welcome to new york // part vii

my last entire week in the city! *sheds tear* i cannot believe seven weeks have passed. while i was here, time was liquid. while technically this is being published three weeks after the actual events, let’s just pretend i’m on schedule. (i’m back home but things are still crazy and i’m seven weeks in, so obviously not going to give up on these exhausting recaps. THERE’S ONLY ONE MORE LEFT. are you excited or sad that it’s basically over?)

saturday, august 1

evelyn and i woke up quite early to have a photoshoot in central park. we always have ballet photoshoots whenever there’s a chance, but strangely we hadn’t had one in the city yet. the only problem with photoshooting here is the amount of people staring and photo-bombing. we thought that waking up early would result in an almost empty park, but we clearly underestimated tourist’s ability to wake up. from the start, things weren’t going too well because evelyn’s camera refused to focus on me. clearly, it was more interested in the trees surrounding us. (wow thanks, I’M REALLY INSULTED) we struggled for an hour of on and off camera problems, then gave up and moved onto another part of the park. here, we actually got a few good shots but people began to pile in and we needed to move onto somewhere else. by that time, we’d both given up; evelyn, because she dropped her phone and it shattered, and i, because STARVING AND SLEEP DEPRIVED. after our somewhat unsuccessful photoshoot, we headed to juice generation for a well-deserved breakfast and went back home to sleep. by the time we woke up, it was noon and we needed to continue on with our day.

we decided to get lunch at los tacos no. 1 in chelsea market. the last time i went i was so confused, but this time was much better because evelyn knew what she was doing. (also she took spanish in high school so reading the menu was no problemo) the tacos were delicious, like last time, but we were ready to get outta there. (ALL THE PEOPLE UGH) before heading to our next (real) destination, evelyn needed coffee. blue bottle coffee shop was right there – and it has AMAZING coffee – so obviously, we bought their coffee. i suppose it was better than any normal coffee, but i can’t really tell; i’m not really a coffee person.

afterward, we walked to the place we’ve both been squirming to go to: the whitney museum. generally i’m not a huge fan of museums but the whitney was a true exception. everything about it was gorgeous, from the architecture to the artwork displayed to the scenic overview. it is now my favorite museum in the city.

evelyn and i had planned to meet up with the girls at our studio and eat dinner together. it was exciting to see so many familiar faces, but also… not. it wasn’t that we didn’t enjoy their company; i’d just grown used to traveling and talking in small groups, so my introverted self naturally said, “TOO MUCH.” also, it was exhausting being surrounded by so many people for the entire day. they were in the same area, so we all met in chelsea market and traveled to our dinner destination: K-TOWN! (OBVIOUSLY) there were some traffic disasters that caused us to arrive later than intended, but we still had plenty of time to eat and chat. seeing them made me a bit homesick, but also a bit not. it’s a complicating relationship.

sunday, august 2

i haven’t taken many classes in the past weekends, so i decided it was time to make my trek back to steps on broadway. it was my first time going since we moved to the upper west side and it’s great because the apartment was literally two blocks away. and yet, i still managed to be somewhat late (WAY TO GO!). by somewhat late, i actually mean fifteen minutes early. i’ve never taken classes from this teacher, but i decided to just go with it. it was labeled as an “intermediate” class, so i thought it’d be a good idea to wear pointe shoes for the entire class. when i walked in, i saw paloma herrera (a principal with ABT; she recently retired) taking the class as well! there were also some other professionals. the rest of the dancers seemed to be quite old (aka 20s? to 80s?). i ended up really enjoying the teacher’s class and i’m sad i didn’t take her classes sooner. i finished feeling very refreshed and happy.

after, evelyn and i ate brunch at little collins. i tried coming in the first week i was in the city, but it turned out to be closed for the day. we decided to take another chance and come again and what a great decision THAT was. it was so good. i know i seem to say that about nearly everything, but seriously, so good.

since it was apparently “national ice cream sandwich day,” i had to get an ice cream sandwich. we were a few blocks away from sprinkles ice cream, so off we went to get our ice cream sandwich. we decided to share a red velvet scoop with red velvet cupcake case. my tastes buds were crying (drooling) and overwhelmed with joy.

our next stop was sephora. if we’re being completely honest, sephora is never a good idea. why? we always buy things that we didn’t plan on buying. once you step in, there’s no going back. i saw they had a promotion for their eyebrow studio, so i asked if they had any free time to do it for me. i was expecting them to explain to me how to fill them in, etc., but they ended up actually doing my brows. i’ve never touched my eyebrows before, so i was nervous and (kinda) excited. they ended up being perfectly fine, as i told her not to go overboard.

the rest of the day was spent in k-town… again. actually, we were originally going to go to chinatown to buy groceries, but got lazy and decided to go to k-town instead since it was closer. besides groceries, i browsed at a korean bookstore and was trying to find ‘the fault in our stars’ in korean (they had harry potter, the hunger games, twilight, even fifty shades of grey, but not tfios?!).

rest of the week

• the second and last week of counseling began~
• a few of us had a photoshoot in one of the studios
• i visited books of wonder
• went to the whitney again and watched the sunset. it was beautiful.
• FINALLY went to big gay ice cream. although the ice cream literally LOOKED LIKE POOP, it was actually really good. my phone camera got a good picture of it (yay!), but then shut down right after due to low battery and did not save it.
• went to watch mission impossible at 10pm in a movie theater with reclining seats!
• while waiting, we witnessed an old man collapsing on the floor and hitting his head. it was really bad and the ambulance came, but we could really provide help. SO MUCH SADNESS.
• my sister bought the boxed paperback set of harry potter! the jealousy i real.
• took my last class in ABT studios. saying goodbye is surely the worst.
• also did my last training session. feeling very very sad.
• evelyn and i ate korean bbq again because we were starving. we ended up eating too much and things did not end well.

sunset at the whitney museum

mini photoshoot in american ballet theatre studios!

– alexandra