Random man on the neighboring treadmill, after observing me reading a school book while power walking:

"Wow, I can't get my students to study or exercise, and you're doing both! I'm so impressed!"

My New Years Resolutions for 2008 were to make 2008 The year of Travel, and to lose weight/work out regularly (original, I know).

I was successful in one of these, in 2008 I managed to travel a lot. I visited 11 places (New Orleans - twice, Frisco, San Antonio, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boulder, Salt Lake City, Hartford, Mystic, Providence, New York City) in 8 states (Louisiana, Texas, New York, California, Utah, Colorado, Connecticut, Rhode Island). I managed to add two new states to my "visited" list (Connecticut and Rhode Island) and also made it to one international destination (San Pedro, Belize).

I loved every trip I took and love everybody I traveled with/visited dearly, but I think the highlights were (in no particular order):

Frisco - it's not so much the place I enjoyed, but I had my first Parrothead tailgate/concert experience there and it was AMAZING.

New York - this vacation could not have been more fun, and I could not have had better company than two of my best friends from college, Jo and Ally. The 24 hour trip home left something to be desired, but it wasn't enough to ruin it for me, that's how good that trip was!

Connecticut/Rhode Island - we picked where we were going on Friday, and left on Saturday. We were there as fall was hitting so it was gorgeous, everybody we met was really nice, we ate a lot of fabulous food, and we covered 2 states in 2 days. It was everything I had hoped a spontaneous trip to someplace random would be.

San Francisco - the weather was amazing, I saw my sisters, everything we did was fun and everything we ate was delicious.

The second resolution I failed miserably at. I ended 2008 30lbs heavier and more out of shape than I started it. Not good.

Coming soon - My resolutions for 2009!

Since my last post the following has happened:

1. I have a boyfriend. His name is Don.

2. I went trick-or-treating with Patty, Raul and their kids for the third year running. Niko said "Clare, can you come trick-or-treating with us ALWAYS?". This made me melt, I really love those kids.

Patty, Chachi (the yellow power ranger) and me.


( Click for more )

A while ago, there was a... herd? collection? group?... of goats that appeared to be living in the covered parking lot of my office building. Not living there by choice, they were in cages, and for a while a pen type thing. Some ladies with lawn chairs and blankets seemed to be babysitting them. We never figured out why they were here, and one day they weren't here any more.

The goats appear to be back...

I ate far too much at lunch and I'm not quite ready to start work yet. I took this from Jenny.

Three About Me
Three Jobs I have had in my life:
1. Kids Club attendant
2. "Ice Cream Lady"
3. Receptionist

Three places I have lived:
1. Windermere, England
2. Salt Lake City, UT
3. Cambridge, England

Three TV Shows that I watch:
1. Gossip Girl
2. Beverly Hills 90210 (2.0 - possible blog with thoughts on it to come)
3. The Soup

Three places I have been:
1. Pompeii
2. Stonehenge
3. a volcano in Arizona

Three people that e-mail me regularly:
1. People at work needing me to do things 5 minutes ago
2. Victoria's Secret
3. RFP Depot

Three of my favorite foods:
1. Tuna & cucumber sandwiches
2. Ice cream (but not chocolate)
3. Pasta

Three friends I think will respond:
1. You
2. You
3. And you

Things I am looking forward to:
1. Planned Spontaneous Vacation
2. Thanksgiving in Belize
3. England in May

"It's like picking a Doctor. If you are getting surgery, would you prefer the Doctor who has performed 100 surgeries, or the one who has performed thousands? That is why I am voting for McCain"

No.

I didn't fail Finance! I got a B after some miracle occurred (or perhaps just approx. 30 hours of all-work-and-no-fun) and I got a 96 on the Final. Wooo!

I did, however, fail Marketing. Say WHAT?! Yep, the C stuck.

I have two years left of school, during which I will take 12 classes. I can not get below a B in any of those classes. The fact that I have so far received 2 C's out of the 6 classes I have taken...scares me shitless. Fabulous.

I'm really excited about the new challenges I am being given at work.

I am not so excited about an annoying co-worker.

I joined e-harmony a couple of months ago (no dates yet, in fact no communicating yet either - it's really doing amazing things for my self confidence, this site. Ugh), I figured why not give it a few months trial. Not like I'm meeting guys any other way at the moment. I am slightly concerned though, because e-harmony seems to think I should be matched up with someone who says things like this in his dating profile:

The most important thing K***** is looking for in a person is:
I can not get along with greedy and selfish people. I dislike stereotypes and think we should give the others their chances before we judge them. I dislike when people compete in everything. I dislike when people hate the good things for the others. Those should know that the blessings of God are endless. I have no place in my life for hypocrisy whatsoever. I respect people for their personalities and behavior not for what they have or what I need from them. I like classy people.

He makes a couple of good points, I suppose. In the most negative way one could ever make a good point. He lost me after that, to be honest...but I'm trying to not be too judgemental and to give everybody a fair chance by at least reading their entire profile. So I read on and he hits me with this gem:

The one thing K***** wishes MORE people would notice about him is:
Being really nice and genuine when they think I am too good to be true

HA! Wow. First, I had to read that approximately ten times to get what he was trying to say. Second, just wow.

Finally, this:

Some additional information K***** wanted you to know is:
I am intelligent but NOTTTT a nerd. I DO not wear eyeglasses. I might be more outgoing and funny than you. According to my IQ, I am one of the top gifted 10% of the population of the world ( you better knock on wood ;) ). I respect other people.

I have no words. Match closed.

My faux-brother's 30th birthday


I met my SLC family and some family friends at the Denver airport, smiles and hugs all around


( Thirty! )

Jackie's Treintaneira

The week after Boulder, my friend Jackie turned 30. Monica and I went to San Antonio for the night and we celebrated in style, complete with fabulously tacky centerpieces for the table at dinner, and wands.


I also participated in a kickball tournament last weekend. We lost all three games in the first round, but we had fun and had such an awesome tables/gazebo/snacks/beer set up that one member of another team asked if we were doing brunch. Which we sort of were, if beer and bagels could be considered brunch.

School
So it looks like I am going to do better in my Finance class than in my Marketing class. Sadly this does not mean that I pulled some kind of miracle move in Finance, it's just that I was 10 minutes late in submitting my last three Marketing papers and the professor chose not to overlook it. Awesome. So I now have a C in a class I should have had an A in (on a course where 3 Cs gets you kicked out, and I already had 1). Fabulous. Somehow I managed to get a 96 on my Finance Final (Still in shock!), so fingers crossed my 'class participation' grade is decent because if so, I'll avoid my 3rd C. For now.

/grade panic.

In other news, I now have almost 3 weeks off! I plan to clean my apartment, do a lot of laundry, sleep late on weekends, spend some time sleeping by the pool...and hopefully see some friends.

Work
At work I've been given a lot more responsibility, I get to help work on a strategic planning effort for a new client. I'm so excited, but also nervous - I don't want to mess up now that I'm finally being given actual interesting things to do.

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

1) Bold those you have read.
2) Underline the books you LOVE (I opted for asterisks).
4) Reprint this list in your own blog.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen**
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling**
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee**
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott**
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll**
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis**
34 Emma - Jane Austen**
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis**
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery**
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck**
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding**
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens**
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett**
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome**
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton**
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery**
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl**
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

33/100 is certainly more than SIX...but most of the ones I've read appear to be the Childrens books. Is that bad?

There was a roller derby team on the plane with me, they kept singing some song I'd never heard before about Texas. But just two lines from it...it got irritating pretty fast. The plane stopped in El Paso briefly...it's never appealed to me as a place to visit, but the clouds over it were pretty.



Marla picked me up from the airport and we talked non-stop for the whole drive to Pasadena, and then for another hour or so at her place until her boyfriend Seth called us to go pick him up from the middle school where he had been filming that day (he is a camera assistant). Then the three of us went to a really fun Mexican restaurant and ate $2 tacos and drank $2.50 margaritas. I don't remember what we talked about, but it was fun.

Friday, we went to Disneyland. All day. I think it truly is the happiest place on earth, I can't help but be happy when I'm there. Even when it's 10pm and I'm waiting in a 2 hour line for Space Mountain after being on my feet all day, and my feet hurt more than natural childbirth (possibly). Other than that one line though (and really, we made the dumb decision to go to S.M. right after the fireworks, which everybody else does too, as it is right by the best firework viewing spot, so it's our own fault) we had amazing luck with lines all day. I'd like to shake the hand of whatever Disney genius came up with the fast pass system.

This picture makes me want a boyfriend, for some reason. Marla and Seth on Splash Mountain. After the splash.


I love Disney.


This picture makes me laugh every time I see it.


After that last Space Mountain ride we hobbled back to the car, went home, and went to bed. I then proceeded to have a strange dream that I was 12, Kevin Bacon was a teacher at my school, and he hit me. Odd.

Saturday morning we went to Cafe 50's (see my last entry for how much I love that place) where I had an amazing spinach and avocado omlette, and a PB&J milkshake (which is amazing, by the way). I talked to Joey, the manager about how I've been eating there my whole life, and how he has been working there my whole life also. He is a good egg.

After eating so much we could barely walk, we drove up to Malibu to go to a beach. On the way we obsessively searched the hills for Mel Gibsons house, which Seth informed us that you can spot by the fact that he has a Church on his property, with a GIANT cross on the roof, or in front of it, or something. We didn't spot it, and accused Seth of lying to us...but then while sitting at a red light on the drive back from Malibu later in the day, we saw it (that cross really is hard to miss). We drove past Pepperdine, so I thought of Michelle (seriously, you go to school in the prettiest place, ever!).

We ended up at Point Dume Beach, it was a perfect beach day, weather-wise. So beautiful. A word of warning for anybody planning on taking beers to Malibu beaches though, those Malibu beach cops? Are not playing around. No overlooking of rule-breaking if the people breaking the rules aren't causing trouble on their watch, no sir. If they see one suspicious looking cup on that beach, they will hunt you down on their badass four wheelers and accuse you of being alcoholics, and then write you a ticket. An $80+ (I don't know the exact amount yet, but they said last year it was $80) ticket. For drinking a beer on the beach. Quietly. It will suck. But then you will have a story about how one time you were relaxing on the beach in Malibu and a cop wrote you a ticket for "one blue dixie cup with tecate", and maybe it will be worth it. Oh, another thing those cops don't like? People digging holes on the beach. Which I had always assumed was a standard beach activity, but not in Malibu, people. You will be told by someone with handcuffs and a gun to fill that shit in. Yep, Malibu beach cops do not mess around.



Despite the ticket, we had fun at the beach. Then we went and bought salads from the California Chicken Company (SO GOOD) and went to watch a movie at a cemetary. Yes, that's right...projected on the wall of the Mausoleum at the Hollywood Forever Cemetary. Not as creepy as you'd expect. Or at all, actually. We watched Hitchocock's 'The Man Who Knew Too Much'. The crowd there reminded me of an Austin crowd, Fabulous. If you live in or near LA, check out Cinespia, it's good times.



Sunday was a sad day, because I had to go home. We spent all day up until it was time to drive to the airport, in Old Town Pasadena, eating Mexican food and wandering around. We also went to see the house my parents lived in when I was born.

I was brought home to this house in a Christmas stocking, on December 8, 1982 (for those of you who know my birthday, yes that is a whole month after I was born).


Then I flew back to Austin, and my plane wasn't delayed, thankfully. I wrote three papers when I got home. Monday was not a fun day at work.

A lot of people I meet are surprised to hear that my original home, the place my parents were living when I was born, is Southern California. I am often a little taken aback by their surprise, even though it makes perfect sense. The fact that I grew up in England yet now live in Texas (and moved here from Utah) is already a lot for people to get their heads around, without throwing California into the mix too.

To me though, California seems so much a part of me, that how could people not see it? Easily, is how. Even my mother, whenever I make a reference to California as 'home' or say that it's where I'm 'from', is fast to correct me, reminding me that I was only officially a resident of the state for the first six months of my life, and really, everywhere else I've ever lived has had a far greater influence on who I am today than California. She is from California, I however, am not. At least not really, despite what my passport might say.

I have no idea what has influenced me the most to make me who I am, to cause me to react to situations the way I do. Everything and everybody I have come into contact with, I imagine. Plus genes. Regardless, when I say I am 'from' California (I usually do throw 'originally' in there too, unless I want to really fuck with people's minds, which often I do) it has nothing to do with why I feel I am who I am. It is because to me, it has been the only place that has been 100% constant in my life, the only place that has always meant something to me.

Growing up I moved around some, lived with different people, went to different schools. I had a great life, despite some major obstacles (you guys, I talk about it pretty casually in conversation, but you know what? Losing your father to cancer? Fucking sucks). A great, but inconsistent life. Some of that was by choice (I don't think my mom was overly excited to send me off to boarding school six hours away when I was 11, that was all me), and some by circumstance, but either way, it was inconsistent. My mom, my grandmother, my 'Salt Lake parents' and my godmother were the family/faux family members that were always a part of my life, the people I always knew how to contact. The other constant in my life was California.

My grandmother lived in California, in West Los Angeles. As often as we possibly could, my mom and I would fly over to visit her, and those trips were amazing. I think they are part of the reason why my mom and I are so close now. We would wake up at 3am, jetlagged, and sit cross legged on my grandmothers L shaped couch eating ice cream straight from the container (my grandmother always, without fail, would stock her freezer with our favorite flavors before we arrived - rum raisin for mom, vanilla for me) and talking.

Of course while in California we'd do all kinds of fun vacation things, Disneyland, the beach, Santa Monica Pier, shopping, etc. My favorite moments though, were the smaller ones, like those nights eating ice cream. Walking to the video store and always getting the same movies (Pollyanna, Pippi Longstocking, The Parent Trap), which I would watch over and over again, curled up in my grandmommy's bedroom with the light from the numbers on her huge digital alarm clock glowing red on the ceiling. The 'Clare' drawer, where I would stash toys and books that I didn't have room for in my suitcase, or that I just wanted to keep there. Sitting for hours at the bookstore in Century City engrossed in the latest Babysitter's Club book while my mom browsed the mystery section. Above all though, I loved our almost daily trips to Cafe 50's, where we would feed quarters into the juke box and fill up on milkshakes served with the metal container for refills.

In 1999, my grandmother died. I thought that would be the end of my miniature obsession with California, of my feeling that it was 'home'. It wasn't. I constantly wanted to go back. In 2003 while I was spending the summer in Utah, I finally got to visit LA again. While I was staying with my friend Marla at her mom's house in Orange County, we took a day trip into LA. I loved it just the same.

Last weekend, after five more years of wanting to take another trip back to California, I went to visit Marla again. This time in Pasadena, where she is now living a five minute walk from the house I lived in for those first six months. As an adult, LA (and Pasadena) is so, so different. The things we did were different (well, ok, we still went to Disneyland and Cafe 50's), the way I looked at it was different. My feelings for it however, haven't changed. It's kind of dirty and full of crazy people (both in the crazy bum sense of the word, and just plain crazy), the traffic is horrendous, the smog is worse than ever...but I love it. I could definitely see myself living there one day. I have no idea if that will happen (I want to move pretty much everywhere right now), but it'll always be my 'original' home.

Saturday was uneventful. We went shopping in the morning, and got stuck in a torrential rain storm (that turned into a thunder storm)whilst walking back to the hotel. People stared and laughed at us, in our dripping clothes continuing to walk through the storm as they huddled under awnings. We went to college in one of the rainiest areas of England, not much phases us.

Our plans for an evening boat tour were thwarted by the storm, so instead we hung out at the hotel chatting, then pissed a taxi driver off by taking a cab 4 blocks to dinner. After dinner we made a quick trip to Times Square to take pictures, then headed back to the hotel.

Sunday, we bought food from a convenience store and then headed to Central Park for a picnic. We walked all over the park, then got caught in another rain storm as we were leaving. Excellent.

The taxi ride to the airport was sad, saying goodbye to the girls was worse. Then I got stuck in JFK for 20 hours (and spent another 11 hours getting back to Austin). Not the most fun travel experience of all time. Survival tip for if you are ever unfortunate enough to be stuck at JFK's Jet Blue terminal for 20 hours. If they cancel your flight, don't bother going straight to the complaints line, go buy food first. Either way you will be in the line for hours, and the extra 10 minutes waiting time will seem like nothing compared to the torture of getting out of the line after being told that you may be spending the rest of your life in the terminal, to discover that all the places that sell food are closed.

Friday was our designated shopping day. Thankfully I managed to contain my purchases to only one pair of shoes (and what a pair of shoes!) and a few iced green teas for sustenance along the way.

Friday night we drank wine in the hotel while getting ready, then went to Coppola's for dinner. So good. After dinner we headed to the Empire State Building. What better to do at 11.45pm on a Friday night after an amazing dinner (and lots of wine) with two of your best friends than check out the lights of New York City? It was amazing, and the fact that there was no line didn't hurt. We discovered a couple of quiet yet fun bars near our hotel after we came back to ground level, and were very sad when it was suddenly 4am and we were forced to head back to the hotel. At some point between bars we met a guy in the street (heading toward the subway, not a guy who lives on the street... at least not as far as I know) and decided that he and Jo will marry so that she can move to New York, he and I have been texting some since then, and now Jo is sure that he and I will marry. Ha.



Oh yes, we went there.


And also, there... though I'd like to point out that Ally is the only one of us who actually purchased the tacky Lady Liberty headdress. Jo and I just posed with it, and after doing so were mildly jealous that we, too, had not handed over $6 for such a fabulous piece of foam.

One of my New Years Resolutions was to travel this year. I always travel a fair amount, but 2008, I decided, was going to be the year of travel. Time for a mid-year check up.

January
No travel

February
No travel

March
Roadtrip to New Orleans, LA

April
Jimmy Buffett concert minibreak in Frisco, TX

May
New Orleans, LA
Port Aransas, TX

June
New York, NY
Los Angeles, CA

July
Boulder, CO

August
Las Vegas, NV?

September
No travel

October
Denver, CO for work?

November
San Pedro, Belize

December
TBD trip for Monica's birthday?
Salt Lake City, UT for Christmas?

Not too shabby!

Jo had left her camera in the taxi on the way to Sushi Samba the night before, so Thursday morning was dedicated to finding her a replacement. We fortified ourselves with some so-so pizza from some place near Union Square before braving an electronics store, where both Jo and Ally bought cameras, and we all left happy campers.

We felt almost like legitimate New Yorkers when we corrected our taxi driver on the route he was taking (a take advantage of the tourists because they asked to go to the Plaza Hotel route) to get to 5th and 58th, which was our meeting point for...the Sex and the City tour. Yes, we went there. It was actually a decent tour, too. One of my favorite moments was standing outside the Pleasure Chest (you might not want to click that link if you are at work, it's where Charlotte bought her "Rabbit" in the show) waiting for our bus to return and seeing two highly embarrassed LDS Missionaries walk by. Poor kids. SATC related highlights include seeing the steps to Carrie's brownstone (despite some evil bitch who lives in the building threatening to call the cops on us...sure lady, NYPD will absolutely get right on arresting a bunch of well groomed girls for standing quietly across the street snapping a picture of some steps) and finally getting to eat a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery.






After the tour we ate an early dinner at Bryant Park Grill (on the patio, which is very pretty - go there!) before trekking entirely too far (at least, far when you're wearing 4 inch heels) to the movie theatre in Times Square to watch the SATC Movie. Yes, we are just a little obsessed. The movie was even better the second time around, for me, and Jo and Ally loved it too. Perfect end to another fabulous New York day!

After finally arriving at the hotel at 1am to be greeted by an exhausted (jet-lagged) Jo and Ally who had tried desperately (and succeeded!) to stay awake to at least say hello when I arrived, we fell asleep mid-conversation and got a late start on Wednesday morning.

Wednesday morning being day one in New York.

Our first order of business was breakfast. I don't remember where we ate, it was a random diner we came across...on Madison, I think. It looked like it hadn't changed since the 1940's, I almost expected our waitress to dole out rationed portions of sugar, etc. Instead, of course, we got huge portions (I think Ally was a little overwhelmed by her blueberry pancakes!) and were close to waddling when we left. Which turned out to be a good thing, as we didn't eat again for a long time.

The subway was easier to navigate than we expected "we need the green line, going...down!" and we soon found ourselves by the Brooklyn Bridge. It took us about 20 minutes longer than it should have to figure out how to get onto the bridge, but once we did, it was fabulous. We weren't too embarrassed to ask a fellow tourist to take our picture...we decided that since the man was carrying a fancy looking camera and a tri-pod, he wasn't likely to run off with my camera. Though I would have expected him to take a slightly better photograph.



Our next activity was to take the Staten Island Ferry. Because Carrie did it on SATC (the firefighter episode, if you need a reminder). Yes, we're losers. I recommend it, not only is it free but it also gives you amazing views of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. Which turned out to be perfect, because we ended up not doing to Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island thing due to not wanting to stand in a three hour line.



Despite the unflattering shadows, this may be the best self photo I have ever taken. I fit three people AND Manhattan into it! Genius.


A quick break for lemonade in what I think was part of Battery Park refreshed us enough to go check out the Charging Bull, Wall Street, Ground Zero, Century 21 (I warned Jo that it would be an unsatisfactory shopping experience, and indeed it was), Grand Central Station and my new favorite spot in New York, the "top of the rock" made up for all of the disappointment the Rockefeller skating rink gave me in 2005.

See? Amazing!






During all of the above activities, I had been texting back and forth with my friend Elle about plans for dinner. She informed us that she would make a reservation at Sushi Samba. This created somewhat of a stir as Jo remembered that the restaurant had been mentioned (and even featured, it's the place where Samantha meets up with cheating scumbag Richard, and throws a drink in his face) in SATC. We rushed back to the hotel, prettyfied ourselves and headed out to meet Elle and her friend Danielle there for dinner. GO THERE if you are ever in New York, the food is phenomenal. I recommend the sea bass entree. Highly recommend it. Amazing. The prices really aren't bad either, for a good dinner.

After dinner we headed (minus Danielle, who had to go pack for a trip or something) to Underbar, which gets a horrible review in that link, but which we really liked. Elle's boyfriend Matt came out to meet us, it was great to finally meet him! We took pictures, of course...although none of Matt (he was our excellent photographer).

Yes, Elle is a model. I need to work on that whole "know your angles" concept...or just learn to not take pictures with models.




Matt and Elle left at around 11.30, and we didn't last much longer. By 1am we were in bed recounting our fabulous day, and discussing our plans to find Jo a rich New Yorker to marry so that she can move there.

At Starbucks in Manhattan, they post the calorie content of everything on the menu. Every time I saw the numbers I pictured them settling on my hips and it made me not want to buy anything. I can't be the only one that feels this way, surely?

In other news, after my recent trip to New York, I'm in love with it. I think I fall a little in love with most places I visit, so this is nothing new to me. I've spent the past week looking on New York Craigslist for job and apartment listings.

If you get zits (and if you don't, I hate you), I have discovered the worlds BEST stuff. I had 3 really red/raised/unattractive zits and I put this stuff on them, left it overnight as directed, and when I woke up in the morning they were GONE. Best. Stuff. Ever.

Mario Badescu Skincare - Drying Lotion

Get it, now. Also, read the instructions because they are pretty specific (don't shake the bottle!). I found it at Nordstroms for $17 (it will last forever though, I'm pretty sure).

you're welcome.