Day One

A few days ago, my mom warned me, "now just be prepared things don't always go as planned."

Somehow, moms are always right.

Like this morning, the day I leave for NYC for the summer...also the FIRST day I have EVER overslept my alarm. I had the brilliant idea that despite however deep my R.E.M. cycle would be at 4 in the morning-I would still wake up to my alarm and have time to shower and get to the airport before my 6:30 a.m. flight.

Well, there's nothing like being woken up 5 minutes before you are supposed to be in the car and on the way to the airport by your mom-who is panicked because evidently my alarm hadn't woken me up an hour earlier. So much for the shower!

Upon my late arrival to the airport, I learned an important lesson. Evidently, you cannot walk up to the counter 25 minutes before your flight and expect to check in.

Thankfully, the extra cheery woman at the counter re-booked me and I eventually made it to NYC only an hour later than planned.

Now I get to write about the fun stuff.

My lovely cab driver, in what I'm assuming is a typical fashion-depsite the nice tip I left him, dropped me off at the bottom of the stairs to my apartment building, leaving me to fend for myself with two over-sized suitcases, a back pack, and wedge heels. I'm sure I was screaming "newbie" as I pathetically tried to drag my bags up the steps to the entrance.

We will call the place I'm staying the W. It's women only, very 1950's. It's designed for girls who are interning or who have just moved to the city and don't have a permanent residence of their own yet. Let me just say that I kind of love the building. I feel straight out of an Astair-Rogers movie. The building is beautiful and I can say that I am pretty fortunate to have the opportunity to stay here, definitely not too shabby for an "intern residence." Plus, when else will I ever have the opportunity to have a roof top terrace that looks out over midtown and right at the empire state building?

The building is 13 floors and even has a garden connected to it. Are you kidding me? A private yard to lounge in-with grass and trees-right in the middle of the city? I'm just going to keep pretending this is all mine and I don't share it with the 400 other people who are living here too :)

My room is small but its perfect for what I need. It's cozy and once I get some magazine cut outs and photos taped up on the wall, it will be my little home for the summer. Also, a major plus of a small room WITH a sink-I don't even have to walk down the hall to the bathroom to brush my teeth! I feel pretty lucky too, because my window looks out over the garden, although I'm sure almost every view from this place is amazing.

I'm interested to get more familiar with the other residents here. So far I have seen a wide range of people. From older, wire-haired women to the many young Europeans to other college girls like me, it should be interesting. I noticed at dinner a lot of people just sit off on their own, on person to a table that seats four. This is both good and bad...I think this is definitely a place where you can be invisible if you want...and while I don't mind the independence, I'd still like to meet at least a few other girls staying here.

I could go on and on, but I think for now I'm going to go lounge on the roof for a bit. It's going to probably be an early bed night after my extra early morning-near disaster. But-I need to go see the city lights at night from the roof..going to take my IPOD to add a soundtrack :)

Here are a few pics....unfortunately these were taken from my phone but pretty soon I'll pull out the real camera and get going with some good photos!










A small quarter of the roof top.



View from the rooftop-Empire State building!


View from my window!



Night view from the roof at the W!





Oh, I almost forgot. Dear mister homeless man, No-I do not want fries with that shake. But thanks for giving me the opportunity to feel like a real new yorker being hassled on 34th street!