unique

Or is it just me?
The weather is beautiful, the sun is out (and with that more people) but it is cold as hell. Or maybe it feels colder because of the wind. Anyway, looking out the window you can be fooled to think that spring might be on its way. But stepping outside, you’ll feel the coooool breeze that will turn your finger in to icefingers.

I did, however, go out today as I couldn’t resist the sun, and walked down to Union Square. I just knew that it’d be packed with people enjoying the sun and strolling around the Farmers Market. And I was right. It felt like everyone was thinking the samething and wanted to sit on a bench in the park with a cup of coffe in their hands. I, on the other hand, went to Barnes&Noble to pick up a few books and then sat down at the Starbuck’s on the 3rd floor. Days like these, I’d much rather stay inside where it’s warm and be ok with just looking out to see the sun. I’ll save my out-for-the-sun-days when srping really does get here (which is soon I hope)!

If you haven’t visited a Whole Foods store yetyou need to go right now. This chain of stores is easilly my absolute favorite. By far. Whole Foods is the world’s largest food chain that only sells natural and organic products. They are also the number one store for specialized products such as lactos-free dairy, gluten-free products, vegan/vegetarian chioces, as well as organic farmacies within the stores.

I live pretty close to Union Sqaure so that’s the one I go to, but my favorite one would have to be the biggest Whole Foods in Manhattan; Columbus Circle. The have a huge hot/cold buffet with the best food you can imagine, a food court for all the guests, and it’s right next to the park. All Whole Foods markets do have amazing hot/cold buffets and fruit/vegetable sections that are to die for. You can’t find better quality than here. The only, and unfortunately most important disadvantage, is that it’s very expensive. I guess this is one of those places where you really pay for what you get. But if you have the money and want the best this is totally the place to go to. They have everything you can’t find anywhere else, and they have everything you might want. And you will want everything that they have. Believe me!

:) 

Today I find a very unpleasant letter in my mail box. It’s from Citibank, warning me about fraud on my account. They tell me to call this customer support number to solve the problem, so I do, right away. I turns out that there has been som mysterious activity on my account, something that I haven’t agreed on and Citibank just wanted to talk to me and see what we could do. I actually saw this a couple of days ago and tried to call the comanies listed. I managed to get a hold of one of the companie, who said that I had signed up for something and was now a member with an account. This is so not the case and I hate the fact that they do this. I thought it might me a smarter idea for me to just cancel my account instead of fighting with them about not having an account at all, so I did. I was going to wait and see if they ever took money from me again, but Citibank was faster. Apparently tihs has happened to more of their customers.

 What really surprised me and made me happy was the fact that Citibank offered to pay everything back and to take up the “investigation” on these companies. All for us, the customers. I know it benefits Citibank to have satisfied customers and I’m glad. Because now I will actually get my money back and I feel that I have Citibank on my side. Now they’re not just a bank to me, now I feel that they might care about me as a private person. Cheesy? maybe, but I don’t care, because after all, this is the company that handles my money. So thank you Citibank!

The only thing that is a little bit funny in this situation is that they had to cancel my card to send me a new one. My account will still be there, my money too I hope but I will have to live without a card for two days. That means that I have to live on $3,50 until Saturday…. can I make it? haha we’ll see, but I kind of have to, right?!

As a fairly poor student, I don’t have the luxury of eating out whenever I might want. Instead I try to live (and especially eat) for as little as I possibly can. Than, however, is not the easiest thing to maintain in the most expensive city in the world. I have unfortunately ended up eating more oatmeal per week than any one should have in a month. It’s filling, it’s quite tasty (if you combine with a fruit) and it’s cheap. What more could one ask for?

There are days when I’m so tired of living like this, when I wish I could just go out and eat whatever I want. Today is one of those days. Not only am I very hungry when writing this, I also have no idea of where to get lunch. I know where I would want to eat, but that is if I were in TriBeCa and had money –> Trigo!

Trigo is a newley opened Mediterranean Brasserie on Broadway. It’s a big place, seating 150 people, with interior decorating such as iron latticework, monumental columns, and 20-foot floor-to-ceiling windows. The food includes new twists on rustic flatbreads and French inspired Onion and Tart Green Apple. They serve all-day breakfasts (my personal favorite), lunches, and dinners. Their goal is to make regulars out of locals. Don’t you just love that!?

As a bartender I also have to mention the bar, which serves specialty cocktails such as Garden of Eden (Grey Goose Vodka, pomegranate juice, pear juice, and fresh lime). Not too many places focus on the drink menu these days, so it’s especially great when a new place does. Hooray for that!

Ok, I get Facebook, I understand it. I get why people use it and like it. I’m a member myself and have been a rather active one since I joined a long time ago. I’m not, though, any more. At least not compared to how I used to be. I was one of those people who changed their status multiple times a dag, I wrote on other peoples wall constantly (mainly so they’d write back), and I uploaded pics at least every week. It was crazy for a while, and I was probably addicted even though that’s not something I’m proud to admit. Thank God that’s all in the past.

Now, I see myself having a more healthy relationgship with facebook. I mainly use it to keep in touch with friends back home as well as around the world. For that, it’s brilliant. And sometimes I might upload one or two pics if something fun happened during the weekend or for some event. I’d never upload just everyday things. Moreover, I’m fully aware of the fact that once you upload a photo, it immediatley becomes the property of facebook. They have the rights to do pretty much what they want with the pics, so I’m very careful with what I put up there.

Lately, I’ve also noticed that a lot of my friends spend less time on facebook. Maybe we just don’t have the time any more, or maybe we’re just past the facebook wave, and feel inte slowing down. Is facebook also feeling the downturn in the economy? I wonder.

 Whitney and Jay from The City

Was kind of bored this morning. Had just been to the gym and was not at all in the mood to start working on all the school stuff I have lying around. I’m an expert at pushing things up til the last minute, so I’m suffering for it now. God, when am I going to learnto do things well in advance so I won’t have to be stuck here the last day?

So in the middle of being bored and standing firm on the procrestinating, I clicked around MTV and found The City. It’s the show about Whitney Port who previously stared in The Hills. Now she’s taken her stuff and moved to NYC, my beloved NYC, to work and socialize. I wasn’t a huge fan of The Hills, infact I didn’t see too many episodes, and The City is just like The Hills. Not my type of show at all. What I do like about the show is that they are in NYC and it’s fun to see all the spots they go to and maybe get some inspiration. They all dress fab and look good as hell as well as go to the hottest places; the places I go to. And the gyus in the show are pretty cute. In my book, a good reason for watching a show

So, the award season is upon us and we are just as excited about who wins as what the stars are wearing. To me, that’s almost equally important as the award itself. Hope that’s ok to think that, but I’m sure I’m not the only one. Me and my friends have made plans to watch the Academy Awards and make an Oscar pary out of it, specializing on the clothes and all. Nice, huh? :)

We were sitting around talking about our party and someone thought of the teeny, tiny detail that we haven’t seen any of the movies that are up for nominations. Oops! We can’t really host an Oscar party without knowning the movies, so we did something about it. We hit the movies and saw Milk and Revolutionary Road. Half of us wanted to see Milk and the rest wanted to see RR so we saw both. And we were not disappointed, at least I wasn’t. Milk was one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. And the performance by Sean Penn was mindblowing. If he doesn’t get the Oscar than I’ll boycott the Academy Awards for a long time to come. That’s right, I really think it was that good. And the entire movie was so well made and all the characters we so great. Just a wonderful movie that I think everyone should see.

RR was also very good. So nice to see Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio together again. And they both performed their roles with greatness. It was just a different kind of movie and it was good.

So I’m working my way through the list. Next on line is probably The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I really want to see that one! But we’ll see when that is. If I do everything I have to do today, then maybe I’ll have time tomorrow! Cross your fingers!

After a long, hard week, I know we all like to wind down for the weekend and just relax. Some like to do it by going out partying while some like to go out for a nice dinner with some friends. We’re all different and we all have our ways.

This weekend is probably going to be filled with studying and working out. Maybe a stop by this party on saturday night, but we’ll see. Tonight, though, we are taking it as easy as you can; we are going to hit the movies. We thought we’d start out with Milk and then work our way through the list. There are so many great movies out and I wish we could see them all in one night. Oh and by the way, our list consists of the following movies:

Milk
Revolutionary Road
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Slumdog Millionaire
Bride Wars
Valkyrie
Doubt
The Reader

Well, you see that we have our work cut out for us, but it’s not like we mind doing it I mean, who doesn’t like a good movie every now and then? A good thing about living right in the middle of the city is that there are quite a few places around so you have every movie available at any time. Some of the best ones, in my mind, are AMC Loews around Gramercy and The Village. But once in a while I also like to go up to Times Square to watch a movie. As much as I have this love-hate feeling about TS, there’s just another feeling when you’re in a theater.

So, which movies would you like to see? Is your list as long as mine?

When I like something, I like to tell people about it. Share the joy as I call it. Kind of like paying it forward, but not as grand I guess. Well, NYSC is one of thise things I really like. I’ve been a member for almost a year now and it’s almost as if I like it more and more as time goes by.

Ok, I’m going to try to not sound to excited about it. It is after all just a gym. But it’s a very very good gym. They have everything one might ask for in a gym, including baby sitting for people with children. Now that doesn’t apply to me but I can certainly see that it helps a lot of people. And of course the have all the other things as well, saunas, machines, equipment, and a very nice staff. So maybe the reason for my (what seems to be sudden) excitement might be the fun classes I’ve been going to lately. There has been some great instructors who really pushes you to do better, and there has been some great classes where I’ve learned a lot and really gotten a great workout. It’s great I tell you

I guess that was kind of it. Just wanted to air the good thoughts about my favorite gym. And the best thing about it is that with the memebership that I have, I get to workout at which ever NYSC I want, and FYI there are like a million if them on Manhattan alone. There are even a few that are open 24/7. Thumbs up for that!

So people. This is possibly one of the biggest days/ events we will ever experience. Well today and the day when it was announced that Obama would acutally become the 44th president. I hope and thing that there will be many more great days to come, for this country, for the world, and for man kind, but this one is truly special. You don’t get a lot of firsts, and especially not the first black president of the U.S. This is one for the books, that’s for sure!

Walking the streets of NY, one could probably not tell that today is the inauguration of Obama, but I’m sure everybody’s feeling it on the inside. I know I am. I’m not religious, I’m not sure I’m even that spirituell, but today is a whole other story. I think the greatness of this stiuation and day has gotten to me. And it feels amazing. I’m so glad that I get to experience it, not first hand, but close enough

The only thing that kind of bums me out is the fact that I’m not able to watch  the inauguration live on tv. I’m stuck in school and won’t even be able to watch it online. I guess it’ll have to wait until tonight. I’m not to worried about it, though, since I’m sure it’s going to be around the news for days and days to come!

So now, let’s celebrate and enjoy this uplifting feeling of hope and happiness while thinking: Yes we can!