Week(end) [Read: New York] Adventures Parts 2-4 by Cydnie T. '12

To continue on my series of Weekend Adventures, this blog will cover a couple different trips over the past few months. And since 90% of these getaways have happened in the Big Apple, “Weekend Adventures Parts 2, 3, and 4” shall hereby be dubbed, “New York Adventures”. As a special added bonus, I have also included the diary of my #springbreak2011 Adventures to keep your taste buds tingling with excitement.

Enjoy your meal!

Appetizer (consider it the house sampler plate):

Friday, January 21, 2011 was definitely a GREAT day to start a weekend adventure. I woke up to the second blizzard of the year (which conveniently arrived about 9 days after the first one) and I was thus assured that taking a trip to New York was the smartest decision I could have made.

So I finished packing and headed to work ready to jump on the first bus after 5. The rest was history…

Friday:

6:03 pm – Lucky Star bus to NYC, NY

10:16 pm – A train express into Brooklyn

11:04 pm – waited for host to come home…hung out in random Jamaican restaurant

12:50 pm – got settled and played cards with friends while sipping hot cocoa

Saturday:
12:48 pm – breakfast time! Blueberry muffins, bacon, and eggs

1:25 pm – movies and lounging

3:30 pm – trip to the MoCADA (Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art)

5:45 pm – went to Union Square. Stopped by Crumbs Bakery

6:02 pm – found a neat sports duffle and sweater at Cures Thrift Store

7:45pm – heard the BLAH band at the 14th St/Union Square Station while waiting for the L train. They were great!

7:56 pm – heard ANOTHER band at the next station

(Video Credits: Dorian ’11)

8:18 pm – dinner at Frida’s Soul Food near Columbia University

11:27 pm – more movies and lounging

Sunday:
1:25 pm – bible study with friends

3:20 pm – even more movies and lounging… this time with a few games of Uno

7:50 pm – Dinnertime!! We cooked family style and each made a dish.

12:14 am – headed back to the bean

Pre-Entre Salad:

To begin my much needed #springbreak2011, I started off with a glorious Thursday night filled with assignments, summer project proposals, and chocolate. With a to-do list as long as the Green Building is high, I was able to finish around 7:30am on Friday. This was, of course, followed by my favorite activity, last minute packing! I do believe that this instance of the MadGrab was an all time record for a 9 day adventure of 23.7minutes.

I scurried along to submit/print/scan all the projects I was working on through the night and then off to the airport I went. Next stop was Pittsburgh, PA!

I spent the next 40-odd hours on the campus of Carnegie Mellon for a leadership conference. As the National Chapter Liaison (read: president) of the Impact Movement @ MIT, I have the pleasure of getting leadership training once a year along side the leaders from the other Impact chapters in the New England area. The workshops and lessons taught me a lot and gave me great ideas on how to further develop our MIT chapter.

After the conference activities were over, and since my bus out of Pittsburgh didn’t leave for another 11 hours, I got time to hang out with some of the students at both Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh. My favorite parts about these few hours were the Jamaican Feast they cooked up and the sitcom I was introduced to, Oliver.

Main Entre:

I hopped on the redeye MegaBus to New York and began the last leg of my (extended) weekend adventure. The bus was a double decker and not full so I got two seats up top all to myself. So I spread out and said goodnight to the world for a few hours. I woke up at the rest stop to find myself in the mist of a blizzard to welcome me from my slumber. Thus began a lovely, and frigid first week of spring for New England…

Thankfully, there were no major setbacks and I arrived safely in Manhattan at around 8am Monday morning. And in the true spirit of vacation, I spent the next four hours sitting in Starbucks catching up on my favorite shows (see “Oh the Things I’ve Seen” ). Later on I travelled to lower Manhattan to meet with a College Admission Manager (and former MIT Admissions counselor) at Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO). After this meeting, I was significantly tired and after dinner, I went straight to bed.

And I slept.

Sleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleep. sleepsleepsleepsleepsleep. sleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleep. sleepsleepsleepsleepshowerreadtvshowsleep. sleep sleep sleepsleepsleepsleepsleep. sleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleep. sleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleep. sleepsleepsleepsleepsleep. sleepsleepsleepsleep sleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleep sleepsleepsleepdinertv. sleepsleepsleepsleep sleepsleepsleepsleep sleepsleepsleepsleepsleep sleepsleepsleep. sleepsleepsleepsleep sleepsleep sleepsleepsleepsleep. sleepsleepsleepsleep sleepsleepsleepsleep sleepsleepsleepsleep sleep sleepsleepsleepsleep.

So then Wednesday, I met with my new friend at SEO and also with an admitted student over lunch to tell her how amazing MIT is, why she should come, and to answer all her questions/concerns. I also got a chance to walk around the city a bit and pay my cousin a visit that was visiting from Arkansas with her high school choir. After that visit, I spent a couple hours in a Borders Bookstore near Penn Station sipping on hot cocoa and relaxing.

(PS this was by far the prettiest hot cocoa I think I’ve ever had… )

Later that night, I attended the New York Admitted Student’s Gathering and met members of the Class of 2015 from the NYC area. Highlight here, besides being able to interact with these great kids, was the gallon sized bucket of Twislers that I dove into!

Thursday was another chill day for me. I woke up fairly early and went to visit friends at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. I met them at the conference in Pittsburgh and discovered that their school was only a couple stops away from were I was staying for the week! So I, and another of my MIT friends in the city for the week, sat in on their women’s bible study, which was way fun and insightful. Afterwards, my MIT buddy (Shamarah ’12) and I took a trip around the area and found this AMAZING pizza place. I had a slice of Broccoli & Chicken and a slice of Sausage & Bacon…I was in heaven ☺ . After our delicious lunch at A Slice of Brooklyn, we ventured further to find the Brooklyn Public Library.

Friday was even more eventful day. I went to talk to two groups of high school students about MIT in the morning. It was refreshing seeing such young faces; eager to hear more about this mysterious MIT they had heard snit bits about. Afterwards, I went to my favorite restaurant in Harlem, Manna’s Soul Food*, for lunch. Later, I met up with a couple friends in Union Square for some retail therapy, birthday cupcakes, and dinner at Stand’s Burgers.

The last day of my NY Adventure was filled with traveling. I took a two-hour journey up to an alumni’s home in Rye, NY for another Admitted Students Gathering. The kids at this gathering were also quite excited and had tons of great questions about life at MIT. I returned from Rye, grabbed dinner, and headed to the bus stop to get back to Boston.

To close, here are a host of pictures and videos from my various rides on the metro around New York. I’ve affectionately named these adventures: #metroentertainment. Here goes nothing:

Download file A/C Train @ Fulton St (movie)

Download file C Train (audio file)

*Check out the meal I had at Manna’s!!

Cheers!