Winter in Ithaca

159 days!

Soooo my daily routine is back. In other words: nothing exciting happened.

BUT: We have snow now! It's cold! 

People warned me about the winter in Ithaca. They really did. I even saw somebody walking around with a shirt that said "I survived the Ithaca winter 2015". Not kidding.

So I mentally prepared for the worst. 

Like 2 meters of snow.

Like we can't leave the house cause it's so cold outside.

And now?

Not even 10cm of snow. And there is always one day when it's warmer so the snow always melts.

Really, Ithaca? I was looking forward to this. Well, you still got some time.

In the meantime, here are some not-so-hardcore (but still beautiful) winter photos:

With Anni xo

"Bridge ahead"

 

... and frozen black - eyed peas

                                                                                                                                                      xD

Happy New Year !

147 days ! (still ^^)

Sooo when I arrived in NYC again, I met an aupair friend from Ithaca. Fortunately, we were allowed to stay in apartements from friends of her hostparents, so we didn't have to pay for that!

Our plan was to spend New Year's Eve on Times Square, watching the famous ball drop.

We went there around 2.30pm. There were so many people who wanted to go there! It was crazy. The police already closed several streets so it was a challenge to even get on Times Square. We went back to 50th street and had to wait there with a lot of other people. Then, the police told us to move to 51 street and it looked like a mass invasion. So many people. And we weren't even on Times Square yet!

 After another waiting period they finally let us in. But we were standing extremely far away from where everything happened. It was so crowded that it was sometimes hard to breathe. Also, you didn't even have to stand. There were so many people that the crowd somehow kept you upright. It was crazy. 

After waiting and waiting and waiting, we moved forward. After two security checks and even more waiting, we reached our final position. Now we were so close that we were able to see the ball when it was lifted to its position at 6pm. Nevertheless we noticed quickly that we couldn't see the stage or hear anything that was said there. You'd think that NYC is able to install a few monitors and speakers on TIMES SQUARE (which kinda consists of monitors), but nope. We stayed there till something after 7pm, but then we decided that it's not worth it to stay there. In the cold. Surrounded by a million people. Without seeing anything except from a ball. 

the blue thing in front of the red monitor is the ball

So we went back to the apartement to warm up, eat chocolate and chips and to drink to New Year's Eve! (being underage in the US really sucks)

As midnight was approaching, we walked to Central Park to see the free fireworks there. It was spectacular! Great fireworks. And there were also quite a lot of people.

Afterwards, we went to the apartement again, ate pizza (yay pizza delivery at 1am xD) and went to bed.

Although we didn't spend New Year's Eve on Times Square as planned, it was a lot of fun!

On January first, we went to the Guggenheim museum which was really interesting. We also walked through Central Park and went to see the 9/11 memorial.

The next day, we took the bus back to Ithaca and here I am now, typing this while my boy is taking his nap. But we have finally snow! Yay !!

Happy New Year,

take care,

Christin xo

Flying Home for Christmas

Day 147 !!

On December 19th, I flew home to Germany to spend Christmas there. I was so extremely excited !!

I couldn't really believe that I'm really going home. When the plane landed in Berlin, I was so relieved. That everything worked (bus to NYC, bus to JFK, plane to Berlin). That I was in Germany again.

JFK airport

My parents picked me up from the airport and for me, it was like I was dreaming. Everything looked the same! At home too and I felt as if I never went to the US. Of course, it was only 4 months, but it felt like so much more.

The plane left on Saturday at 6pm and arrived on Sunday at 7am. Yay time zones! Of course I wasn't able to sleep during the flight so I was tired as hell all day long. But I went to bed at a normal time and I didn't have jetlag at all. I slept SO good in my own bed.

During my time at home, I met a lot of my friends and I spent Christmas with my family. The fun thing was that my family (except from my parents) didn't know that I was coming. SURPRISE! There was a lot of hugging and crying going on.

 It was perfect. I had so much fun. My friends, my family, the food, my own bed, Germany. How much I missed everything and everybody.

Of course the 10 days were over way too fast. 

Going back to the US was more difficult than going there for the first time ...

But I was looking forward to spending New Year's Eve in New York City !

New York freakin' City !

129 days!

Oh boy.

Last Friday till Tuesday I was in NYC with my hostmom, hostgranny, the kids and Katha came too!

We slept at the relatives' house on Long Island again :D

On Friday, we just drove there and picked up Katha and then the two of us walked a little bit through Manhassett to look at the Christmas lights. Americans are good at decorating, they really are.

Manhassett

On Saturday, we had "Pfannekuchen" for breakfast (the relatives have German ancestors) and then we took the Long Island Railroad to Manhattan!

We walked on the High Line which used to be a railroad, but now you can walk on it!

And you can take a thousand photos of the city. It's such an interesting city, there's something to take a photo of at every corner!

Afterwards, we walked through Greenwich Village, Soho, Little Italy (where we had delicious lunch - Spaghetti Carbonara for the win!) (and ice cream of course) and Chinatown. Then, we went to the Brooklyn Bridge, crossed it, walked a little bit in Brooklyn, took photos and took the ferry back to Midtown.

We had the Nutella Choco one ... Did you expect anything else? :p

Washington Square

Banksy was here !!

I really like this house

In Chinatown 

Germany represent ^^

We really did a lot of walking that day. Katha has an app and it said we walked 25,8km on Saturday. Hallelujah. My feet and my back definitely felt like that.

But here are more photos:

You know you're in the US when

big city lights 

I can't decide if the city is prettier during the day or at night.

On Sunday, my feet hurt all day long. 

We had breakfast at a place called Penelope - try it when you're in NYC. It's really good and worth the 45 minutes of waiting. 

Also, I ordered a breakfast cocktail cause I thought it's like a smoothie. When I tried it, there was definitely alcohol in it. Quick reminder: I'm 18 :D I guess I must look convincingly 21! They didn't even ask for my ID. So I had alcohol for breakfast. What a great start into the day :p

Breakfast :3

We did a lot of walking again.

Madison Square Park

Flat Iron building

Saks Fifth Avenue

THE tree

in Central Park

Katha found out about the movie premiere of "Joy".

So of course we went there. It was ... crazy. Lots of security guards and barriers and famous people we didn't know xD

But we did know Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Natalie Dormer, Julianne Moore and Amy Schumer who were all there !! They look just like in the movies. 

Side note: It was SO cold that evening. I didn't wear a jacket because during the day, it was 19 degrees Celsius. But at night, it got cold and windy. We still stayed till after the premiere so we saw everybody leaving the place again ... What an experience :p

On Monday, I watched with my hostmom, granny and girl the Christmas Spectacular in the Radio City Music Hall. It was truly amazing! The dancers and costumes and everything.

Here's a short trailer for that show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yRG9LpInXE

Inside Radio City Hall

During the show, Katha stood in line to get Stand By tickets for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. As it turned out, they didn't give out Stand By tickets that day :(

So useless in line standing. But you gotta try ...

In the afternoon, we went to Central Park again. It's really nice there. Really.

In the evening, we went to another movie premiere!
I would probably go to such events every day if I lived in NYC ^^

The movie was called "The Hateful Eight". A Quentin Terentino movie ...

... With Channing Tatum in it!

There was some kind of protest next to us. They were actually an anti protest, because there should have been a protest against Terentino. But they didn't show up, so there was only a "protest" in support of Terentino. It was kind of weird.

And that was it again!

On Tuesday, we drove back to Ithaca and Katha to Boston.

NYC is amazing every time I go there. And exhausting. I LOVE it.

This is probably the last blog post of 2015. What a year it was ... So much happened. I'm in the United States of freakin America. God.

I'm looking forward to the next blog post ... Exciting things are going to happen !! aaaaah I'm already so excited. 

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to all of you xo

Christin.