carpe

I first arrived last night around 7:30. Heather met me at the station and from there we went straight to the loft, mostly to drop off my bags (and shower). We were both starving so after I met my other roommates, we went to this little place less than a block away that has no name other than a deer on an old sign on the front of the building so we decided to name it "The Stag." Pretty cool little place. Great music, great food (humongous bacon cheddar burger, salad, and potatoes). From there, we came home watched The Office and crashed.

Today was interesting. My first real taste of the city, so to speak. After watching a few short films this morning, we went to Silver Spurs, a place we just walked across, for brunch. I had three pancakes and an orange slice I stole from Heather's plate. We walked down the street peeking into shops here and there if anything managed to catch our eye. Eventually we ended up at Ground Zero and also saw the new World Trade Center location. As we turned the corner we found the church that housed so many of the rescue workers during all of the turmoil because of its close proximity and the fact that it was the only building to not suffer from the wreckage of the attacks -- not one window was broken. It had a really well maintained old cemetery out front, but many of the tombstones couldn't be read due to acid rain, pigeons, and years and years of age. The inside of the church was actually converted into a museum -- it contains information including time lines of the event, letters written, blankets given, prayers offered, etc. It was really depressing to see the memorial section with all of the photos and flowers and small toys and trinkets. After staying there for a while we decided to walk back to our place and not ride the subway or anything. So this part of the adventure started with walking across the Brooklyn Bridge which was about as touristy as you can get I guess. It was really cool with a great view and loads of people, but, I swear, it was never ending. It took 30 minutes to cross with taking photos and everything. Speaking of which, the genius writing this decided to leave his camera at the apartment instead of taking it with him like a moron. Missed a whole lot of great shots, but I guess I'll get over it or do it all over again. After finally making the crossing we knew relatively which direction to find home, but nothing exact. We walked forever it seemed, all the while seeing some great architecture and a beautiful park and the Pratt Design Institute, not to mention the ghetto we got lost in for about 2 hours. Eventually we both gave up and boarded a bus so that we could finally sit down for a bit. I fell asleep time and time again, trying to keep my eyes open, but I didn't sleep all that great last night, and I woke up fairly early with the sun in my eyes. From there, we transferred to the L and then to the subway and got back to our neighborhood (thankfully our subway stop is extremely close to our building). When we found a map we realized how close we actually were. It was ridiculous.

It was so great getting to finally kick off my Chuck's. Another chunk of the innersole on the right one fell out so it became pretty uncomfortable and I'm still walking like my foot is being cut open, but guess what -- I survived.