Ok, so I know this is long overdue, but I've been slightly busy attempting to move to a new country over the past few days. Anyways, in my last post I told you all about my summer of music in the Big Apple. Even though I spent 75% of my summer doing music related activities, I actually did enjoy the city and other activities once in a while. My wonderful, lawyer sister/confidant/mentor/best friend lives in Brooklyn, so I spent the summer slowly taking over her apartment and following the Rio World Cup with her very closely. New York City was also the perfect place to satiate my natural curiosity through exploration and discovery. Overall, this summer was one that is not soon to be forgotten.
I spent my first day in New York exploring Cobble Hill aka residential, family Brooklyn. After wandering around for about an hour, I headed to Brooklyn Bridge Park which became my Central Park replacement over the course of the 13 weeks that I lived in the city. Brooklyn Bridge Park is this NYC park that sits on the East River and provides you with a fabulous view of lower Manhattan's financial district. It has about 6 piers with various activities (soccer fields, basketball courts, and my personal favorite, great restaurants for the foodies). On that first day, I also discovered a little music shop right next to my sister's apartment with a Steinway in the window. I wanted to go in, but for some reason I didn't. After a few weeks, I finally got around to going inside, and realized that all 6 of the pianos inside were refurbished and/or rebuilt. I learned that the store took old, beat up pianos, rebuilt them, and resold them for a much lower price that you would expect. They literally sold these pianos (that played really well) for pennies in comparison to what their starting price was. Hi. My name is Stephanie, and I have a love affair with pianos and want to marry one.
I also had the privilege of hanging out with one of my best friends, Abby, for the first month of my internship. Abby, an insanely talented photographer, was doing a program at Parsons for the month of June, so we just kind of explored NYC for that month. We kicked off the month at Gov Ball NYC which was a weekend of new experiences and fun music to say the least. Also, having a photographer as a best friend means that she can take great selfies (if we're Facebook friends, direct yourself to my profile picture). We also attempted to earn our hipster stars by hanging out in Williamsburg BK, finding unheard of coffee shops, and getting lost in the shelves at The Strand where I found a book about Jay-Z and she found one about Mick Jagger. Besides Abby, I also had two other friends who were in the city, one of which being one of my college best friends. Her and I had a few lazy afternoons where I would visit her Upper West Side apartment, and we would have deep conversations about life and whatnot. Living in a new city is intimidating enough as it is, but I was lucky enough to have some of the best people right alongside with me basking in the glory that is New York City.
Since this summer was a summer of new experiences and changes, I did something that I had never considered doing before and I became a vegetarian. I have this habit of getting bored really easily with my life, and thus changing something in order to spice it up. This time it just happened to be that I changed my entire Egyptian mindset and joined the dark side (as my parents probably think). Because being a vegetarian meant that I could no longer eat a lot of foods that I really liked, I had to find a new way to keep myself interested, which resulted in me taking up cooking. Before this summer, my experience with cooking included setting my parents' oven on fire and burning pre-made pot stickers. I went into this new, unchartered territory with fear and trepidation, but as it turns out, I'm not THAT bad. I even got the occasional compliment on my food. At least I now know that if I ever hate the Scottish food (which I heard is very probable), I have the abilities to become Chef Steph.
One of my most memorable weekends in the city was when I got to spend July 4 in the Big Apple for the second time in my life. I had a good friend from college come in town that weekend, so she got to experience Brooklyn with me firsthand, American flag shirt, red lipstick, and all. We kicked off the day watching Germany beat France and Brazil beat Colombia in the World Cup Quarterfinals (for the record, I wanted Colombia to beat Brazil). We then got to watch the fireworks on a rooftop overlooking the East River with all of my sister's friends as my sister and I had both done the up close, sweaty crowd experience before and weren't exactly dying to do it again. We finished off our July 4th weekend with a lazy day in Central Park with another college friend. For some reason, this weekend, as low key and "chill" as it was, made it into my top two weekends this summer. It's always refreshing to just spend time with people you love and talk about everything from your favorite foods to various topics in social justice.
One other experience that I will soon not forget was trapeze school. Yes, you read that correctly. I took a class in that thing that people do at the circus where the jump off high landings and catch other people and stuff. The weekend started when one of my cousin's came into town to visit my sister and I. We celebrated my sister's roommate's birthday, went to Coney Island the next day, and finished off the weekend at trapeze school. For the life of me, I could not get the hang of it at first, and almost (ALMOST) quit, but I decided to try it one last time for kicks and ended up mastering (heh heh) the very beginner of beginner moves (This is the story of a girl who tried and tried again as the cliche commands). I honestly would love to do it again: 1. Because it actually was fun and 2. Because I'm stubborn and competitive and want to be the best at everything I do.
I spend 13 weeks in the city, so I can't really document my every experience (some others include taking surfing lessons and spending a weekend with my family in Jersey to celebrate my cousin's wedding). But I got to do something I love in a city I love. I tried new things. I read a ton of books (yes, one of them was about Jay-Z), decided to be a vegetarian, took up cooking, and learned a lot about myself as a person. If I take one thing away from this summer it's this, do you. Do things that make you happy. Try something new. If you're unsatisfied, move to a new city. If you want to take up a new hobby, take a class or read a book. Don't limit yourself for any reason.
As for my favorite place in the world, I'll be back. Don't worry.
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