It started out with an early early morning exploration of the city with T. He and I went to Columbia University and (pretending to be students) walked all throughout the campus, which was beautiful and old. Unlike NYU, Columbia actually has a real campus that comes with bricked buildings, fabulous statues, trees and a quad. They also have a Journalism school that was founded by Joseph Pulitzer. Yeah, that Joseph Pulitzer. I made T take a pic of me standing in front of the entrance. I've realized now I have way too many dreams and plans, I want to go to school at NYU, Columbia and in Boston, I want to do Teach for America and live abroad. I have no idea which of these crazy paths I'll end up taking, or if it will be any of them, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that that's not my last visit to Columbia. Then T and I went to Columbus Circle, grabbed some coffee, walked around and chatted, then headed towards the Brooklyn Bridge.
If you've never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge (which I hadn't) you can't fathom how massive, and beautiful this piece of architecture truly is. It's just a bridge right? Wrong. It's over a 120 years old, but still in excellent condition. Connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan across the Hudson, it provides the greatest view of both boroughs that I've seen since I've been here. You get chills walking across the bridge, realizing what humans are capable of, the magnitude of what we've built. T and I crossed to the Brooklyn promenade and sat there and watched the sunrise over Manhattan. I've seen the sun rise over the Atlantic, behind the wooded peaks of the Rockies and the snowcapped Italian Alps, I've seen its first rays reflected in Louisiana lakes and bayous, and seen it change the hue of the deep forests of Mississippi to a summer's green, but that was the first time I'd ever seen one come up rising against the backdrop of an island of metal. With every beam mirrored back by skyscraper after skyscraper. It was incredible. Like I said to T, I didn't have a word for what I was looking at. It hadn't been invented yet. As I circled my arms around my chest, fighting back the early morning chill I realized this summer has been a dream. I've reverted back to the feeling on my first night here, and keep pinching myself to prove that I'm not actually in Jackson and will wake to find this has all been some extremely beautiful and haunting dream, just an imagined memory. But it's real, I'm here, I've experienced all of this- my summer in New York. What is it about this city that makes everything I do seem better, more special than they would be anywhere else. The city is a drug, a mind-altering, full out sensory experience that leaves you aching for more. And this was just Monday morning.
After getting back to the dorm, I crashed in the lounge till I woke up in time to shower, eat, and get a load of laundry done before it was time to head to the taping of Jimmy Fallon. Thanks to SB and his wonderful supply of tickets, A, J, SB and I all got to go to the taping of Jimmy Fallon. Guesting on the show were Kevin Kline, Chase Crawford (yeah I was five feet from him, go ahead gasp and scream- he's even cuter in real life), and Hanson (my nine-year-old self was soooo stoked!). And thanks to their need to have a few extra people be on the band stage, I got to stand DIRECTLY behind the drummer of Hanson while they performed, so if you go YouTube the performance you can see me directly behind the band. But I wouldn't suggest that because I look so awkward. I do not see a career in television for myself at all, and that is perfectly alright. However it was extremely cool watching the performance and seeing how the show was filmed and realizing that celebrities are actual humans- bit of an eye-opener. After the show and (I'm sorry) multiple calls to people to watch the show that night, the four of us headed to Central Park to see the Flaming Lips, the one thing I've had on my calendar since the beginning of the summer.
It. Was. Amazing.
The excitement in the park was tangible, you could feel it in the air, and see it on the faces of everyone around us. They know how to put on a show. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day. Except it wasn't the ending (not completely). After the show I headed back to the dorm and hung out with everyone on the second floor and thanks to some help from R and K, I won my first pool game! Maybe not the most epic of endings, but it's the little stuff like that- just hanging with friends on the second floor or walking to the subway with A each morning that are the icing on the wonderful cake that is New York. (that sounded really cheesy didn't it?) Ha, oh well. Tonight should be fun, thanks to O and his wonderful job at MTV, I'm going with him to watch a taping of Maroon 5's performance.
Well, I guess that's all for now. The summer's slowly, scratch that, speedily winding down.
Love to all my faithful readers, and to any newbies!
-Mandy
P.S. Go listen to the Gaslight Anthem. I'm sort of on a hook right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment