MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Listening to: Jason Mraz - Winter Wonderland

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

A Walk in the West Village

Listening to: Incubus - Quicksand

Yesterday I really wanted to explore and do a little Christmas shopping. I woke up, took a shower, ate some breakfast and was ready to go but it was already almost 4. I had slept waaaay too late to do anything productive but I needed that makeup sleep from the crazy week I had previously. A little discouraged, I still went down to barnes and noble and checked out a few shops in UWS including a promising chocolate shop called Nehaus. I went in for a taste but most of the chocolates were filled, I wanted just plain chocolate so I continued on. I didn't find anything else so I grabbed and Jamba and went home.



This morning I was determined to get up earlier and go down to SoHo or the West Village. After a pretty sleepless night, I woke up around 1 and didn't feel motivated at all. But I forced myself out the door and down to 14th street. The night before I did a little research on chocolate shops and found the majority of them are in lower manhattan. I don't know why, but I'm all for it. I took a short walk through the west village and discovered Li-lac and Chocolate Bar. Both looked very good but the lines were too long for me. I decided to continue my walk through this part of town since I hadn't been down in this area much. I found bleecker st after walking a short ways down 8th avenue and since the temperature was nice and the sun was out, I decided to take a little stroll.



The west village is a very trendy place so as I walked down bleecker to 7th avenue I came across a lot of designer shops and people sporting the latest fashion. It's quite remarkable...even people's dog are wearing the latest trends. I came upon an enormous, single-file line stretching around multiple corners and couldn't figure out what was going on. I finally laid my eyes on the front of the line and the sign hanging above the entrance. It read Magnolia Bakery. Since it appeared on Sex in the City, the place had become a tourist haven. I read the best time to visit is in mid-morning on a weekday so that's what I plan to do. I also read the Red Velvet cupcake is to die for. Everyone flocks to this bakery to load up on a dozen of these velvety treats. They sound mouth-watering!



As I came to 6th ave and crossed the street, I was in a whole new neighborhood: Greenwich Village or just The Village, home of NYU. I'd never been down to this area and it was great to explore more of the city. There were a lot more eateries, bars and weird shops. I stopped in at a local guitar shop and admired some classics they had hanging on the wall including 3 of one of my favorite guitars, the Fender Jaguar. I walked on and turned around at Mercer street which cut up through the heart of NYU. I stopped in at the campus just to take a glimpse of some of the buildings including the Stern School of Business (possibly my future home in 2008). I walked through Washington Square park and remembered when my mom and I walked in this area when I first moved in. We had left my sister with her friend and decided to walk around a bit. We were looking for NYU and stumbled upon Washington Square park. We turned around at the point but if we had continued to walk through to the other side of the park, we would've hit NYU right on. It's crazy to think of how little knowledge I had of the city back then...



At this point it was almost 4 and the sun was going down so I decided to call it a day. I found a few gifts, I won't say for who or where, but I've conveniently left out some places I went to avoid giving anything away. You'll have to see when the 25th rolls around.



I'm going home in 5 days! I'm so excited! Just 5 days of work to get through...



Oh yeah, and I saw Damien Rice last Tuesday. Check out my review in the Concerts section!

Christmas Time in New York

Listening to: Guster - Donde Esta Santa Claus

We planned to have a full fledged weekend of exploring New York's winter theme. It would've been so nice to get a white blanket of snow in the city but that hasn't happened yet. It's been way to warm for it to snow. We had our minds set on the way certain things would be but were surprised when they turned out very different and much more crowded. But we came up with some good ideas of how to avoid the masses. Here's our weekend story...



Our plan for the weekend started out with going to visit FAO Swartz and Bergdorf Goodman. We left my apartment at about 4:30 dressed it sweaters and long coats since it was really chilly (felt like 25). We walked down to 86th street and got a large, fresh squeezed orange juice at Jamba and took the subway the rest of the way down. We got off at 59th street and walked across to the east side. FAO was packed and there was a line around the building to get in. We didn't want to go that bad so we continued down 5th avenue. It was so incredibly crowded! Everyone was out looking a the displays and shopping and it was crazy.



We somehow through the sea of people and down to Rockefeller center to see the massive tree. It was really beautiful. I'd seen pictures of it before but being there is different. The air was cold and crisp and the lights were all around.





Saks Fifth Avenue had an awesome light show on their building that played every 15 minutes. I took a picture of the snowflakes but check out the video of the light show as well. The song is a modernized version of carol of bells. It was awesome to see just a blurp of it in passing but as we meandered our way through the crowds we eventually got tired of everyone out there so we left in a hurry. We had the great idea of coming back late Sunday night when everyone would be gone.





We continued on to near Times Square where we had planned to eat dinner. We chose to go to Olive Garden for lack of a better place, plus we wanted some tasty bread sticks! After we waited more than an hour, we finally got seated and filled our tummies with a scrumptous meal. We planned on seeing The Holiday later that night so we went down to the AMC Empire a couple of blocks down. On our way we saw a HUGE limo truck. It was so freaking ridiculous...it had a truck bed and everything and people were actually proud to be in that hideous artifact.... When we arrived at the theater, all of the shows were sold out until 11pm. We spotted a Starbucks across the street so we waited in there and sipped a warm cup of caramel apple cider. The movie was really good. We both really enjoyed it and thought it deserved more than the less than average ratings it received. It was a really nice Christmas movie even though at times it was a little corny.



The plan for Saturday was to order brunch for delivery (yes we're that lazy!) and rest all day, watch Christmas movies and snuggle. We were motivated enough to make dinner and cookies in the evening though. We made some giant burritos with mexican rice (courtesy of Michelle), seasoned ground beef and beans. They were tasty and sooooo filling! Later on (around 10) we went down to Rockefeller again and it was empty! What a great time to go if you can because we didn't have feel like sheep getting pushed along. We took some more pictures of the tree, the light show and holiday lights along 5th avenue. We walked back to 66th to see the tree at Lincoln center and were pleasantly surprised to see this beautiful scene:

.

Nobody was around and it was so pretty. We enjoyed the sight of the glowing holidays lights all around and then went back home. I took a couple more pictures which you can view, as always, on my flick page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gpod

I Was Blocked From My Own Site

Listening to: Incubus - Dig

I just found out my IP address was on the ban list for some reason. I emailed support and got it taken take of but how weird is that? Banned from accessing my own website...



I'm looking forward to this weekend...it's been a long week and I definitely woke up this morning and thought it was Friday already but was then sad when it was only Wednesday. Michelle's coming for the weekend and we have shopping and Holiday sightseeing in mind. I snapped a good shot of the Rockefeller Christmas tree and maybe a bit of ice skating...we'll see. :) 19 days till I come back to San Diego! I can't wait to come home!!