If you are a constant reader of my blog, you know that I have a consistent New Year's Resolution to travel to a new place. The reason this one is so important to me is that even though I've don'e a good bit of international travel, I've been really terrible about going to places that are more domestic. Up until July of last year, I hadn't even been to New York (aside from changing planes at JFK). This was way at the top of my list of places to go but I knew that if I was going to go I'd want a companion or place to stay. Well, after my friend, Elissa, moved there earlier in the summer, I knew I had both.
Elissa had given me the directions to get to her apartment from the airport. After several transfers, I soon found myself stepping out of a subway and into the sweltering heat of New York in the summer. For someone who grew up in a city that frequently had over 100 degree summers, it's funny how quickly I've adapted to the mild seasons of San Francisco.
After Elissa got off work, she helped me settled into her lovely Upper East Side apartment and then we changed to go out to dinner. I had luckily showed up in New York during Restaurant Week (similar to dine about town with $35 prix fixe menu) so I was excited to try a lot of places that were otherwise out of my price range. As a big Top Chef fan, I was really happy to see that Tom Colicchio (long standing head judge of the show) had a restaurant on the list and I was able to snag a reservation!
We showed up at Colicchio and Sons which was located just by the meat packing district and the elevated park and were instantly impressed by the modern decor. I personally loved the wine bottle tree. I gave my name to the hostess, but she couldn't find my reservation so - I pulled up the Open Table email on my phone... and quickly realized that I had been off by a week. I was so sad about messing up the reservation and told the hostess that it was my first night ever in NYC and had really looked forward to dining there. Luckily, the hostess team was very nice and said they'd find a way to squeeze us in if we wouldn't mind waiting a the bar for a bit. We were so happy that they were accommodating, that we didn't have any problem finding something off of the impressive drink menu.
Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of our dinner so it's a little harder to remember exactly what we got. However, I do remember getting an extra course of rabbit sausage pizza mysteriously delivered to our table. We quickly began to realize that mentioning that it was my first time in New York was a great way to have people give us really good service (aka freebies).
We also got a chance to meet up with my friends Anthony and Ian who were roadtripping across the country and happened to be in New York at the same time as me. We end up at several college-esque bars that felt quite appropriate as a meetup with some of my college friends. Anthony has a blog as well and he wrote about our adventures with only a week lag instead of 11 months. You can read that here.
It was definitely a great start to the first of many adventures that we were going to have that trip.
As an aside - the next few posts will be pretty picture free. I had dropped my camera in a creek while in Southern California and my phone had terrible battery life. I took what I could between my broken camera, phone and tablet (yes, I was that awkward person taking tablet pictures - I was desperate) but there will be a lot of barren posts. I know they are less interesting. I'm sorry.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Week of July 11th 2011: River Rafting
It's hard to believe I'm almost a whole year behind on posts! I think my change from One New Thing a Week to Nikki's New Things will help it catch up somewhere around the beginning of 2012 but there are still a lot of adventures to write about. Let's hope my memory does them justice.
Last summer, my friend Conor organized a river rafting trip on the American River. I had never been river rafting so I was really excited to go and instantly told him to count me in. When I thought of river rafting, my first thought was immediately of white water rapid, helmets, big rocks, possibly falling out of the boat, etc. Well, turns out rafting on the American River is a completely different experience.
We got to the river rafting site, and Conor went to get our rafts as the rest of us put on sunscreen and ate some lunch. Soon, we were carrying our rafts full of beer down to the very calm water. This kind of rafting trip was much more like a moving summer pool party than anything too dangerous. We had a little raft race and then eventually tied our two rafts together so we didn't have to worry about losing each other.
Since it wasn't too far into the summer, the water was still pretty chilly and I was a little hesitant to just dive right in but a few hours in the sun and the water felt nice. Sometimes we didn't have too much of a choice as many passing rafts would spray us with water guns. Soon most of us were in and out of the raft and really enjoying the water. We even pulled our raft over a couple of times to find places where we could all jump in the water.
A little ways down the river, we saw a few rafts pulled over and swinging into the water from a rope hanging from a tree. Of course our group pulled over to join in as well. We noticed that the other groups were only sending up boys so the girls in our group decided that we would have to go up and join in too. I was definitely really nervous about swinging in. Even though I love adventures, I always think about everything that could go wrong - but that was all for naught because when it was my turn, I swung far out and landed safely in the icey water. All of the other rafts were really nice and they helped check to make sure I didn't have any problem getting out of the water and then offered me a beer.
Eventually we made it to the end of rafting portion of the river and had to return everything and wait for the bus back to where we parked. Rafting down the American River was such a great way to spend a warm, sunny day and I'm very excited that I get a chance to go back later this summer... with an even bigger group!!!
Last summer, my friend Conor organized a river rafting trip on the American River. I had never been river rafting so I was really excited to go and instantly told him to count me in. When I thought of river rafting, my first thought was immediately of white water rapid, helmets, big rocks, possibly falling out of the boat, etc. Well, turns out rafting on the American River is a completely different experience.
We got to the river rafting site, and Conor went to get our rafts as the rest of us put on sunscreen and ate some lunch. Soon, we were carrying our rafts full of beer down to the very calm water. This kind of rafting trip was much more like a moving summer pool party than anything too dangerous. We had a little raft race and then eventually tied our two rafts together so we didn't have to worry about losing each other.
Since it wasn't too far into the summer, the water was still pretty chilly and I was a little hesitant to just dive right in but a few hours in the sun and the water felt nice. Sometimes we didn't have too much of a choice as many passing rafts would spray us with water guns. Soon most of us were in and out of the raft and really enjoying the water. We even pulled our raft over a couple of times to find places where we could all jump in the water.
A little ways down the river, we saw a few rafts pulled over and swinging into the water from a rope hanging from a tree. Of course our group pulled over to join in as well. We noticed that the other groups were only sending up boys so the girls in our group decided that we would have to go up and join in too. I was definitely really nervous about swinging in. Even though I love adventures, I always think about everything that could go wrong - but that was all for naught because when it was my turn, I swung far out and landed safely in the icey water. All of the other rafts were really nice and they helped check to make sure I didn't have any problem getting out of the water and then offered me a beer.
Eventually we made it to the end of rafting portion of the river and had to return everything and wait for the bus back to where we parked. Rafting down the American River was such a great way to spend a warm, sunny day and I'm very excited that I get a chance to go back later this summer... with an even bigger group!!!
Friday, June 15, 2012
And We're Back...
As I'm sure you may have noticed, I had to block my own site for a while. No, this wasn't some sort of protest against internet privacy laws, but it did have to do with my internet privacy. I recently had the unfortunate experience of being the target of internet harassment.
I've worked really hard to make the conscious decision to keep track of what I put out there in internet world. On this blog, I've been very deliberate to not post my full name, where I work, or even full pictures of myself. This blog is probably my most public online image and as such, I've tried to keep it really private where it matters. On the other hand, I am more public on my social networks where I have tight privacy settings and monitor who I accept as friends or links or put in my circles.
Despite that, I found something that I couldn't control - what other people said about me. Just because I could control what I put out about myself, didn't mean that others where unable to say false things about me on the internet or share my private information. Finding this gap in privacy and reputation control was incredibly disheartening.
While I did my best to report any posts about myself or my friends, I realized that the biggest thing I could do was stop the poison from spreading anymore. I double checked and reinforced my privacy settings, but I knew I would have to tackle the bigger question of what to do with my blog. While there is not personal information and there are no pictures, I do share a lot of personal experiences. This blog is as much a way for me to remember some really cool things I did, as it is a means for me to let people know what's out there. I really love my blog and I realized that I didn't want this person to touch something that I love.
I hope I didn't lose any of my followers by having to privatize my blog. It's made me really happy to see the number of readers I get a month grow. Based on the countries that read my blog based on my stats, I don't think my Twitter and Facebook messages got out to everyone so here is hoping that you're still checking on me.
If any of you have been the target of internet harassment or defamation and would like to reach out to me with how you dealt with it, I'd really like to hear about it. I'm not really sure what my options are and I'd be really comforted to know that I have some.
I've worked really hard to make the conscious decision to keep track of what I put out there in internet world. On this blog, I've been very deliberate to not post my full name, where I work, or even full pictures of myself. This blog is probably my most public online image and as such, I've tried to keep it really private where it matters. On the other hand, I am more public on my social networks where I have tight privacy settings and monitor who I accept as friends or links or put in my circles.
Despite that, I found something that I couldn't control - what other people said about me. Just because I could control what I put out about myself, didn't mean that others where unable to say false things about me on the internet or share my private information. Finding this gap in privacy and reputation control was incredibly disheartening.
While I did my best to report any posts about myself or my friends, I realized that the biggest thing I could do was stop the poison from spreading anymore. I double checked and reinforced my privacy settings, but I knew I would have to tackle the bigger question of what to do with my blog. While there is not personal information and there are no pictures, I do share a lot of personal experiences. This blog is as much a way for me to remember some really cool things I did, as it is a means for me to let people know what's out there. I really love my blog and I realized that I didn't want this person to touch something that I love.
I hope I didn't lose any of my followers by having to privatize my blog. It's made me really happy to see the number of readers I get a month grow. Based on the countries that read my blog based on my stats, I don't think my Twitter and Facebook messages got out to everyone so here is hoping that you're still checking on me.
If any of you have been the target of internet harassment or defamation and would like to reach out to me with how you dealt with it, I'd really like to hear about it. I'm not really sure what my options are and I'd be really comforted to know that I have some.
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