unique

 I’ve found a new, great area that holds a lot of wonderful little bars and restaurants. It’s the area right below Gramercy Park, between 3rd avenue and Union Square. The houses are browstone and pre-war bulidings and just by walking in the streets, you can tell that it’s one on the more expensive areas to live in. There are christmas decorations everywhere but eveything feels classy and calmed down. It’s a very cozy yet hip area.

Yesterday, me and P had a ‘great-job-this-quarter’ night out. We started with dinner at Vertigo, at place across the street from where we live. It’s a great place that is both a really nice restaurant as well as a sports bar. Well, mybe not so much a sports bar, but the had big tv screensthat aired sports… so you decided!

Then we walked down to Irving Place and stopped by this, fairly small but really cozy bar called Cibar Lounge (56 Irving between 17th and 18th). It’s located in the basement of an upscale brownstone and is a martini lounge with fireplaces, a bamboo garden, and an amazing collection of speical martinis. I had a Blackberry Cosmo while P drank a Bloodgrape martini and they were delicious. You could tell that these kind of drinks are what they specialize in, and they did it oh so well! Yummy!

New York Magazine calls Cibar the Miss America of Bars and Cityserach syas that it’s a small and superb bar on Irving Place. Cibar was also named the best office party site as well as Best Martini. A place to check out? I think so. Or infact, I recommend it!

I’m sorry. I know this blog hasn’t been very good lately. To my defense and as both my excauseas well as explanation I blame it all on Finals Week. I’m totally jammed with exams and take home projects, so there’s not much time or energy for anything else at this point. By tomorrow, though, it will all be over and I’ll enter the official mind set that is the holiday.I also promise that the blog will get better!

In the meantime, here are some funny facts I heard about today (had a big discussion with my coworkers and I won):

Budwiser beer conditions you hair.
Mayonnaise kills lice.
Pooring nestea in your bath water will calm down a sunburn.
Burn you tongue? put sugar on it.
Have stinky feet? Take out the jello and start smearing it on.
Peanut butter will take away scratches on a cd.
A zebra is white with black stripes.
A snail can sleep for 3 years.
All continents end with the same letters as which it started.
“Almost” is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
‘Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia’ is the fear of long words.

Hilarious!!! Don’t you think!!?? 

One thing I really love about New York is that there are so incredibly many places to dine, drink coffee, meet people, and experience great, fun things. Everyday, every week I find new places that I just fall in love with and I tend to obsess about them until I find a new place. I guess, I atleast broaden my knowledge about the city and will one day be a great source for friends to come to for restaurant advice.

Today, I found my new, favourite café. Grey Dog; a fairly small yet wonderful coffee place in the Village, close to Union Square on University Place. When I first stepped in it felt a little like Central Perk in Friends. I think it might have been that homy feeling, friendly atmosphere, great coffee, and cool people.

The original Grey Dog is located on Carmine Steet in the West Village, but they reasontly expanded to University Place. Both spaces are nicely decorated with cool pictures on the walls and with a french kind of feeling to it.

The place is named after the owner’s two dogs; Moose and Goose. Her goal was to build a small coffeehouse in the world’s greatest city. She wanted to create a place that picked up the small things that often get lost in the big city, like getting to now the names of the customers and serve wonderful fresh coffee and food for reasonable prices. And did she ever! This really is a wonderful coffee place where I most certaintly will become a regular!

Isn’t it time we all start getting into the wonderful spirit that is Christmas. I don’t know about you but I sure can use all the help I can get but today I really felt like Christmas is getting closer.

At first I bumped into about 500 Santas at Grand Central Station this morning. It turned out to be some kind of Santa Convention for grown ups. It’s organized by something called Santa Con NYC and is helled every year in December. It’s a non- political, non- religious, not- for- profit & non- logical event organized and attended for absolutely no reason other than fun.  Anyone and every are free to join but there are some rules, however:

* You have to look like Santa. Holiday apparel is mandatory!
* Act like Santa. Be jolly, be nice, belly- laugh, let people sit on you lap, and give out gifts.
* Don’t seek media attention!
* Don’t get arrested!
* Be especially nice to children!

Next stop was Union Square where there now is a holiday market. This is their 11th year and it has grown to include over 100 red & white booths. Both this market as well as the one on Columbus Cirlce are run by Urban Space Management who are looking to offer us New Yorkers unique gifts, handmade crafts, ornamnets, food, drinks, bakegoods, jewlery, and toys. The one in Union Square was especially nice with all the decorations and christmas music. So even if youäre not in the neighbor hood I encourage you to go there. If this won’t bring christmas in to your heart and soul, I don’t know what will!

I know, I do keep pretty good track of what’s going on in the celebrity world. In my small, insignificant life, that’s a good way to be entertained. When nothing interesting is happening to me I turn to the gossip about the famous few. I they rarely dissapoint me.

Right now, I’m in a Gossip Girlkind of mood. Just watched this weeks episode (don’t have a tv so I have to wait for the episodes to appear on the website) and it was better than ever. The writers of this show are brilliant and they sure keep things interesting. Now, I can’t wait to see next week’s show. However, I do think this one was the last one for the season, and let me tell you the cliffhangers were great.

In real life, things are certainly interesting too. Chuck is dating Vanessa, Nate is apparently dating 15 year old Jenny and Serena and Dan are having problems. She was seen at some club, making out with someone else and they were seen fighting the very next day. I am of course talking about their real life selves, but it sure can’t be easy being watch by everyone and all every single minute. God help them! As much as I would give my left leg to be in their shoes, I’m not so sure I would like to be in the constant spotlight! But as for everything else, there’s a back side to every coin. And with that wise word, I say good night!

So I’m totally confused when it comes to the New York weather. But maybe now, everyone is. Going from the hottest of summers to an almost just as hot fall (the summer did last for a long time) and now this. A back and forth winter, if we can even call it that. So far it’s been rain, humidity, and sun with a day here and there when it was a little colder. But that’s it. What is up with that?

I know winter doesn’t officially start until december 22nd but come on, this is december. Is it not suppose to be colder than 55 degrees? I think so! And where is the snow? I know january and february are the winter months over here but could we not get a small preview of what’s coming?! Please!? I’m so sick of this ‘in between’ weather. I don’t know how to dress or what shoes to put on. One minute it’s freezing and the next it’s humid with drizzling rain. No no, that’s not good for anything but confusion.

One good thing, though, is that it’s suppose to snow of friday, but to that I’ll say; I believe it when I see it. There are two things I’ve learned: don’t believe everything you read, and don’t believe the weather people.

I admit, I do enjoy reading the occational gossip magazine, and like to get down and dirty with some paparazzi pice every now and then. So what? That shouldn’t be a big deal. I know fame isn’t real and I can definately see what’s true and what’s not, I’m just saying that I can enjoy reading about their lives and what the di and what they wear adn where they eat. Of course I would want to be one of them, but maybe not for the price of no privacy as they pay, so I say with the magazines.

There are, however, days when I check out the Post and their celeb sightings page. It’s kind of fun to see where some of these people have been and if I was there at the same time. Chances are I wasn’t but I could have been, right?

Blake Lively from Gossip Girl was seen at Subway shopping for food at Columbus and 63rd street. Jerry Seinfeld was seen doing a surprise warm up at Gotham Comedy Club in Chelsea at 23rd and 8th. Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and their daughter Suri was seen yesterday at 1600 Broadway while 50 Cent was spotted on Union Square and 14th street.

How about that!? Admit it’s kind of fun to just relax and read about these gorgeous people and, what seems to be, their worry free lives. If that could only be me!

What do you do when you have a day to kill? Well, do what I do, explore new parts of your city and see new things. I spent my day walking around the Upper West Side, and it was the nicest day I’ve had in a long time. I can’t say that I’ve spent too much time up there but from here on I certainly will. For sure. It is wonderful up there. Great stores (mainly smaller ones) och great restaurants. Since I actuallt don’t know all that much about the neigborhood I thought I would educate all of us.

The Upper West Side is the area between Central Park West and Hudson River above 59th street. The busiest streets to walk are Broadway, Amsterdam, Columbus, and Central Park West. The most busy spot must be the Verdi Square which is the corner of 72nd and, Broadway, and Amsterdam Avenue. The entire area is mainly a shopping and residential area with median households above the Manhattan average. The typical houses are 4-5 story brownstones but there are some villas along the Hudson River.

The UWS is a cool area with places like Columbia University, Barnard College, the American Museum of Natural History, Juilliard School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Saint John the divine cathedral as well as the Time Warner Center at Columbus Cirlce with Lincoln Center and the Trump Tower.  

One thing that really makes the area stand out is the collection of really, really great restaurants. If you like and appreciate good food in nice enviromnets, this is the place to be. We have some great places like the wonderful dessert cafe, Café Lalo at 83rd and Amsterdam which can be seen in the movie “You’ve got mail”, Edgar’s Café at 84th and Broadway where Edgar Allen Poe is said to have written his famous “The Raven”, the famous Tavern on the Green at 67th and Central Park West actually located inside the park, and Café de Artistes also at 67th and Park West (across the street) which is a magnet for celebrities with its low key, romantic french feeling.

The area is also a popular place for filmmakers and some of the most famous movies have been shot up here such as You’ve got mail, American Psycho, Die Hard, Ghostbusters, Home Alone 2, Eyes Wide Shut, Kissing Jessica Stein, Music & Lyrics, Panic Room, A night at the museum, The Spiderman, Vanilla Sky, and Annie Hall (just to name a few).

A place worth visiting? I think so, and this is my new No 1 in NY. It might change soon but for now, I will enjoy it

I know I’ve been complaining about not being in a christmassy kind of mood. That has all changed today. We went to Jack’s 99 cent store to pick up some christmas decorations for our apartment. We figured, why spend a lot on stuff you only bring out once a year? But I must say, I was happily surprised about the stuff we found. Some of the things they had wasn’t haft bad. I mean, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. So we got our glitter stuff, our santa candles, and a snowman decoration. The thing about that store is that it was very packed. It felt like half of Manhattan was in there shopping for bargain ornaments. What I really didn’t like was that everybody was really rude to each other. People were yelling and calling each other words. I know there was a lot of people in there but I was about to turn to them and ask them if they didn’t know what they were doing when they went in. Stupid people. And I thought Christmas is suppose to bring out the best of people!  

You can find Jack’s 99 cent store at 32nd and 6th avenue or 40th and Madison avenue.

Went by Madison Square Park today and saw that they’ve set up this new thing. I, of course, had to go in to take a look. From a distance it kind of looked like a big stage and when I got closer I saw that that was what is was. Weird at first. But pretty soon I learned that it was a new project called “I Diamond is Fovever” by a famous jewlery store here in the city.

So what is it? They’ve put up this great, big mistletoe above the stage and they are having people (couples) coming up on the stage and share a long kiss. What is also the thing is that there are videocameras installed all around the stage so every part of you i being filmed while you’re in this kiss. There videos are later uploaded on YouTube. The entire event was a recognition of the Elton John AIDS Foundation on World Aids day this past monday. There was a ribbon cutting ceremony with celebrities like Penelope Cruz. The full name of the project is “A Diamond is Forever Unbreakable Mistletoe Installation”. If you’re in the neighborhood, it’s definately worth stopping by. I would even suggest bringing your loved one.