"Concrete jungle where dreams are made of There's nothing you can't do"...except ride your bicycle on the sidewalk..."Now you're in New York"

Well friends, it's been a week and we've survived.  I can't really believe it's only been a week because we've crammed in a lot of things in the past 7 days.  Charlie and I started off by walking along the East River on a nice walking/biking path.  We walked all the way to the Williamsburg Bridge.  He's done really well so far leaving other people and dogs be.  He usually can't decide which side of the sidewalk to walk on because there are SO many smells to investigate. 

.

I tried out Citi Bike this week, which is a city-wide bike rental program that is really convenient and easy (once you figure it out the first time).

Overall it was a good experience - I was able to get to Central Park in about 20 minutes from the apartment - but it was a little unnerving navigating streets alongside taxis and trucks and lots of pedestrians.  I got scolded for riding on the sidewalk at one point because I was trying to find my way back to the bike lane. Eh...I'll learn.  Knowing which direction streets go is crucial...I did not have this complete knowledge starting out, so it was a little scary.  I'm not giving up though, I'll figure it all out.

I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday.  I was there for 4 hours and only made it through half of the first floor.  The place is huge and so interesting!! I was taking my time and really looking at everything since I'll be able to go back soon.  

 After that I made a short walk to Central Park:

I saw a photo shoot going on and there was a violist playing close by my bench...very picturesque.

On Friday I got the chance to catch up with friends.  Toni (from Morris Grove) and I went to Chinatown and explored a bit.  We also walked through Little Italy.

I met Sarah Fox Pacheco in the West Village and we walked along the High Line, which is a redesigned railway line that has great views of the city.  We also wandered through the Chelsea Market.  It was a beautiful day.  Then Matt and I met up for happy hour and dinner at the rooftop beer garden at Eataly.

Matt and I have been enjoying our neighborhood.  Stuy Town is a little oasis in the city.  You can tell that you're in the city, but the trees, little parks, and all the families and dogs help it feel like an actual community.  There is a weekly farmer's market on Sunday mornings and other free events during the summer that we'll take advantage of.  We've ventured a little further out to the Alphabet City/East village area and they're funky and fun too.  We headed to Brooklyn on Saturday night with new friend Andrea (met through mutual friends Heather and Pete from WFU) to a highly acclaimed barbeque joint called Fette Sau.  We figured it would be good because the line looked like this 

out the door, around the corner, out to the street.  Also, the food smelled and looked amazing.  Once we actually got the goods it was amazing!!

Potato rolls, pulled pork, brisket, homemade pickles, baked beans, German potato salad, broccoli salad. Delish!

The week ends on a very fun and wildly interesting event: the LGBTQ pride parade, which was this morning. Millions of people come out to watch this spectacle and support the LGBTQ community.  It was quite entertaining!

Matt's job is going well so far.  He is getting acclimated to the work, and he's getting to know and likes the people on his team.  We've done well with subways and finding our way around.  So far the hardest part of living here is enduring blisters all over my feet from walking everywhere.  Flip flops are even hard to bare sometimes and I'll just say that women who wear heels around here are CrAzY!!!!

That about wraps it up for this week! I hope everyone has a Happy Fourth of July on Friday!! We'll be celebrating with fireworks and the Statue of Liberty - it doesn't get much more patriotic than that : )

We have arrived!!!

Moving is never fun, but ours was about as good as it can get.  Shout out to Jess, Keith, Chow, Pete, and Matt's parents for helping us pack and load the truck.  We wouldn't have been able to do any of this without them.  The truck was jam-packed...Charlie had to sit on my lap most of the way up to the city.  We stayed just outside of Philadelphia with friends Alex and Kasey (thanks guys!) on Friday night and get an early start on Sat. to make it into the city.  All the driving went really smoothly.

 

We had to unload my school stuff from the truck first - another shout out to Sarah and Matt Pacheco for helping us with the unloading at the school and apartment.  The weather was awesome (74 and sunny).  Matt's friend from grad. school also came to help at the apartment.  The building has elevators, without which we would have died getting all of our stuff up to the 4th floor.  After about 3 hours, we saw the most beautiful sight:

the empty truck!

Matt and I worked and worked to get things unpacked and got a lot done.  Luckily, everything fit!  Here are some preliminary pics of the apartment.  

dining area/entry way

kitchen

living room

bathroom

one side of bedroom

other side of bedroom

We're really pleased with how everything is working out.  The windows look out onto one of the playgrounds in the neighborhood, so lots of kids' laughter comes up our way, which is nice.  We also have trees right outside : )

After sleeping in this morning, we did the very New York "thing" of going to brunch at The Bluebell Cafe on 3rd Ave.  Charming and delicious.  This afternoon we went out to watch the US soccer game.  We tried to go to Jack Demsey's bar which is the American Outlaws' (a US soccer fan club, for the non-soccer followers out there) official bar.  When we arrived 1 1/2 hours before the game started the line was out the door and down the street to get in.  We waited, but it became clear we wouldn't be watching there.  So, we went to Madison Square Park where a huge crowd had gathered and a big screen was set up for viewing.  If you watched the game, they showed the park on tv.  It was fun to people watch as well as watch the game.  

This week Matt starts work and I'll be unpacking more things and exploring more around the city.  It doesn't quite feel real yet, but we are enjoying the adventure so far!

T minus 4 days

AAAhhhhh!!! It's here!! This is the week we shove off and move out.  We have our truck and friends (bless you!) coming to help pack up and unpack.  Just a few things left to pack up and take care of.  It's surreal to think that in just a few days we'll be city people.  This adventure has been crazy so far, I can't wait for the next phase to begin.

We've enjoyed ourselves this last week saying farewell to coworkers, students, favorite places, and friends.  We got to play trivia one more time at Tomato Jake's (we lost...just for old time's sake of course), went to Fridays on the Front Porch again, and to the food truck rodeo yesterday.  We took Charlie with us to help him get used to being surrounded by people and other dogs.  He did great - it gives me hope that he will be ok in NYC.

We're packing up the truck Thursday, leaving on Friday for Philly to stay with friends (thank you Alex and Kasey!) overnight.  Then on Saturday we'll make the rest of the journey into the city to unload and move in.  So, this week I want all of the experienced movers out there to weigh in: what's your best packing/moving (with a dog) advice?  Ready, go!

Countdown: 2 weeks

The big move is coming up fast and we've been busy preparing.  We put our house on the market on Tuesday morning.  We had 1 showing that same day, but no more so far.  Say prayers that more people will come to see the house soon!! Matt and I worked so hard to get it ready and we're keeping it maintained well, but it's the waiting part that might be the hardest.

In the meantime, we're trying to do the things we will miss around Durham and see the people we love before we leave on the 20th.  We went to the Bulls game on Friday night with Jordan and Elizabeth.

It was a beautiful night...dreadful game...but fun to hang out with them again.  

On Saturday, Matt and I went to meet Mom and her new fiancee, Nick Baynes, in Charlotte!  This has been quite the love story and it's not over!  They are really happy.  Nick is a great guy and wonderful for Mom.  They are set to be married on Sept. 13th in Asheville, and I will be the matron of honor : )  We also got to see Mom's new church and neighborhood.  

On Sunday we celebrated Teagan's baptism with the O'Hare's.  She is growing up quickly and I can't wait to keep watching her reach all of those important milestones.  We sure are going to miss these wonderful friends we've made and all the antics and laughter that we've shared.  I can't write about our friendship without shedding tears, but I know that we will stay close and connected with each other even across hundreds of miles.  Leaving friends and family is the part of moving that stinks the most.

This next week will bring more sendoffs as I say goodbye to another class of students and everyone at Morris Grove.  While I will miss the students, families, and staff at MGE it's only in saying goodbye that can we make way for new hellos.

“This is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” 

~Winston Churchill

Welcome to Stuy Town!!!

While I was at professional development on Saturday, Matt went and got us an apartment!!!  I'm so excited and here are 5 reasons why:

1) Convenience: It's 15 blocks from my school and about the same distance to Matt's building, so we can walk (when the weather's nice) about 25 minutes to get to work in the mornings.  In adverse weather there is a bus stop right at our building that will take us right to our work places.  It's also convenient to the L train which will connect us to other trains that can take us anywhere we want to go.

2) Space: By New York City standards it's not that small: 755 sq. feet! We have a kitchen, room for a dining table/chairs, a living room with space for 2 sofas and entertainment center/bookshelves, etc. We have a bathroom that's not much smaller than ours right now.  In the bedroom there are 2 closets, 1 of which is a walk-in closet.  Guess who's closet that will be...yep, mine. Matt's is just right for a guy.  We have 2 other closets in the apt. that are deep and have good shelving.  All in all, I feel like we're making out like bandits, considering the price was under what we were hoping to pay (still outrageous, of course).

3) Community: Stuy Town has a great neighborhood/community feel.  There are all these grassy spaces in between the buildings where tons of families bring their kids to play, looots of dogs are out and about (Charlie will be so happy), and a pretty fountain with trees and plants all around.

4)  Dogs: There are tons of other dogs in the complex that Charlie can get to know.  There's also a dog park about 8 blocks away, great for Charlie to run off leash and get some energy out.  

5) FOOD: Maybe most importantly, there are lots of good looking restaurants close by.  We walked through Alphabet City right next door and found a great burger place, Black Iron Burger which was rated Best New Burger in some magazine recently.  So delicious!!  Can't wait to find other gems.

Overall, I think we're going to love adjusting to the city life in this apartment.  Who's coming to visit first???

A View from the Top...

...and it's pretty awesome!! This is looking west  from the rooftop playground at my new school.  There's the Empire State Building.  Just to the right is the Chrysler Building.  It's so cool that kids get to play in a space like this with a view like that.

To back up a little, this is what the school (PS 281 The River School) looks like from the ground:

It's situated at 35th St. and 1st Ave on the east side of the city, parallel to Midtown. You can see the rooftop playground at the top of the building on the left.  On the right side of the building is the East River (hence the name of the school), which is also a beautiful sight.  The school is very nice inside too.  It's new and still under construction on some floors.  I will start teaching in the 2nd year of the school's existence, so it's nice to be coming in on the ground floor, so-to-speak.  I saw my classroom, which is nice.  It has a Smartboard, lots of good kid furniture, and some nice windows. There's a yoga studio, a beautiful library, a STEAM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Art-Math) lab which is like specials for the kids.  There's also an indoor gymnatorium and there will be a kitchen for cooking with students!

I got to meet my colleagues and principal on Saturday.  We had professional development (yes, Saturday school for teachers), and it was good to meet everyone in person.  I'd seen everyone through Skype, but that's just not the same.  There are about 10 teachers and from what I can tell, we will soon become friends and a very close-knit family of teachers.  Loved Nicole, the principal, and my teammate Amy.  

We started planning curriculum for the year and one of the coolest parts of what we planned were two inquiry projects.  In the fall we're going to do a 3-month project about the farmer's market.  We'll get to go on field trips around the city to farmer's markets, taste test different foods from the farmer's market, bake, do experiments, incorporate math, reading, writing, and lots of other things.  The inquiry project for the spring is about bees, which will be really cool too.  I'm excited to be able to eat/cook with kids again.  Food is one of the best parts of life, so it should be a part of school (this is totally directed to CHCCS which has a no-food policy - bleh).

Anyway, I'm really excited about where I'll be teaching next year, the people I'll be working with, and the things I'll be teaching!!  If I have to leave Morris Grove (*tear*) this is a pretty great next place to land.