Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Okay, so I know I said I'd post this the other day, but well, I didn't.  SORRY.. sucks to suck.  Anyways, last week was Thanksgiving and each year Macy*s hosts the Thanksgiving Day Parade in NYC.  I had watched it a few times on TV but being in New York, it was something I just HAD to experience myself!

Macy*s Balloon Inflation

So, the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving I went to 79th St at Columbus where the parade balloons are inflated. It's a great opportunity to see the balloons before hand and up close and personal!  It was incredibly crowded but again, there are a lot of "once-in-a-lifetime" (or a long time) experiences that I just cannot miss out on while I'm here in NYC.  The balloons were humongous and I could not imagine the process of inflating them.  For instance, this is the instructions to inflate SpongeBob SquarePants:

SpongeBob SquarePants inflation orders

The event wrapped around the American Museum of Natural History with the balloons located on 77th and 81st.  There was only one way in but likely 4 ways out.  In all, it was great to be able to get pictures with the balloons before the parade and see what the magic is all about. :)

Me with the Macy*s stars that lead the parade.

The next morning was the parade! It started at 9:00 at 77th and Central Park West.  It then traveled south to 59th Street, over to 6th Avenue then down to 34th Street where it finished in front of Macy*s.  I decided to go to 59th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue so that I would see the parade end and be able to get to Grand Central before the masses of people that were closer to Macy*s.  In order to get a front row seat (and no, there were no actual seats, just a spot to sit on the ground) I woke up at 5:00am and was at my spot around 5:45am.  It was one of the last available places to sit up front and pretty soon the whole sidewalk was filling up.  Here are some of the highlights from the parade:

First there was this Cop Clown that decided to put on a show when he saw my camera.

Sunrise morning of the parade

Crowd that formed before the parade

First balloons of the parade: 2 yellow Macy*s stars and Hello Kitty

US women's gymnastic team aka the Fierce Five

Fairy Clown

Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and an elf

2 red Macy*s stars to end the parade

My front row spot for the entire parade

There were a lot more balloons, performers and clowns but with the lack of sun in the area that I was, not only was it FREEZING, but the pictures were not always the best quality.

It was fun to be there, talk with the people nearby (a family from Brooklyn and a family from Missouri) and most importantly, see the parade.  However, I probably would never do it again, that is, at least until I have kids.

xoxo, Caitlin

Hurricane Sandy and NYC

So I left NYC on Sunday on one of the last few trains leaving the city before Hurricane/Tropical Storm Sandy.  When I left NYC, I questioned if it was truly necessary.  NYC was likely to get hit badly by the storm, but a slight change in the storm's path and the city may be spared or it may be far worse.  Likewise, a change in the storm's path could make the situation far worse in my hometown.  After returning home and watching the storm's path and destruction, I realized how lucky I was for having decided to leave.

Sandy ended up making landfall in New Jersey creating a large amount of damage.  Additionally, because of the combination of a full moon, high tide, rain and the wind, the water in the Long Island Sound piled up with no where to go but NYC.  It flooded buildings, road tunnels and subway tunnels and will take a long time to fix.

The first trains and buses heading back to NYC started running this morning however since there is still no power at our apartment building I'm waiting a little longer to return.  In the meantime, I've been chilling at home attempting to get more research done for my project.  I hope to return to the city on Saturday, but if there's no power, that's a no go.

The nice thing about being home though, was that today I got to drive to school to see some of the greatest friends I have!  I had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants with one of my best friends! I had some delicious sushi and nom nom nom it was good!  After dinner I headed to one of my sorority's chapter meeting and got to see so many smiling faces prepping for the second round of formal recruitment!  I can't wait to hear all about the fabulous women my sisters have met and meet the next class of members!

As fun as it was to be at school, I can't wait to get back to NYC and get this project DONE!  I only have 6 weeks left and my team is going to need every minute of it!

xoxi <3

Quote of the week

NYC Week 1: part 2!

Friday was my teams first FULL day at the office.  

One of these buildings is ours!

It was cut a little short though do to being stuck on the subway for approximately an hour due to a police investigation.  But the team began digging deeper into how to program and let's hope it's moving fast enough in the correct direction!!

After work I hustled out of work to go to Mia Chef Gelateria.  I had found a groupon not too long ago for a gelato making class and since I want to experience as much of the city as I can in my 2 months here, I bought it and was able to book the class nice and early!  There were 13 people (including me) at the class plus the instructor. It was very simple, fun, and tasty!

 We added the ingredients:

Mixed the ingredients:

The instructor took the gelato out of the machine (which cost approximately $20,000):

 Added topping to the gelato

Snickers Gelato, adding chocolate sauce

 And most importantly, took pictures and tasted the gelato!

Snickers Gelato from Mia Chef Gelateria

Each person at the class got to take home 4 pints of gelato, one pint of each flavor we made.  The flavors were: Cookies and Cream, Snickers, Double (or Dutch, I can't remember what it's called) Chocolate and Fig & Tequila!  It was so informative and the gelato I now have in my freezer is so delicious!

Today (aka Saturday), I ended up going shopping at the Forever 21 in Times Square.  It was absolutely amazing.  4 floors full of clothes and accessories.  It was interesting to see the range of ages of those shopping there.  There were girls no older than 12 all the way up to this much older woman (I'm guessing she's in her 70's) who I found in the shoes section checking out this pair of sparkly shoes:

After shopping, I did absolutely nothing except for eat some of the gelato I made yesterday and watching an NCIS marathon.  Unfortunately, it looks the Hurricane/Tropical Storm Sandy will be incredibly rough for this area so we will see how the next few days pan out.