Photo dump (Parks, food, Brooklyn Bridge)

Wednesday was mine and Kelly's last day of freedom. Once again we just wandered the city. Our main stops that day were:

High Line

Washington Square Park

Flatiron

This is honestly my all-time favorite building. I've always thought the Flatiron to be totally representative of New York. I was seriously in awe as Kelly and I walked around looking at it. I don't even know what it is about it that I love so much but seeing it was perhaps the highlight of my New York visit so far.

Madison Square Park

After our first day of work on Thursday, Kelly and I got back around 7 o'clock. We work 10-6 which are pretty good hours but it takes about 50 minutes to get from Morningside Heights to Brooklyn. At that point we were pretty tired so we looked up some restaurants with a 5 minute walking distance. I found this Italian restaurant super close by so we went to check it out. What a good choice. The first good sign the dinner would be good was that all the employees, at least that we encountered, which was probably three or four people, spoke Italian/were Italian. The second sign was that two men seated near Kelly and I were also speaking in Italian/were Italian. I got a margherita pizza and it was AMAZING. I love pizza napoletana and this did not disappoint.

Friday after work we met up with all our friends and then headed down near NYU to get Ukrainian food. Another journalism student, Stephanie, served her mission in Ukraine and she was absolutely thrilled people wanted to come with her to get Ukrainian food. I'm definitely a huge fan of it now. 

The food I got was all potato and cheese based, making it the most awesome food ever. I also thought about ordering borscht, which Lava Lounge occupant Trent often makes, but I don't think I could've eaten all of that food. According to Stephanie the borscht was delicious though.

Saturday was a big group adventure day. A bunch of us headed to Central Park and we relished the perfect spring weather. It was incredibly crowded but once we got on some lesser paths it was much nicer. I think what I love about Central Park is how much it reminds me of Wisconsin. There are trees everywhere, obviously, and all of them are super tall, like basically all the trees back home are. The problem with a lot of trees in Utah is they're too young. Also, Utah is a desert. New York greenery is awesome and whenever I make a return trip it will probably be in fall.

For lunch on Wednesday we stopped by a food cart for falafel sandwiches. As this was my first falafel I wasn't sure what to expect but everyone raved about them so I figured falafel had to be pretty delicious.  And it was. Central Park seemed like the perfect place to eat it too.

Then we headed to Canal Street, aka the place where you buy purses and scarves and watches and sunglasses for really cheap. It's a pretty crazy place, definitely the kind of place that would seem perfect for an anthropological study. After perusing the merchandise and getting sufficiently hungry once again, we stopped for dinner at the Excellent Dumpling House. And excellent it was! Canal Street is fairly close to both Little Italy and Chinatown and this Chinese food did not disappoint. 

After dinner it was time to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was slightly windy but that didn't stop Kelly, Bev and I from walking across it in its entirety. It's definitely another activity I'd do again.

So now everyone is updated on my New York adventures. I'm not sure if there's anything in particular planned for next week but later this month I'll probably be going to a Mets/Reds baseball game since Chelsey, a PR major, is from Ohio and I'm not one to turn down going to a baseball game.

I live in New York now

I've been in this state/city since 4:30 this afternoon and thus far I'm quite pleased. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to get here but it was well worth it. (Thanks to the beautiful Benjamin for the ride to the airport!)

So far adventures have included exploring the Denver airport to find Starbucks for Kelly and finding a Jamba Juice for me, wandering around the housing complex just for kicks, directing everyone else to Chipotle for DELICIOUS burritos, and buying a metro card and using it for the first time.

My last days in Provo until June were pretty adventurous as well. So they weren't really adventurous at all but they were super awesome.

Thursday night, since Stacy graduated, her parents were kind enough to invite me to dinner with them, as well as Stacy's boyfriend. It was a really fun dinner and we ate delicious Chinese food! After dinner, I headed over to Lava Lounge for Ryan's little going away party. He's actually in Wisconsin doing an internship, which makes me so happy since he gets to experience my brilliant home state. A bunch of us ate ice cream and talked, relishing in the fact that exams were DONE.

Friday was super chill. All I really did was pack. That evening I decided to longboard since I hadn't gone all spring yet and I wouldn't be doing it until June. On my way back I stopped by Jeffrey's apartment. We ended up talking for at least 2 hours, as is customary with us. It was so good talking with him. Jeff has this incredible ability to give me awesome advice/counsel while slightly making fun of me at the same time; I absolutely love it.

When I left Jeff's around 10:30, I ended up at Peter's again. I wanted to make a Taco Bell run but Peter and his roommates had gone out to dinner so he wasn't hungry. But I found myself there nonetheless. I honestly don't even remember what we did. Well, besides watch Community because we always do that. Really we just talked and enjoyed each other's company.

Saturday afternoon turned into a time of goodbyes as Peter and I hung out for the last time until June. We ate Chick-Fil-A, my last free meal for a long while I suspect, hung out at the park since it was an absolutely gorgeous day and watched some Doctor Who. I have no complaints about how we spent that time. It was the kind of afternoon I truly love.

Saturday night I watched the BYU men's volleyball team win the MPSF Championship, or something like that, I don't quite remember the official name. But BYU won and it was awesome. The only other exciting part of the night was a last minute chat with Cameron. He's a gem of a person if there ever was one. It's always a good time when he sits me down to talk.

And that pretty much gets us to present day/night. I'm here in New York till the end of June. And it should be awesome.

life is good.

2012: The Best Of

My "Best Of" list, while it does include many things that debuted in 2012, is not solely comprised of such things. It's a list of the best things I discovered in 2012. Or just things I came to see/love in a new way throughout the year. Or just things I've always loved.

Films:
Wreck It Ralph
Hottie Boomba Lottie
Captain America
Hunger Games
Thor
The Avengers
The Hobbit
Moneyball

Skyfall

YouTube videos:
Inspirational Running
Stay Awake
Stop-motion Excel

Books:
The Fault In Our Stars
Fahrenheit 451
The Race Beat
Wordplay
My Name is Asher Lev
American Jesus

Twitter pages:
Modern Seinfeld
Threadless
Maureen Johnson
John Green

Musical artists:
Imagine Dragons
A Great Big World
Greg Holden
Walk Off The Earth
Watsky
Opus Orange
Julia Nunes

Personal photos: (This one could go on forever but here's a few that never cease to make me smile)

Television shows:
Community
Parks and Recreation
Sherlock
The Mindy Project
Arrow
Doctor Who

Road trips:
Northern California w/ Trent, Phillip, Grant and Emily (Days 1&2, 3, 4)
Southern California w/ Becca
Mid-week Meridian, Idaho w/ the VPLCT

Other events that changed my life:

• Seeing Jordan three times in the spring & then talking every single day (in some form) the entire time I was home
• Lorraine getting her mission call to Paris, France
• SJ's mission farewell
• Longboarding down the canyon (finally)
• Writing for The (Daily) Universe
• Brooke telling me she was having a baby (It's a girl, by the way)
• Seeing Imagine Dragons live
• Spending a great deal of my free time during the second half of the semester with Peter
• Winning 52 free meals to Chick-Fil-A
• Tuesday lunches (and sometimes dinners) in spring term with Trent
• Finally getting a smartphone

It's been one heck of a year. I'm stoked to see how 2013 turns out. Have a great Christmas, my dear friends.

Soundtrack to my spring

For the last three or four semesters, and the last one or two summers, I've created playlists of music that define the time. Basically, it's just the music I listen to during the semester/summer. As I find new artists or as old artists come to define things I do they get added to the list. And as spring semester winds down I figure now is as good a time as ever to share my spring 2012 playlist.

What I've noticed though is that my spring music was heavily influenced by other people and other places.

• Walk Off The Earth was suggestion given to me by ShayCarl in a good number of his videos from the end of April. You'll probably recognize them as the band who made the song Somebody That I Used To Know famous.
• Jason Mraz is one of my old artists who happens to have a new album. Love Is A Four Letter Word is lovely and the songs are perfect for warm weather.
• Joe Purdy's Wash Away is a song from an episode of LOST that I randomly remembered halfway through the term. I've no idea why I thought of it but I'm glad I did.
• Young the Giant's Apartment is a song Jordan told me to listen to forever ago, a suggestion I never really heeded for whatever reason. And then Trent started talking about Young the Giant so it got added to the list.
• Imagine Dragons is now a stand-by band that will probably always be on these lists.
• Can't Stop Won't Stop does a lot of music for Devin Graham's awesome videos. They're great pick-me-up songs.
• Radical Face is a band I learned about because of a YouTube musician who always used to do covers of their songs, and then Matthew/booshoe37 mentioned them a few times this spring so I took up listening to them again.
• Elliott Smith's Somebody That I Used To Know is not what you think it is. No, it is not Gotye. It's a very lovely song though. I honestly have no idea how I came upon it.
• Brofriend by ShayCarl. This song really just needs to be watched.
• Daddy Yankee's Lovumba I got from zumba class.
• The Gardener by The Tallest Man On Earth is another song I'd heard covered a bunch of times and took up listening to in its original format.
• Karmin is perhaps my favorite artist of the spring. Karmin is a YouTube artists who has basically made it big. Most people will probably recognize their song Brokenhearted. We always listened to it in zumba and then I finally find out who it was. It made me love it even more.
• Kings of Convenience became a new favorite thanks to Trent. One day he invited me over to sit in the grass with him while he was cleaning his climbing equipment. He had Kings of Convenience playing and it was the most relaxing and chill music I'd heard in a long time.
• M83 is another band from Trent, and also Grant. They adore the song Midnight City. I'm pretty sure whenever I drive anywhere with Trent we listen to this song.
• City and Colour is a band I learned about ages ago from my friend Margaret but until this spring I'd only heard a few of their songs. 
• Ministry of Magic brings me back to the glory days of Harry Potter. I've needed that this term.
• Passion Pit's new single Take A Walk is what I've been waiting for ever since I started listening to Passion Pit some time around freshman year. I'm hoping to see them live this summer.
• All Will Be Well by the Gabe Dixon Band is a song that was in an episode of Parks and Rec. I already have a few songs by the Gabe Dixon Band so when I realized this spring when watching Parks and Rec who the band was I was hooked. It's such a happy song, and spring has definitely been a time of happy songs.

I realize now this list looks a bit daunting/overwhelming. Oh well. I wanted to share all of it. Choosing certain artists/songs just seemed unfair.

As for today's plans, as it is my first official day of summer vacation, will be spent watching, you guessed it, more Euro Cup. While I watch I'm going to try to finish the second Game of Thrones book. Then this afternoon I'm going out to lunch with my friend Jeff since I won't get to see him again until August.

Last YouTube video I watched: High School Graduation Speech/Song - Rhett and Link

Accomplished: spring term

Today is the last day of classes. I am all done with spring term. Time is a crazy thing. When I got home from my last class of "junior" year, I went for a 15 minute run and then I did an ab workout for 15 minutes. There's this really cool app called Nike Training Club that has all sorts of workouts to do that focus on all different things. They last anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes, all depending on what you want to do. While doing my abs I started watching more Euro Cup! (This is what I've been doing every day before the past few days.) Ukraine and Sweden are plying right now. (Carson served his mission in Ukraine so I really hope Sweden wins so I can trash talk him.) I love Sweden. They were the first national team I ever saw play so I will always love the Swedes. Also, they are all very good-looking; well, except maybe Ibrahimovic. If matches were decided on how good-looking the players are, I'm pretty sure Sweden would win unanimously.

But since spring term is over now, not counting exams (I only have one so it hardly counts anyway), I am officially in summer. So I present:

Spring term in Utah (photos I haven't posted yet)

Finding "wetlands" in Provo

Watching Grant be a sea lion

Pondering life in Santa Cruz (This is my favorite
photo from the entire CA trip)

Riding the train to SF between these hooligans

Matching with Stacy

Being Trent's favorite, meaning I always got the front seat

Celebrating Maddie's wedding

Mik's bridal shower type party dealio

This week will bring more awesomeness since I'll probably see Matthew McKay soon(!) and Mikaela's wedding reception is Saturday(!) and the California road trip crew (Grant, Phillip, Emily and Trent) are leaving for Canada to run the Tough Mudder so I'm probably going to hang out w/ those boys one last time before we go our separate ways for the summer. At the very least Trent and I will be getting lunch like old times, and by old times I mean like we did three weeks ago and for most of spring term.

So eight days from now I will be headed home. That'll be lovely.

Last YouTube video I watched: The Green Bean Gelatin Plan