Washington DC!

Last weekend, I took the Amtrak to Washington DC to meet up with my pals Maria and Jenny and their families. It was a short trip, but a great time!

Jenny and I took a Friday morning White House Tour. No, we didn't get to see the President, but we did get to see the Blue and Green Rooms and we got to lean over a rope to see the White House Library.

The Murphys!

My family portrait in "Abe's House"

The Mercers!

Maria and I went to a Washington Nationals baseball game! It was a beautiful night, and to commemorate the event, we even purchased a Nationals baseball cap...at $15 they were a steal...we thought we were such savvy consumers. Then we found out why they were half price...they were made for children. Luckily they didn't completely cut off circulation to our scalp.

It's been a while...

So, I've definitely been slacking in the blog department! It's been a crazy month so far...I've had a TON of schoolwork to do...so many projects and papers are due in the next couple of weeks! It would be overwhelming if I thought about it, but I don't care right now- I found out today that I got a job! I'm going to be working for the NYU Office of International Students and Scholars. I start a week from Wednesday, which will work perfectly around my trip to Washington D.C. next weekend! I'm so excited to go to D.C. for some fun with friends and r-e-l-a-x-a-t-i-o-n. Plus, we're going on a tour of the White House--I can cross another thing off my bucket list.

There was one thing I did this month...I went to Easter mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was definitely interesting...totally unorganized (there was a stampede to get in) and there was a microphone incident during communion where we heard the entire conversation backstage. Perhaps the best part of the trip...the coffee from Dean and Deluca after church and then I went to Rockefeller Center...it was 72 degrees and the ice skaters were still out.

In the last 20 days I've...

-Gone home to Iowa for a week over Spring Break (very fun, very relaxing)

-Written some papers for school

-Read approximately 100,000 pages for my classes

-Got a sunburn when I went outside to read here:

(I'm not complaining...it was a beautiful day out. I sat on the bench on the right side of the picture and read. I didn't anticipate not understanding the article and reading it 4 times, so after 4 hours I came home confused and sunburned.)

That's it. Someday I'll have time to go check out this great city I'm living in...hopefully it will be sometime soon...I'll make sure to take some pictures.

Happy (Hoboken) St. Patty's Day!

Hoboken gets a head start on the St. Patrick's Day festivities...celebrating 11 days early. It seemed like the population of this city doubled on Saturday when I was at the Hoboken St. Patty's Day parade, which basically consisted of a lot of bands, bagpipes, firetrucks and Hobokeni dignitaries. This parade had several grand marshalls, the Irish policeman of the year, the Irish fireman of the year, the Irish woman of the year and, you guessed it...the Irish man of the year.

Although the major highlight was the corned beef and cabbage sandwich I had after the parade, there were other good parts:

The parade committee! This was a rather large

committee...I'm pretty sure each float had a

separate committee member in charge of it.

You can't see this very well, but it is a

fireman smoking a cigar on top of a firetruck.

For some reason I found this hilarious.

The random hecklers hanging out of their

apartment window. Hoboken had some harsh

punishments for public drunkenness ($2000 fine and a

night in jail), which was in response to last years shenanigans,

so people kept the party indoors this year...although there

were plenty of crazies out last night on my way home.

The kid with the green hair

I have learned that every police department in the area, including

the New York/New Jersey Port Authority police, have their

own bagpipe brigade. Interesting.

On Broadwayyyy!

This past weekend was not very eventful for me. Here's what I did:

Read, read, read, read, met with a group about a project, read,

went to Starbucks, and then did more reading.

It was a lot of fun.

However, in all my excitement about the dog show on President's Day weekend, I forgot to write about the other things I did!

On Friday, I met up with my friend and former co-worker Robyn, and her brother and we went to:

It was a lot of fun! Our seats were in the 6th row, which meant we got to see Michelle Williams (formerly of Destiny's Child...not Dawson's Creek) up close. She started in the show only four days before we went, but I thought she did a good job.

After the show we went to a restaurant in Hell's Kitchen called E. I decided I had to order something I couldn't make at home...but that only excluded one thing from the menu, so I went with my favorite, scallops. It was fantastico. I also had the best martini at E. I don't remember what it had in it, but it had something to do with mango. Soon after I had that martini, I found out they were $15 each, so I went ahead and capped it at one.

A Day At The Dog Show!

Today, my roommate Erin and I went to the Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. Here's our day in pictures:

First, I woke up in the middle of the night.

Then, we were nearly stampeded while trying

to pick up our tickets at will-call

Next: Coffee, pronto.

7:40am: Now we're ready to party

Just like on TV!

First show of the day: Rhodesian Ridgebacks

The "Benching Area" where this particular

dog was having his hair straightened.

A little spritz of "Le Pooch" for good luck

and he was ready to go!

There you have it. A day at the Westminster Dog Show.

(not shown: me taking a two hour nap when I got home)

Czech it out!

I've been accepted into a 3 week study abroad program to Prague!

Interestingly enough, this program counts toward my degree, however, it is all about art. I chose to do my project in photography...now all I have to do is really learn how to use my camera so I don't look like such a dope when I'm working with the Czech photographers. The program is in June, so I have a little time. I'm sure I'll be the only "artist" there who learned everything she knows from "Photography for Dummies."