New York Part I

New York

So people have been asking me a lot about my experience in New York. Did you like it? What did you actually do? So, I will start with the basics.

I was in New York from May 21-August 5. I started my internship on June 12, and had three weeks to chill out in the city. I spent my time going to Washington D.C. for the first time, bringing my friend Chelsea to New York and exploring the city.

Where I lived

I moved in May 21 to Brittany Hall on 10th and Broadway. It was an NYU dorm that I had registered for back in January. It was not the best living arrangement, but for $2500 including room and board, it was all I could afford. The entire expense went on my credit card.

Instantly I met several friends including Kristin from Catholic in D.C., short Brian from NYU, tall Brian from LeHigh, short Dan from Boston and, our extremely conservative friend who interned for the Fox News Hannady’s radio show, Brett from Kansas State. We all became friends over two major loves: “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and alcohol.

After about a month, we started to feel like a family and, on the weekend, alternated between going to the Lower East Side for inexpensive drinks and buying cheap bottles of wine to drink in the dorm rooms. I loved every minute of my experience with these guys and after a while they really seemed like my family.

I lived with two other girls in one small room. I was expecting a community bath, but the three of us shared one bathroom… what a luxury! One of my roommates, Lindsay from North Carolina, was interning for the company that basically runs Broadway (I got to help her pick out a dress for the Tonys!) and my other roommate, Caroline, was working for J.Crew in Columbus Circle and it looked like she was basically in the city to get closer to her boyfriend who was a lawyer in the city. Little did Lindsay and I know how much we would learn about Caroline’s relationship and had to help out majorly when she had a devastating breakup. I did my part with Caroline by hooking her up with an internship at Initiative working with AOL.

The dorm had no air conditioning. At the beginning of the summer that was no problem because the weather was down to 40 degrees outside (my parents had to mail me a jacket), but the weather changed drastically by mid summer. July proved to supply some of the highest temperatures New York had ever seen. It was 105 outside, but inside with no central air and no ventilation system (the windows were bolted due to the high suicide rate at NYU) it felt like 120 degrees.

By the end of the summer I had been through three fans, only being in my room from midnight to 8 a.m., taking two cold showers a day and sleeping in next to nothing. It was so miserable that NYU opened up the library for residents to sleep for the hours of midnight-5:30 a.m.

I subsisted through the terrible living conditions of NYU. I contracted both athlete’s foot and the infection of the hair follicles (both of which have been cured- thank god), I endured the intense heat inside the building and I lived peacefully with two other girls. I feel like I truly am a survivor of the city.