...And Then I Moved to New York City

So, life has been absolutely INSANE lately! In the past 3 months I graduated from college, roadtripped across the country, sang at my brother's wedding, moved to New York and travelled around Europe for two weeks. 

So like I said: Crazy. 

When that much happens its hard to know where to start with blogging (and even my personal journal has suffered). But I feel like this is as good a place to start as any- my move to the Big Apple. 

So Alex's wedding was on Saturday August 6th, then Miriam's baby blessing was the next day and then I left for NYC on Tuesday. Southwest lets you fly with two free bags so I packed two huge black suitcases and then took a big duffle bag and my backpack as carry ons which, luckily, I got away with. The trip there was pretty uneventful (except for the fact that I made friends with this eccentric lady at the airport) and I took a taxi from Laguardia airport to my apartment. 

I was so nervous to get to my apartment! I mean I had never met my roommates before and for all I knew it was all a big sham. I had venmoed them like $2,000 and they left the key under a pot on the porch so I mean there was a lot of social trust going on! I got dropped off with my plethora of bags and it was SO hot out. Luckily, I found the key and --with a little finagling-- was able to open the door to the building. I then had two long flights of stairs to climb up 3 times with all my stuff and, after a tentative knock, I found the apartment empty which was a bit of a relief. 

So, I looked around, dropped my stuff off and decided to go outside to get the lay of the neighborhood and have some dinner. Walking around the neighborhood I was like....oh boy. Gotta start learning Spanish stat! I live in a predominantly Dominican neighborhood and I got to a certain point where I was actually counting white people. It felt like I was in a foreign country and, to be honest, with everything so new and not necessarily in my language I was a but nervous about the safety factor. This growing paranoia was great considering that I proceeded to get locked out of my apartment. 

See, after dinner I went back to my building (an old, three apartment Dutch house looking structure) and the key just didn't work. I couldn't get the door open! I started panicking a little and, not wanting to look pathetic on my porch, walked around a little bit more hoping that my roommates would come home soon. They didn't. So I ended up just sitting out on my stoop in the dark hoping and dreading meeting my roommates in such awkward circumstances for the first time. 

Luckily they DID come home and they are AWESOME. Well technicially only one of the girls that showed up on the porch was my roommate but the other was the sublet sharing my actual room. We went upstairs and I got to know them a bit and they were both really chill and welcoming. There was another subletter staying in the apartment as well that week that I first got there and she was super nice as well. 

So, long story short, I ended up hanging out with the two subletters a lot that first week before I left for Europe. It was pretty random but I just went with the flow and had fun! My room roommate subletter was LDS so we went to the temple together and then to the Statue of Liberty. She was going already and I figured why not join seeing as I would probably run out of people who wanted to do touristy things with me! Turns out it was her birthday as well that day so later in the week we decided to go out to dinner and a comedy show with the other sub-letter. It's amazing how fast you can befriend nice people. It was a fun evening and the next day after a trip to Brooklyn to get my fingerprints taken for work I headed over to the Newark airport to set off for Spain! 

That's a story for another day though :) 

My stoop!
(From a picture that my roommate sent me when I was deciding to move in)

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Entrance to my apartment building!

The fire hydrants on my street had exploded and kids were out playing in
them which was so cuteand very understandable
because it was CRAZY hot that week

Subway be like: don't smoke, don't litter, don't ...impale yourself?

I bought a bike off of Craigslist!
The girl needed it for a few more days so the plan was for her to
drop it off with my roommate while I was gone

Impromptu Trip to Liberty Island with Joy, the subletter

There was an audio tour included in the price of the boat ticket and to be honest, hearing
what the statue of liberty meant to immigrants coming to
America for the first time made me kind of emotional.
'MERICA
(as it was meant to be)

The city was looking pretty epic behind me

Shake Shack with the subletters. We talked about boys of course and it was really fun.
But I was like, dang nadabbit  WHY
 am I making friends with none of the permenant people?!

Skipping ahead when I came home from Holland this was the site that greeted me.
I just have to give a shoutout to my sweet roommate Rachel who ended up having to go pick this bike up and walk 30 blocks with it through the city and up to my room. Looks pretty rad though, right? 

So yeah! That's the beginning of Miss Jenny starting her new life in NYC. I would say I'm off to a pretty great start!