, heard it's pretty okay). It's probably one of the best dive bars I've ever been in. There were quite a few "characters" inside the bar. I heard a lot about the area and what it was like before, how cheap the rent was and how NOBODY wanted to live there. It was called "Turkey's Nest Tavern." They actually give you alcohol... in a to-go cup with a lid and straw so that you can just take it and go.

How.

Awesome.

The Brooklyn Bowl. At one point they rented it out to the
SwedishRoyal family to hang out while they were in town. 

The place itself had a lot of character within it and I really really loved being in there. I will go back sometime I'm sure. They gave us some tasting of Brooklyn Brewery beer (Since the actual brewery would be so busy with so many people). 

We headed up the streets later, walked by the busy Brooklyn brewery and found out a lot of stuff with the beer scene. Actually, during the digging up of the aftermath of 9/11, the found crushed beer cans of beer that had not been produced for years. They realized that it was because the workers who were building the buildings originally... were drinking on the job and just throwing the crushed beer cans down into the pit to hide the evidence. Interesting.

Also found out that Brooklyn beer is the #2 selling beer in Sweden. People just absolutely love it there. Really they love anything that is "Brooklyn." 

Life quote right here

Actually the tour guide told me about his niece and how when she wants to say something's cool, she'll say, "that's Brooklyn." I want to bring this over to Canada.

We kept walking and ran into a place called "Brooklyn Bowl" Which is this REALLY awesome super
duper cool, gotta go back again bowling alley/concern hall/bar/cooler than wendy place. We were lucky enough to be able to go in as a group and on that day, there was actually a motorcycle show so we got to see a lot of motorcycles! And a live band play. It was pretty sweet. Going to bring all the cool kids there. 

Tru

We kept walking around and saw some really cool places - such as where original signs come from and graffiti advertisements!

We then headed over to the coolest, COOLEST, bookstore/CD/casette/Vinyl place ever. It was called "Rough Trade" and everything was kind of like the inside of a factory with factory carts. In the back, there was a small intimate place where bands could play and at the same place, there were ping pong tables where you could play ping pong. Yup. I meant cool. And the books were pretty unique and hipster too.

Afterwards, as the tour was coming down to a slow down, we headed over by the river and took some very nice photos. It was very casual so the tour guide was just telling us about stuff and having conversations. He actually said I was a pretty funny person and complimented my hair (I made a braid)! :) 

After the tour, my friend and I went off to find RAINBOW bagels and boy did we find them (Holy

Concert venue was small, they had everything, ping pong, music
books, good vibes, great building

crap thuogh $4 a bagel WITHOUT the cream cheese). So we waited in line for a bit and then had to wait about 30 minutes. So we decided to go for a walk.

As we were walking down, we saw the neighbourhood, which is by Williamsburg bridge really change. I mean yeah, there was one beautiful restaurant, Peter Luger (Holy crap there was a guy working for the restaurant holding the door for guests, and when we asked for the menu, the 'steak for two' was about $110, heart attack pls stop. He also told us that if we ever came back we would ahve to have a reservation). But we got into a much poorer area where you could tell that some people had just not grown up with the same opportunities or possibilities as though who are more well off. 

People called this an "abomination"

Even as we went into the McDonalds to use the washroom, the washrooms auto-locked and there were no mirrors or tissues in there.. It was not the most pleasant place. 

My thoughts exactly

However, we walked back to get our bagels and our moods definitely changed. We grabbed them and went on our way. They were beautiful and actually not too bad - very salty and sweet and spongey. As we were walking out, I heard some guy say "only tourists would get something like that." 

But it's an experience.

Right?

yum

After that little snack, we headed over to find some Mexican food and found this really sweet Taco place, Dos Toros which was amazing. For about $4 I got this taco that was just slathered with good delicious food. Meat was moist, veggies were fresh and the shell was the bomb. 

We sat for a bit, talked and people watched before we headed home. Unfortunately, the train was stopped for quite a bit. When I finally did get home, it was quite late in the evening and my roommate came back with KEY LIME PIE, FRESH KEY LIME PIE and it was the most delicious concoction I had ever had my whole life. God it was so good and fresh and just done right. I ended up working a bit on the blog and just pittering around. I watched the newest episode of Game of Thrones and then cried. 

That was my day. Long but good! 

Friends by the New York highline :)

"He was too romantic about Manhattan, as he was about everything else. He thrived on the hustle bustle of the crowds and the traffic. To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the angles..." - Woody Allen

The first stop was at this old school
bakery!

Today was a pretty great day. However, it started pretty early. My body isn't used to not waking up at 7:30 to get to work, so even though I set my alarm for 8:15... I still woke up around 7:30. And lied there. Doing nothing. Actually, that's not true, I did think about how this is what my life has come to. Waking up at 7:30 am every day.

I got up, had some breakfast and then headed down to where I needed to meet everyone for the tours. As I was walking, it was a beautiful day out and I was excited go on and about my down. I needed to be a bit down on 6th street so I stayed on 6th and kept walking. After a little while, about 20 minutes of walking, I looked up.

These are vault lights that used to light
up the basements before there was
electricity

I was on 5th. Apparently I had been walking down 5th for a while and had no idea how I even got there. HOW DOES THIS EVEN 

HAPPEN. I was walking down 6th! And I didn't even take any turns!

How cool is the graffiti here? Some
businesses actually love having this
graffiti on their wall because it amps
up their business and gives them street cred

Well I finally got to where I needed to meet in the park, Spring St. and 6th Ave and there was already a crowd there. Fortunately, the tour guide wasn't there. Unfortunately, neither were my friends. But when they did get there, I ended up accidentally turning just me into 5 extra people. Whoops. But I mean, better publicity right? 

Our tour guide, Jon, started off by giving us a bit of the history of New York, including the dutch originally owning it, the British taking it, etc. It was all interesting history. One of the newer things that I learned was that SoHo actually means south of Houston, NoHo is North of Houston! They do this to a lot of things! Like

It's actually a diagram
of the MTA done well
only problem is that it's
facing the wrong way

Tribeca is actually triangle below Canal street. How cool is that (I am kind of sad that these small things are mostly what I remember haha)?

As we walked through the neighbourhoods, I realized that this was the first time I had actually had friends on the tour with me. It was quite nice actually having someone to go up to and make little comments or gush or enjoy, or just in general whatever with. And when I had more or extra information, I could still talk to others and tell them all about it. It was actually quite nice to have the company. 

As we walked through, some of our first stops included the apartments and art galleries of the area. SoHo was originally a very industrial part of town, which is why so many places have such high ceilings - they were all factories. Quite

a few of the factories actually are now art galleries or apartments (Insanely expensive apartments, you do not want one here). 

Made of solid iron. And they have to
have railings that are updated cosntantly

We dropped by a bakery, called Vesuvio Bakery. It was a very old-school bakery with a very vintage exterior. There were lots of people inside and the cookies that were freshly baked outside looked delicious as well. This is one of the oldest bakeries in New York with old rare coal ovens. They began producing Italian bread and biscuits in 1920. Unfortunately, it is now a law that people are not allowed to bake using coal ovens anymore. There is now a new owner of the store, and it was agreed that they would only allow the new owners have the store if they kept the window front.

We also saw that they had a "green B" sign. So I found out that the New York city health board gives out letters to restaurants. As I was told, green B's are "okay" but not somewhere where you should eat. "Blue As" are where you really want to eat. And you'll always know when and what the status of the restaurants are because everyone must legally put the signs out on their windows or at least

This picture does no justice to how
beautiful the stone carvings are.

somewhere that is visible. And it MUST be visible. 

We kept walking down the street and actually found some really cool street artwork, and it was real legit artwork. It was a kind of map of the New York MTA map on the floor. It was pretty cool. There were also a bunch of glass almost "bulbs" on the floor, called vault lights so that people who lived in the basement would have natural light. Pretty cool eh? I found out that they are also in parts of Europe as well.

The original police headquarters but it
is now apartments (expensive ones)

Many of the sidewalks in New York are hollow. Scathing past flung open hatch doors on a crowded sidewalk, to avoid falling down into kitchen areas and storage basements, is a common obstacle for New Yorkers. In many of the older buildings the basements extend beyond the building’s footprint- opening up to a “vault” space under the sidewalk. As urban industry grew, the sidewalk shape morphed to adapt to the needs of the urban streetscape. In 1845, Thaddeus Hyatt patented “vault lights”, fitted clear glass lenses set within cast-iron panels embedded into the sidewalk surface in front of building storefronts (source).

While walking through, we stopped to look at the streets in front of us. They were made of pure cast iron. So a lot of them, if you bring a magnet, will stick right to the building! They stopped making the

Apparently an AMAZING dessert place
with some really awesome quotes outside

buildings out of wood because they were on fire and brick was just too expensive. On top of that, I also found out that every residential building actually needs to have a fire escape (you know, because of the fires and stuff). It is actually illegal not to have a fire escape in front of a residential building unless the building is commercial or it has been grandfathered in. Cool facts.

Afterwards, we kept walking down the street and found this building with this beautiful hand carved stone roofs. It was gorgeous. The only problem was that people had graffitied the sides of the building and actually made it look kind of ugly. It was horrendous just because it was just such a nice building that people worked for years on. It was interesting hearing about the reason why there are so many high rises. People would buy their land

Difference between
park and playgrounds

and build right to the edge of the lot (which I explained before happens because they wanted as much plot land as possible. That's why they have the grates outside and in front of the stores, so that they could get shipping and other stuff into the building [they had no alleyways and very little backyard]). 

Cute pixel art everywhere

The reason why was that "people don't get charged for building up." So people would buy the land, build a commercial store and then build apartments up so that they could rent it out and make more money. There is, however, one building on Wall Street that is very low, owned by a very rich man, JP Morgan. Now people asked him why he didn't build up and have apartments and in his humble way, he said that "he didn't need the money." #LifeGoals. 

We ended up walking into Little Italy afterwards and checked out all the graffiti in the area. We first passed by a nice playground with only kids. I found out that

Forgot to take a picture
of the sign but the fire
hydrant was pretty baller

in New York, it is actually illegal to be in a public playground without any kids. So if I wanted to buy some food and go to the playground, I wouldn't be allowed to sit because I wouldn't have any kids with me. Interesting.

We walked by the original police station which was in SoHo and we were told about how there used to be a hardcore rivalry between the Irish Catholics who were chosen to be police officers and the Protestant English... So they made their own police office. It was cool.  

Around that area, we also found the apartment that Heath Ledger passed away...It was interesting because I looked up at the building and saw a bunch of acorns and oak leaves (Throwback to another blog post where I talked to you about Vanderbilt and his rowboat turning into his big huge corporation).

Lombardi's original pizza. It was
packed when we went at 3pm.

We headed over to Little Italy, which I found out was actually devastated by the 9/11 plane crashed.

Because the area depended so much on tourism, it greatly diminished and is now only a few roads. Chinatown has really encroached on it now because it isn't dependent on tourists, rather it is dependent on mostly on other Chinese and Asian populations. So Chinatown did really well.

We started out with looking at Lombardi's Pizza, which is the BEST pizza place in all of New York. It was actually the original pizza place in all of the USA. It was originally comfort food and in Italy, they only really ate it as peasant food. They also don't make any pizza slices, they will sell only as a pie, so go hungry or go with friends. Joe's pizza, the other popular

Ferrara's dessert

place, was trained by Lombardi's. After a meal at Lombardi's, you can head over to Ferrara's bakery where they have the BEST (as I was told) Italian baked goods. 

Around the city, there's some really cool pixel art all around. Afterwards, we

kept walking down the street, found the Mulberry street bar and found out that THAT was where Frank Sinatra used to play! It's still very old school with the original interiors. It was beautiful. 

Where Sinatra used to
play, also legit angry
Italian ladies will yell 

I found out that Chinatown and Little Italy were actually originally a German area. Very German. The tour guide explained that immigrants would come to America, try to make their lives better and then move on. So the area changed hands. To show us a bit of what was leftover, we were shown this Catholic church

(from the German era) that was now Chinese and had sermons in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. How cool is that?

Got these bad boys
for $2. 

Afterwards, he suggested two of the best restaurants to eat Chinese food. The first was Hop Kee and Wo Hop which are both on Mott street. For one of them, you should go downstairs instead of upstairs because it's cheaper downstairs and it's mainly for the locals. On top of that, we went down another street that lead to the main park where I found a store that sold 5 dumplings for 1.25. How well priced is that?! 

The German chuch in Chinatown

We walked through the park, where people were playing majong, chess and gambling. Police don't care about it because it's petty crime but it was pretty cool to see. We ended off the tour and our group of people split off, since some

of us wanted to go to the market and others wanted to go back to Lombardi's pizza. The girls and I headed over back to the dumpling place where I asked for 5 dumplings, gave them $2, got 8 dumplings, no change and yelled at frantically in mandarin. Protip. Always have exact change.

We headed over to the Essex street market afterwards where they were having a big block party with food outside in the front of the market. It was actually quite nice

Inside the market! And there was a
block party outside

and reminded me of St. lawrence market in Toronto. It was quite nice and big. We ended up getting some food there, I grabbed some arancini balls, one with pesto, pizza and nutella, found a place by the Williamsburg bridge to sit down and enjoyed our meal. 

Gotta say - it was pretty delicious. They were freshly fried and still

hot. We sat down there for a whileand just people watched. 

Arancini balls in a cool egg carton

Afterwards, we headed back to SoHo and we went window shopping. It was interesting seeing so many things that I could not afford. Like damn. We went into a few stores called "Second Time Again" where I got to find out how poorly educated I am on the ways of fashion and brand names. I found out I am indeed very bad at it. There were clothes there which were literally thousands of dollars. Like more than my rent for a month. I didn't cry but I hurt just looked at them. AND THEY WERE USED TOO. Apparently some of those clothes were also clothes that models and movie stars had worn before. 

When we were finished window shopping, we left the area and two of us ended up going to the BEST grocery store ever. We discovered TRADER JOE'S.

Now. Imagine the best ever grocery stores, reasonable prices (not so low that you question the quality) with delicious hipster whole food quality produce and goods. And free samples.

The block party

This is Trader Joe's. I love it. Oh my god, I grabbed so many delicious things, such as a spinach and kale (I hate kale but I loved this) greek yogurt dip, some corn chips, dark chocolate and peanut butter cups, frozen orange chicken, GERMAN WURST (produced in Germany), pork dumplings, gah, JUST SO MANY THINGS, I BOUGHT SO MANY THINGS, ONLY FOOD. AND MY BILL CAME OUT TO LESS THAN $40. IN NEW YORK. LIKE HOW DOES THIS EVEN HAPPEN ANYWHERE?! 

My dinner, appies and dessert

Yes I am freaking out but i don't feel too giulty about it because it's totally worth it. Guys, Trade Joe's did not pay me to say all this. I just feel this way. I just know that it is amazing. Even though it's kind

of far from my place, I will go and do my groceries there EVERY WEEK so that I can buy as many fresh and delicious groceries as possible. Seriously. It was amazing.

Afterwards, I headed back home and just relaxed, watched some Malcolm in the Middle and vegeated. Had some leftover chicken for dinner, some chips n' dip and some peanut butter cups for dessert.

Worth it. Good day. 

Group photos!