(Ad)Venturing out of the city

You probably didn't realize this, but up until last weekend I hadn't left New York City for more than 3 hours at a time (and only a few times for 2-3 hour periods- 1 beach trip and a couple of work runs to New Jersey) since I came back in January after Christmas vacation. That's a long time for me to be in one place!

So I finally scheduled myself a vacation and went to visit my friend Sabrina in Connecticut. It was a blast! In order to get there I had to take a train from Grand Central Terminal- which was kind of exciting since I hadn't ever done that before.

Got my ticket and I'm ready to go- and ready to study for my licensing exams...

Once I arrived we grabbed dinner then did a brief walk through parts of Yale's campus. Such fun architecture there. Don't you wish we'd had this bell tower at BYU-I or the U of U?!

Sabrina's words to me: "You like that bell tower don't you? I thought you would." She was right.

Saturday morning we made our way up to northwestern Massachusetts to go tubing with a group of people Sabrina knew from Institute. We got up there a little earlier than the rest of the group did, so we did a little relaxing on the banks while we waited for them to arrive.

This is the life

Floating down the river was so much fun! It was so great to just lay back on my tube and cruise down the river while watching the beautiful scenery. It was so incredibly beautiful up there, New England is amazing.

When we realized how far up into Massachusetts we were going we thought we'd see how far it was to Vermont- why not? Turns out it was only 30 minutes to the closest town so we decided to go have dinner in Vermont, since neither of us had ever been there before. Then we thought once we got to Vermont we'd see how far it was to New Hampshire and maybe go there, but before we could even map it we crossed another bridge from the Vermont town and found ourselves in New Hampshire. That makes 5 states for me in one weekend (New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire). Impressive, right? I just had to make up for all those weekends of not leaving the city- crammed it all in to one haha.

 

 

When we got back to New Haven we had a bonfire and ate yummy s'mores. I'm pretty excited to eat more s'mores on our upcoming camping adventure!

I really love my s'mores.

Sunday morning Sabrina gave me a tour of Yale. What a great campus, I'm still wondering why I didn't go there! If only I'd seen the campus beforehand... Then we went to church, and I took an evening train back to the city. It was such a great weekend. I love NYC, but it was great to take a break from the city and just go relax somewhere else. Now I understand why people in NYC have houses in the country and visit them every weekend. I just need to be rich enough to afford that...

Playing in the Park(s)

NYC has really great parks. Maybe I've just never appreciated the parks in the other places I've lived, but NYC has really awesome ones. The really great thing is all the fun (and free) activities various organizations put on in the parks. In the last month(ish) I've watched movies at the following parks:

East River State Park: Up

This park is in the Williamsburg Area of Brooklyn, and it has an amazing side view of Manhattan. It was so much fun to see the skyline as the sun was setting, while watching a great movie!

Bryant Park: ET

I didn't stay for this whole movie- we had a decent view of the screen but the sound wasn't great where we were so it was tough to hear anything. I'm sure it would have been more fun if we'd been there early enough to get in the main area, but they show them on Monday nights and it's tough for any of us to get off work early enough to beat the crowds! Good thing there are other movie options around the city :)



I took this as we were walking out of the park- we actually had  better view with no trees in our way.



Central Park: West Side Story & Hook

This weekend is the Central Park Film Festival. They show movies in Central Park for one week of the year, every summer. On Thursday night we saw West Side story- complete with a Q & A before with some of the original cast and free popcorn. Friday night after a stop at the MoMA to check out the architecture exhibit on Le Corbusier (free Friday night admission- woohoo!) I packed myself a picnic and wandered back to the park (I love, love, love my location- most of the great stuff happening in the park is within easy walking distance from me :) where I found a great spot on the hillside to watch Hook.

Q & A with a few Jets and Sharks

In addition to all the outdoor movies, I also went to Shakespeare in the Park. They have a theater in the middle of Central Park where they put on a number of productions. All tickets to the performances are free, but there are only two ways to get them: 1. Stand in line starting early in the morning and hope to get tickets to that nights performance. 2. Enter the virtual lottery each morning in hopes that you'll be selected to get tickets to that nights performance. Since I have to be at work every day, I've been entering the virtual lottery all summer and I finally won! They did a great job- this particular performance was a new version of Shakespeare's Loves Labour Lost, which they had turned into a modern musical. It was very clever and entertaining- and so much fun to be watching a play in Central Park!

Coney Island

I love summer. Except for a few miserable weeks, the weather has not been that unbearable here (maybe I only think that because I now have a fan in my room- thanks Aunt Kathy!). One summer weekend my friend Sabrina came to visit me from Connecticut, so we grabbed our friend Sara and headed out to spend the day at Coney Island.

First, we rode the Cyclone. I think this roller coaster can be described in one word: painful. Seriously, wooden roller coasters are just rough. This one even had squishy padded seats (the most padding I've ever seen in a roller coaster) but even that's not enough for your head to not feel like it's going to come off. That being said, it was still fun... I just don't feel the need to ride that particular roller coaster ever again!

Ready to ride the Cyclone.

 

We're a bunch of wimps who can't do pull ups.

After the roller coaster we had Nathan's famous hot dogs (see how smart we are- hot dogs AFTER the roller coaster. This is why I have a college degree) on the boardwalk. Then we headed down to the beach to pretend to relax and pretend like the sun was shining. (Apparently it only rains on days when I have plans to do something outside). After we adjusted to the temperature, we waded in the water, built a sand castle, and relaxed on the beach. Eventually the sun came out and we were brave enough to venture all the way into the water (it was cold!). After swimming we laid out on the sand and relaxed some more (I LOVE the beach).

Then we headed back to the boardwalk to finish up our Coney Island Adventure with a ride on the Ferris Wheel. It was such a fun summer day!

Apparently I'm having a blast and Sara is terrified. We might have coerced her into coming on it with us...

 

Back to Bluff, Part 3: Fun

Remember how I was going to be telling you all about my Bluff experience? And then summer happened and I got busy having too much fun... Well, I'll attempt to continue to fill you in on my Bluff semester while I tell you about my life in NYC. Life is good :)

Lest you think all we did was work really hard (don't worry we did plenty of that), I'm dedicating this post to the fun things we did while we were in Bluff. There were a few things we didn't do that I wish we had (really, I drove past Arches National Park 3 times a month for 4 months and NEVER went in! Stupid. I'm going to have to fix that some day), but plenty of fun things we did do!

In January a balloon festival (hot air balloons) takes place in Bluff. Once upon a time in middle school I got to go up in a hot air balloon, but it was tethered to the ground so I didn't really count it as an "official" ride. Anyway, this balloon festival happens every year, so every year the new students at Design Build Bluff (DBB) go volunteer to crew the hot air balloons- in the hope that after being on the crew you'll get a ride (which usually happens). We got up really early on the appointed day and went to the community center where we waited for pilots to come request volunteers.

My buddy Hoku and I got selected to join a team and off we went to the elementary school which was their assigned launching ground. Here's what I learned: Hot air balloons are really, really, really big. We're talking a lot of fabric. And the equipment is really heavy. And you have to set up everything just right or you'll be in trouble later. Also, January is a really cold time to launch a hot air balloon. When it came time to put the air into the balloon Hoku and I had to hold the strings apart so they wouldn't tangle as the balloon filled- it was early January and it was one of those clear, freezing mornings- now add a constant powerful stream of air on your fingers and we were in serious pain. Eventually the balloon was filled, our fingers burned (we'd reached the it's so cold you're fingers are now on fire! stage), but we were ready to go.

First we were on the chase team, driving around in the truck keeping an eye on the balloon during its first flight. After they touched down, it was our turn to take a ride. I don't like heights, but this was so much fun! And surprisingly not scary. Really, I felt totally fine when we were up there- even when another balloon bumped into us. I would totally go for another hot air balloon ride- I'll have to see if there are any festivals around here where they need experienced crew members ;)



View from the sky

 

 

Since we were living in the middle of an incredible landscape as part of our history class we took hikes (some with guides) to explore the area- we saw ruins and petroglyphs and other remnants of past cultures and communities. It's incredible how every place has such a unique and identifiable history, we're lucky to live in a time when we have people who can study these things and teach us about them- and recognize that there's so much more to learn!

 

One of our earliest hikes was out to Comb Ridge where we had this incredible view:

 

 

 

 

 

Another time, after an (almost) full day of work we visited the Sixteen House ruins on the Navajo Reservation.

 

 

View from the ruins. Smart ancient people.



We took another day off to go hiking with a local guide who showed us more petroglyphs and ruins, and told us more about why they were there and what they meant. It's always nice to have a knowledgeable person there to tell you about what you're seeing!

 

I don't think I've ever appreciated the beauty of the desert southwest as much as I did during the semester I spent in Bluff. It's just so different from other places in the world, and it's impressive and stunning in its own way.

Monument Valley in the distance.

 

 

Our biggest adventure of the semester was the camping trip to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. So much fun. It's definitely another place I want to go back to. There are so many ruins to explore, and they're just incredible when you think about how long ago these were built and with what tools and methods they used to create them!

 

We had a blast relaxing outside, hiking, eating yummy grilled food, playing games, etc. Hoku, Sonal and I had fun having girls night with games and yummy snacks in our tent every night. It was so great to take a break and be outside (and not be doing construction haha).

 

So cool, right!

Ancient steps.

My best friends at DBB- Hoku and Sonal :)

Not all of our fun activities were outside... like the time we had a Luau at the Scorup House (the pioneer house where we lived). At the beginning of the semester we had all been split into pairs and assigned a cooking night. The cooking team for the day either stayed back from the site or came back early so we had a yummy meal every night (As a side note, you eat a LOT more food when you're doing construction- 2 full plates of pasta was not unusual for anyone there- girls included (even the boys were impressed with how much we could eat). We had to learn to adjust our eating habits when we came back to SLC!). Hoku and I were cooking partners, and Hoku is from Hawaii, so naturally everyone was clamoring for us to make Luau food. We had to do some planning to make it fit in the budget but we finally had a Luau one night, complete with Hula lessons from Hoku. It took a lot more work than most of our meals, but it was a success! Delicious and so much fun.

 

 

 And sometimes... sometimes we just had fun on the site (always after working hard of course).