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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

NYC-Versary


This date crept up on me like the G Train, but it's true: I've officially lived in New York City for one full year. I've officially been a college grad for one full year. Crazy crazy crazy. To celebrate this exciting milestone, I'm paying a visit later tonight to the place where it all began: Junior's Cheesecake. But I first wanted to look back at this last year and remember all the amazing adventures I've had so far.

For example...In one year living in NYC, I've:
  • Done just about all the touristy things. Top of the Rock, Statue of Liberty, High Line, Brooklyn Bridge, Coney Island...I got all of these out of the way early. 
  • Eaten my weight in pizza and cheesecake and pastrami and halal
  • Biked around Central Park
  • Gotten lost in the Met, the American Museum of Natural History, the MOMA, and the Brooklyn Museum
  • Traveled on the subway at three in the morning with two homeless men as my companions
  • Fallen asleep on the subway and woken up at Brighton Beach
  • Heard every rendition imaginable of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" 
  • Been networked with on the subway
  • Been proposed to by my taxi driver
  • Been propositioned in the South Bronx
  • Been to a jazz concert in Harlem
  • Participated in film festivals, television festivals, and music festivals
  • Seen 14 Broadway shows
  • Had my name in a Playbill (off-off Broadway, but still)
  • Attended the cherry blossom festival at Brooklyn Botanic Garden
  • Gallery-shopped in Chelsea
  • Been to a Yankees game and a Mets game
  • Attended a live taping of SNL
  • Gobbled up the special concrete at each Shake Shack location
  • Ridden the Cyclone at Coney Island
  • Experienced the weirdness that is the Village Halloween Parade
  • Attended various free concerts and plays in Central Park
  • Warbled my way through Korean karaoke
  • Learned all the Jewish holidays in September
  • Read a book in the Rose Reading Room at the Schwarzman Library
  • Become best friends with the security guards at Grand Central Terminal
  • Devoured all the things at Smorgasburg
  • Taken a selfie with Zachary Quinto
  • Taken stalker photos of countless other celebrities
  • Marathoned movies at the Tribeca Film Festival
  • Sat on the Iron Throne
  • Learned what 100 degrees without air conditioning really feels like
  • Learned what taking public transit through a polar vortex really feels like
  • Lived in three different boroughs
  • Changed my personal definitions of "expensive" and "far away" and "smelly"
  • Learned how to place an order with Seamless in less than 30 seconds.
  • Hardened my heart towards tourists in Times Square
  • Felt inner pride when a lady asked me for directions and I knew what to tell her
  • Made some incredible friendships and memories to last a lifetime
Greatest friendship of them all

That's only a small list of things I've done this past year. You can click on the "New York" tag at the bottom to see some of my other posts I wrote about my time here so far.

However, there are still so many things I want to see and do. I plan to live here for a while, and I still don't feel I can fully call myself a New Yorker, at least not until I:
  • Discover more obscure, delicious restaurants to impress my visiting friends with. This includes completing the 196 Challenge (visiting one restaurant for every country in the world) 
  • Knock another girl to the ground at a sample sale
  • Attend an art fair at Roosevelt Island
  • Get a bicycle and bike around Prospect Park
  • Visit Greenwood Cemetery 
  • Go to a Knicks and a Nets game
  • Attend a taping of The Colbert Report before it's too late
  • Play chess in Washington Square Park
  • Visit the real Little Italy in the Bronx
  • Kayak on the Hudson River
  • Sing along at a drag show
  • Bowl and jam at Brooklyn Bowl
  • Find Brandon Stanton and get on Humans of New York
  • Get yelled at by Billy on the Street
  • Meet Amy Poehler at the UCB
  • Find myself saying "Fuhgeddaboutit" unironically
Please let this happen to me.