My New Favorite Thing...

So, here's the best thing about living here.

New York.

Granted, now that I have officially looked at my student loan budget, my trips there will be fewer and far-er in between, but that's ok. It's still my favorite thing about moving here. It's a $10, hour long train ride away, and I love it.

Last weekend, I went and played with my friend Becky, who lives in an amazing apartment on the upper east side, and who has now officially made the blog! I'm sure it will not be the last time she makes the blog, as she is my funnest friend this side of the Mississippi. And, yes, I am sure I know more than just one person on this side of the Mississippi! Here's the view from Becky's building. If you have to move to NYC, this is the way to do it!

It was a sunny day, and we were super-nerdy tourists and went to the top of the Empire State Building. Before that, we proved that NYC is great and wandered around until we found a sushi place on a random street. It was ok food, and cheap in price, so it was great! At the Empire State Building, the lines were long, so we decided to walk up the last 6 flights of steps to the 86th floor, which we both thought we'd be fine with, and then we both almost passed out. Aside from that, we made it and it was great!

!

I had a lapse in judgement and posed as the Statue of Liberty, you can view that photo on my Facebook profile.

Then we touristed our way through Time's Square, Rockafellar Center, and a great farmer's market that took about 20 blocks of Lexington Ave. I guess the market is on a different day and different street each week; lots of great food and cheap stuff. :) And we made friends with a life-sized bowling pin.

So, then my friend Becky and her hubby Eric took me to an excellent BYOB Thai food place that had cheap food that tasted great, and then they took me out on the town in NYU territory. We were either the oldest or youngest in the place, depending on the bar we went to, but we still had a great time. We showed those youngsters how to par-tay! It was also "fleet week" in NYC, so there were sailors as far as the eye could see! Talk about eye candy! Here's a picture that explains the wicked hangover I had the next day:

Next NYC trip: Central Park and the Statue of Liberty.

Seriously?

Here's the most ridiculous sentence I have read and am supposed to understand so far:

"Side chain oxidation at the number 5 carbon atom of the benzene ring to yield carboxylic acid is the most important initial step in terminating pharmacologic activity of barbituates by metabolism."

Yeah, so I'm going to go study some more now...

I'll stop, I promise :)

I just read through my posts, and I say the word "awesome" a lot. Sorry, I will put a halt to this childish behavior immediately.

One last time...AWESOME! Ok, now it's out of my system.

The sun came out!

Well, I found something that made my fingernail falling off a little less of a bother. It's my running route. It's 3 miles, and it's beautiful. Maybe this whole Connecticut thing won't be so bad...

All these pics were taken by me, myself, and I when I was pretending to run, but really it was more like convincing my post-half marathon, post-cross country move feet to go faster than a walk.

Awesomeness

The good news of today is that my fingernail is starting to fall right off of my pointer finger. Awesome. More gross than awesome, but whatever.

The Place

My new apartment is actually pretty awesome.

Square footage-wise, I believe it is larger than my upstairs at my house in Denver. That makes getting my crap in here even easier than I had planned, and I will have room for a treadmill!

Funny side note on the treadmill: My dad did NOT want to move the treadmill so badly that rather than move it up the stairs he agreed to buy me a new one. I mean, he REALLY REALLY did not want to move that thing. So, new treadmill will be ordered shortly. Awesome, and hilarious.

The difference in lay-out is larger living room and bedroom, and smaller kitchen. And by smaller, I mean the kitchen here is the size of the granite slab counter in my Denver Kitchen. No joke. It's really, really small. So small, that when I accidentally spilled a large can of tomato puree when I was making BBQ Pork yesterday, it covered all four walls, and my entire self. It was F-U-N-N-Y.

It was pretty much the filthiest place I have ever moved into, smoke and grease stained walls and all. But, I think I have conquered the filth and now, it's really cute!

The neighborhood is also really cute. It is pretty similar to the Wash Park area in Denver, except add a body of water in there. I can walk to the beautiful beaches of the Long Island Sound (I know, I know, but beggars cannot be choosers). I can also walk to a menagerie, if you will, of bars, restaurants and coffee shops. It should be fun! I plan on planting myself at said beaches and coffee shops for study time in hopes of meeting nice strangers and making friends in the new and foreign land.

I do not have cable, yet. I'm going to try and avoid it, but if you know me, you know about my affection for trashy reality TV and the cooking channel. We'll see how long this no TV thing lasts.

I also have a neighbor that is so crazy she actually introduced herself to me as "the Lunatic". No joke. I have since found out her name is Patty, and she will be moving out at the end of the month. Thank you, Baby Jesus.

The grocery store is named Stop & Shop. I enjoy a place that is direct and to the point, so I think we will get along nicely in there.

Here are some pics of the new place, I'll take some of the neighborhood soon so you can see how beautiful the neighborhood I live in is!

DNP Baby

So, now I live in Connecticut. I am a "Connecticutter", or a "Nutmegger". Whichever, you prefer.

It's weird, weird, weird. Usually when I move, I want to. This time, it's for a purpose. To kick ass at Nurse Anesthesia school. So, while I know the sacrifice of moving far away, dealing with being a landlord (which is not great so far), and getting my ass kicked for three years, it will be worth it in the end. Right? Right. I think. I hope. Tell me it will be worth it. (Cue: voice in my head saying "It will be worth it, and you should be happier about this, lucky girl!"

I know I am lucky. I have had an amazing thing happen to me by getting into school. I really feel it was meant to be. But I sort of feel like one of those women who is trying to get pregnant, but then freaks out when they get pregnant on the first try. NO, I AM NOT PREGNANT. What I mean by that is, I really wanted to get into school, but I got in about a year earlier than my earliest prediction, so I'm a little freaked out. That's all. No babies. But I know I will love my DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice) baby.

Made It!

After a long, but completely awesome road trip with my BFF, Melissa Schneider, I have arrived in the beautiful, but very rainy state of Connecticut. (For those of you who read my last blog about Ireland, Melissa was the one I dressed up in a cast and feather head-dress when she broke her ankle. You may look at it at saradingman.blogspot.com)

Here's how the trip started:

Lacey and I, like complete idiots, ran the Colfax half marathon. Remind me to

never to that again, no matter how much anyone in my life tries to convince me. If you are wondering, the tutus are a costume, we do not dress like that all the time, and our team name was the Hot Cakes in honor of our love for cake. Our team is in no way fast, although we got a lot of compliments on our lovely outfits, and will not be attending races any longer than a 10k in the future!

After the race, and my desire to vomit subsided, the Hot Cakes, the Ding-parents, Melissa, and Tucker (my dog) met at Taco-Mex to enjoy one final relleno before we hit the road. The best aspect of that part of the day was when Mel forgot her Blackberry, drove all the way back to her apartment only to find that it was packed right where it should have been in the back of the car. And so begins one funny quote book!

After a long and entertaining drive to Omaha, we stopped for the night. The entertainment was provided by my favorite Nebraskan, Jeff Darst. He is the Rainman of Nebraska highway exits. He knows every town that corresponds to each and every exit in the state. It is amazing. And weird. But I loved it, and Melissa and I were very into the whole thing, and tested him the entire way across the state.

Day 2 took us to the super-fun town of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The drive to Fort Wayne, however was not so fun. Here's what Melissa and I looked like after the construction and ensuing lunacy that happened on the Chicago highways:

You get the hint. It was pretty scary.

In Fort Wayne, we caught up with my long time buddy, Baldondo. He is an amazing friend from my Drum Corps days of yore. His girlfriend is also amazing and makes a kick-ass pitcher of sangria. Of which we drank 2 batches and then finished off the remaining red wine while we caught up till 330 am. It was so much fun, I loved every second!

After Ft. Wayne, we pretty much just drove our hung-over behinds to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where I now reside. The high point of that part of the drive was the section through upstate New York. If you ever have the chance to drive on the Palisades Parkway, you should. It is, to date, the prettiest drive I have ever taken.

I would like to send a big shout-out to the Kriedermans, who made us a bad-ass music mix that took up 9 entire cd's, all of which we heard, Jen Crownover and Heather Shockley, whose amazing travel snacks fed us the entire way, and last, but not least, Kathy Griffin and Tina Fey for entertaining us to the point of tears with your hilariousness in your audio books.