Hello, New York!

 

"I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world's greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance.” -Nora Ephron on New York City, in Heartburn

I can't believe I'm here.

I've been to New York City twice before for short visits and absolutely loved it, but if you told me one, two, or even five years ago that I would at this moment be in the city getting ready to start an internship at The Paley Center for Media, I'd say you were crazy. But now I'm here, and thus the adventure begins.

The reservoir

I'm having a wonderful time so far. Thursday was bright and sunny, so I took a walk around my Upper East Side neighborhood, which is close to Central Park. I walked a good 12 blocks along 5th Avenue, passing the Guggenheim and Jewish museums and stopping to check out the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, which is HUGE. Did I mention it was 21 degrees outside? I should be used to these kind of temperatures after spending the past two winters in Muncie, but my legs were frozen by the time I returned to my residence hall. Luckily there's a Starbucks on almost every corner where I can grab a warm drink if necessary. 

Corner Bookstore (via cornerbookstorenyc.com)

I've done quite a bit of exploring around my neighborhood since then, and I've fallen in love with it already. It's a more residential area filled with dog-walkers, grocery stores, a couple of schools, and cute restaurants (I've already found a really good pizza joint). Today I came across a shop called Corner Bookstore, which almost exactly resembles "The Shop Around the Corner" from one of my all-time favorite movies, You've Got Mail. Of course, I wanted to purchase something, and funnily enough, I bought the latest book authored by Delia Ephron, who co-wrote the film with her late sister Nora. That was probably the most "New York" thing I did all week--other than folding my slices of pizza.

Meg Ryan and "The Shop Around the Corner" from You've Got Mail

 I also had the chance to spend some time with my friend Nicole, who's also in NYC for the semester and is interning for Saturday Night Live. The highlight of the weekend was when she and I saw a concert of songs from MGM movie musicals performed by six Broadway stars, including Jeremy Jordan (Newsies, Smash) and Rob McClure (Avenue Q, Chaplin). For one of the numbers from Easter Parade, McClure wore one of the actual top hats Fred Astaire used in the film!

Overall, it's been a fun first few days, and it's been nice to get settled and acclimated to New York before my internship, which starts TOMORROW! I already have the nervous-but-excited butterflies, but I'm sure everything will be fine. More details on that later.

Until next time,

Julia


P.S.- Thanks for checking out my blog! I plan to post once a week about my experiences in the city and what I'm doing in my internship. If you would like an alert when a new post is published, enter your email address in the right sidebar.