Hello everyone!
I haven't updated this in a while but I figured now would be a good time to check back in with all you family and friends and let you all know I'm doing very well - I'm safe and dry and
very fortunately unscathed post-frankenstorm.
Dan (my roommate, old friend from jazz band in highschool) and I weathered out the storm up in Washington Heights and I think we were incredibly lucky to live on one of the highest points of Manhattan. We never lost power and our neighborhood had hardly any damage. We did take a moment on Monday to walk down to the Hudson though and that was pretty epic! The Hudson was higher than I've ever seen it and it had huge waves. The wind was pretty strong and after walking around for a while getting incredibly soaked from the sideways rain, a really strong gust came along and almost knocked a woman off a rock. (Fact: she was being kind of stupid climbing out on a rock in the river in the first place). Dan helped her down and we decided it was time to head back indoors.
I took some pictures while we were down there:
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| leaving our apartment - I was trying to take a picture of the wind knocking the trees around but it didn't really work |
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| the view of the crazy water, boats hiding upriver and less than 1 mile visibility |
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| trees losing all their leaves |
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| Dan watching the storm next to the little red lighthouse |
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| the great grey bridge and the little red lighthouse |
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this was actually taken the day after - just to give you an idea of all the buildings we COULDN'T see during the storm
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Besides Hurricane Sandy, things are going really well in NYC! I mean, obviously I'm not skipping around all the time - there is the stressful side of life that is just part of being in grad school - but on a whole I think I've finally gotten used to the program, my neighborhood and living in a real city again. My classes - for the most part - are really great. So far my favorites are Marketing for Arts, Culture and Entertainment and Conflict Resolution. The people in my program (20 people in total, 17 of whom are girls and 11 of whom are international students) are all really fun and from all different countries and backgrounds. Some of our professors are a liiiittle frustrating but I have to admit that it's because of them that we've gotten to go on really amazing site visits to the Neue Gallerie, the Guggenheim and meet with directors and professionals around New York. We did have a lot of classes cancelled this week - only just had my first day back yesterday; and the subway is slowly limping back into service (right now it's limited service and all of lower Manhattan is still shut down... Honestly, if you are concerned or want to help, there are a lot of people in lower Manhattan and New Jersey that are still entirely without power, heat or water.)
The apartment and the neighborhood are two of my favorite things about living here. Whenever I want to I can either just run down to the Hudson and run along the beautiful park they've installed there or run up to Fort Tryon Park and the Cloisters; both have just incredible views and give me enough moments in nature to maybe forget I'm living in NYC. Our little intersection has a great sense of community between the families that live up here and the businesses - they actually had a little Halloween parade for all the kids on Wednesday! They've been doing such a great job at keeping the community alive and happy during the storm and everyone just seems really friendly. The apartment is still huge and super nice. I keep on saying I'm going to do some painting but I haven't yet. Hmm.... I'm having a potluck for everyone in my program this weekend though - it will be fun to see how many people we can actually fit in here!
I took some pictures of the place (about a month ago) for those that haven't seen it yet:
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| my room! I did NOT choose that wall color, but I'm working with it! |
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| a peek of the kitchen from the dining room! |
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| and a peek of the living room from the OTHER half of the dining room |
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| the living room - best room in the place! |
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| our epic 50-foot hallway |
So there you go! Conclusions: I'm safe, doing well, keeping busy and have a bright pink wall in my bedroom. I hope all is well with everyone else and that everyone else made it through the storm ok.
Love to everyone!
Meg
