NYTV Blue

So, after months - nay, years! Of trying to get my friends to come along and be a part of a Scavenger Hunt in good ole New York City, I finally realized that they are just not the kind of people that would enjoy a scavenger hunt. Instead, we got some of Mi Cariño's friends together, and off we went to our very first hunt!

Now, yes, today was NYC Pride, but since we're not parade people and the fair part doesn't really change year after year, we were okay with doing something else instead. The Hunt's theme was TV. We began by meeting at a Bar near LES and coming up with a TV related name. Since points were given for having uniforms, we all dressed in blue colors and thus NYTV Blue was born. From there the teams walked around asking trivia questions of each other to try to come up with extra points. The task was to run around the city in a certain amount of hours, finding the clues given. Every member of the team had to be in the picture with the "hunted item."

Examples: Finding a cop, a cd of an American Idol winner, someone that dressed like Homer Simpson, a model, specific pubs, and much much more.

It. Was. A. Blast. And totally worth it. We ran all over the city, jumping on the subway, relying on our knowledge of trains, on our smart phones, on our wits, everyone contributing thoughts and ideas as to what to do next while enjoying doing crazy things all over the place to take a picture with some guy drinking a McDonald's Sweet Tea.

I hope we get to do this again sometime!

Goodbye Albuquerque

Recorded at a Navajo Middle School today. It was already after the last day of school so it was pretty empty. However, the welcome sign was pretty nice: (the middle one is in Navajo language.)

After we were done, we made our way to the ICE Caves. It took forever to get there, but we wanted to actually do something nature related. It is New Mexico after all. 

It's amazing, after a small hike down into this volcano pit, you have to make your way down by walking down these wooden steps. You don't believe it, but you're walking down the steps and it's your regular New Mexico 80 degree weather and then a certain number of steps down, it's like 30 degrees cold. 

The ice part of the Ice cave. Unfortunately, you can't walk on it anymore, which would've been amazing. 

The view from the bottom:

The view back on our drive back to Albuquerque proper. 

Tomorrow, we head back to New York. In my next supervision I will be announcing my acceptance to Silberman School of Social Work and providing my notice. Here goes nothing.

Crossroads

So, back in February I applied to the Silberman school of social work at Hunter College. After almost three years of working at StoryCorps, I started looking for the next step, what was going to happen next. Today, I interviewed at Silberman. Silberman is the only school of social work that actually interviews its applicants.
About 9 of us were in this room with one of the Silberman professors. We talked about ourselves, trying to sell our experience and making it sound like we were great for Social Work. I was nervous as hell, hearing all of the other applicants talk about their experiences and their psychology and sociology degrees. I tried to keep telling myself that this was a room full of potential social workers - they'll be nice, right?
And everyone was nice, really, although the experience was still nerve wracking. I was pleased that the professor had heard of StoryCorps, and it made me feel validated. I feel like I presented myself in a professional manner... hell, I dressed up and everything! Silberman is not at the old 68th street Hunter campus, which I'm glad about - everything was new and shiny since they've only been using that building for a year.
I don't know. I don't know if they'll let me in. I don't know if I want to be in. This could completely change my life.

Participant Recommendations

On our last day of recording in Syracuse, one of our participants spoke about the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, in Cazanovia, NY - about an hour away from Syracuse proper. So the moment that work finished, the three of us piled up on the car and headed over.

Cazanovia is what you picture when you say "small suburbian town." We drove past main street before making it to the Art Park.

After spending some hours around, we drove back to Cazenovia proper, walking around "Main Street searching for what to eat. We eventually decided on The Lincklaen House. The place was chock full since apparently one of the local High Schools was having prom, and the kids were using the outside steps for pictures. One couple even were having dinner in the restaurant area, and the three of us struggled to not "aww" at them during their date. I enjoyed having Grand Marnier Salmon - pan seared Atlantic Salmon with sauteed spinach rice pilaf and a grand marnier butter sauce. It was quite delicious and I ate every bit of that.

After dinner we continued walking around main street, getting an ice cream first, we went off to Lakeland Park to look at Cazenovia Lake. 

Today, we were up early to take the plane back to New York. I said goodbye to Syracuse by watching some Golden Girls. Not a bad visit at all. 

Hello Nature!

Our third day in Syracuse, we tried to do something fun after work, so right after our last recording we hightailed it to Clark Reservation State Park to enjoy some nature and me time.

Commanding nature. 

After all that nature bonding we were ready for food. We tried to get some Mexican, but the place was chock full and super busy and with an over 40 minute wait and so we moved on to the next door neighbor, Munjed's Middle Eastern Cafe. The place's decor made me a little nervous, but the food was tasty enough. I had a combo plate that combined some hummus, lamb gyro meat, spanakopita, and some greek salad.

It was worth it, and tasty. Not a bad day in Syracuse.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!

Finally it's Cesar and Bruce's Wedding! It was the event of the year, for sure: ceremony in Queens, party time on Broadway.
Everyone was dressed to the nines, everyone wore lovely hats. The grooms looked perfect, with Cesar wearing a most perfect train. Some pictures!

In English my name means Hope

Our second day in Minneapolis was smooth workwise - work went by quickly and we were stuck with an extra short lunch hour, and so we just crossed the street to make a quick stop by Peter's Grill. I went for simple and had a grilled cheese sandwich with vegetable soup.

I can't say that this simple choice led me to understand why Peter's Grill was so crowded, or highly rated on yelp and what not.

For dinner I was on my own, since Bea needed a break, and I needed to mellow out. After my different choices I went with the hotel's restaurant and seriously, who remembers the name of hotel restaurants? I do, however, have pictures of the meal: an organic turkey meatloaf, wrapped in bacon with mashed potatoes.

Not impressed. The sauce had mushrooms and a nice thick gravy flavor, but that was it. I needed to take away the taste with some pecan pie a la mode.

Much more impressed with this, but it wasn't the best thing ever, either.

Soon after, Bea and I met up to drive a little ways to go see a play made out of "The House of Mango Street," which I found out was happening through my Carino, who loves the collection of short stories.

Since it's been a while since I read the book, the play was fresh and exciting. I think they did an okay job of adapting the stories and the actors were pretty nice, especially older Esperanza. I think, though, that the source material is better as short stories than as a play.

Peaches!

So, in Minnesotta again, this time a full stay in Minneapolis. Traveling with Beatriz this time, who was kind enough to take over the car and entertain herself while I hung out with my favorite Minnesottan, Dawnie!

It was one of those great times when you get so excited you forget to take pictures. Dawn picked me up at my hotel and then indulged me when I said I wanted to try out something new: Buffalo Wild Wings. Forgive me for not having any photographic proof. The wings were interesting, the sauce more so, the company was excellent. Found out that Dawnie is waiting for another little being to enter the world, so we indulged in some delicious water.

After, we drove down to see her place and say hi to the two men in her life: Jeremy and Ethan. I'm really sad I didn't get to take a picture with Little E, who is a total sweetheart and all kinds of handsome. I got a tour of their home, and it's beautiful and comfortable. Made me remember how Dawn and I would fantasize, while folding letters at the Boy Scouts Office, of having an apartment together in New York City where Dawn would get to decorate, and I'd get a little corner for my comic books and things. Story of my life: surrounded by all these awesome women that don't appreciate the beauty of a comic book poster decorating the hallway. In any case time went by really quickly and before I knew it, Dawn was dropping me off at my hotel. I can't believe that it's been 12 years since we met - so much has happened in our lives since! I do love that seeing her is like time hasn't gone by.

So, today Beatriz and I actually have to head to work. The morning started a little rocky since we had the recording address wrong, but once we made it there, it was all pretty smooth. For our lunch we weren't so sure about what to eat, where to go, so we just walked around the downtown district, where I got to see this:

It was a shock at first, but funny. The downtown district was full of food trucks, but we didn't see one we were attracted to. Finally we found Bombay Bistro, which had a nice lunch buffet going.

I had two delish servings of naan, lovely basmati rice, eggplant. It was a happy, good choice for lunch. On the way back to the recording spot, I saw this:

Made me wish I read music notes so I could see what song was it.

For dinner, after much searching of the online world, we headed to Bryant Lake Bowl. We shared an order of giant tater tots.

They weren't pretty good. They were just too big to remain with flavor, you know? The sauce, which was mayo based, was tasty and creamy. For my entree I tried a Silver Ranch Bison Philly. Which is a shaved top round, peppers, onions, and swiss with garlic roasted aioli philly sandwich.

Although I was proud of me for trying out something new, I didn't feel like the whole thing paid off - I ate about half, since I didn't really enjoy the taste of bison. We stopped by the bowling alley part of the restaurant, and we were impressed with the fact that you can keep score manually. It was pretty cool.

Since all the lanes were taken we stopped instead by the arcade next door. Played some games.

All in all, not a bad beginning to a short visit.

Touristin'

On our last day in Richmond, we tried to get it all in. As soon as work finished, we hightailed it to the Capitol Building.

It's a beautiful structure, and we climbed all the steps to the top before we saw the little sign that said that the entry was now at the bottom of the hill.

The security people were very nice though, and let us in even though they were 5 minutes away from closing time. We even had a tour guide take us around! He was very knowledgeable, but I guess that's his job to be.

After getting our history on, we headed to the downtown area, to Weezie's Kitchen - don't forget it's St. Patrick's Day and it needs to be celebrated! Actually I had completely forgotten it was St. Paddy's, but it was nice to see all the green. Weezie's is almost like a diner, and I was not wowed by their service (or their prices) but their food was okay. I chose the Meatloaf, smothered in mushrooms and gravy, with a side of mashed potatoes and veggies.

After we ate our fill, we walked down the street to the Byrd Theatre. This place is great: tickets are 2 dollars, always, and they have an organist that does a little show before the movie starts.

We also had the chance to see a local dance school do a special St. Paddy's day show, with their students doing traditional Irish Dancing. Had no idea there was a big Irish population in Richmond (or at least big enough to warrant an Irish Dancing School.)

To support the theatre we bought some appropriately sized popcorn, and attempted to enjoy The War Horse. That was tough. I think I really would've enjoyed it as a play, but as a movie it felt way too long and complicated.

To reward ourselves for sitting through that entire movie, we enjoyed some of Bev's Homemade Ice Cream across the street from Byrd. I chose a "Girl Scout" Cone: Samoas!

All in all, Richmond was a great place to visit. A short visit.

Goodbye Lewis and Clark!

These last two days have been all about making it back to New York. They gave us a whole day to drive from Weippe, ID to Spokane, WA, just in case of snow and delays. The drive was about 4 hours or so. We had big breakfasts at Mechell's, involving pancakes and eggs. I was on the passenger seat and got some fun shots of snow.

When we finally made it to Spokane, we stopped by a small cafe whose name I no longer remember, and I had a salami and cheese sandwich and a coke. I took a bite of their lemon cake. Grossness.

I unfortunately did not come prepare to find out that our Airport Hotel was also considered a "water park."

Today was all about flying back to New York: Spokane to Seattle, Seattle to JFK, JFK to office, office to home. However, Kudos to the advertising team in Spokane - not widespread enough, but I enjoyed this ad:

Indeed. Adios Idaho! I had fun.