Weekend with friends, and Central Park wonders

Sorry we haven't been updating as much, but really it is a good thing because it means we are settling in. Living here is starting to feel more normal, and as such we have a little less to say right now. But our apartment is all settled (aside from the 2 boxes the post office can't find) and we're trying hard to figure out our jobs. They are fine, and finally working again is nice, but both of our jobs are a bit disorganized and we are having a hard time figuring out exactly what we should be doing everyday. I'm still not convinced that research is going to be my thing, but I'm going to give it my best and will hopefully start doing real lab work soon.

This weekend was great though. It seems that all of our friends from UCSD have either stayed in SD, moved to the Bay Area or moved to New England - it's great! That means Colleen and I finally had friends to hang out with - imagine that, real friends! Not that we don't love spending time with one another, but it's nice to add some others into the mix now and then. Friday consisted of pizza, beer and a med school party. Then Saturday we went to check out MOMA finally (Museum of Modern Art, for you non-NYC-ers) and it was really fun. I love museums, even when I don't truly understand the intention. My favorite was this mounted display of post cards someone had sent that simply said, "I got up at 9:17am today" and "I got up at 10:08am today" and so on. I've already promised Colleen that if we ever don't live near each other, I'm totally doing that to her.



I'm sure there is a deeper meaning to the whole thing, but I found it very entertaining. Unfortunately we didn't get to see a whole lot of the exhibits, but that's the beauty of living here - I can go back!

Here's the painting for Colleen and her love of cats:


Apparently it's a line from an old mob movie indicating that some dirty job had been completed - I want to figure out an adaptation for my own life. (=


Saturday night we finally ventured down to Brooklyn where our friend Adam lives to check out the bar scene down there. We ended up at a Cal Berkeley bar of all places, and felt very at home. They even have a variety of board and card games that you can check out from the bar. Another bar has bocce ball courts in the back, but it was too crowded to play. I have to admit, Brooklyn is much cooler than I would have thought. It's funny, because it isn't so far out of Manhattan (although WAY far from the Upper East Side!) and yet it feels like a whole other world. There are actual houses, and people drive places. Imagine that! The funniest part is how quiet it is - in Manhattan, you don't even realize how loud the general background noise is until it's gone! All in all a good outing, so I think we'll be venturing down there again for sure.

Today was spent being very lazy, but finally at 5pm Colleen rallied me for a walk in Central Park. I just can't get over how great the park is - every time you stumble on interesting things, interesting people. There are these 2 guys who set up a show of sort by the fountain where they jump over people. They talk in unison and are very entertaining - good showmen. The best, however, was the random roller rink we found. Just along one of the wide paths was a large group of people skating (on old-school roller skates mostly) around a make-shift oval. They were playing music and most of the skaters were dancing as much as skating. We watched them mesmerized for a long time, marveling at how they are better dancers on skates than we are at all. Just not fair! It got us talking about how lucky we are to live here, how grateful we are that we actually made this move, and how great this city really is.

Hope you all come to visit us soon!