New York City and Yale

Hola! 

Have been a bit slower than I expected to get this blog started largely due to the immense amount of fun I have been having so far!

It all started with an extremely expensive taxi ride from Newark airport into the depths of Brooklyn. Who would have thought a road toll could be as high as $13 USD and that my taxi would need to go through three of them! Advice: pay the extra and fly into La Guardia or JFK it is well worth it especially if you are going to stay in Brooklyn.

Rosie had left me a series of fantastic notes around the apartment, and I had a whirlwind induction into the NYC subway system the next morning racing up some stairs with Rosie screaming behind me “RUN RUN!” and jamming my hand inside the closing subway door to only just make it onto the train in time. 

The New York professional at work in her swanky office:

I explored the MOMA on my first day and absolutely loved it - so many of the paintings and photographs we studied at school were suddenly right in front of me and a can highly recommend the free audio tour guide which eliminated the need to squint at the teeny tiny blurbs.

We had drinks at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn that night which overlooks Manhattan and looks spectacular at night, followed by an outrageous night out in Manhattan on Thursday evening which included…

• A scrumptious dinner at Tiny’s Restaurant care of our super gal pals back in NZ
• A comedy show in Greenwich Village
• An excessive amount of drinks at various bars in Manhattan 
• Emily being sick and making Rosie take her home

After sleeping until 2pm the following day we packed up for the weekend and caught the bus up to New Haven to visit Yale.

The expedition began at 7am Saturday morning when we boarded this bus to head out to the regatta:

After some awkward mingling while Adam was on the water and a hungry Rosie and Emily shyly sneaking food from the buffet we were identified by the parent help who had actually already made us name tags - which we proudly wore from then on as an indication we were actually entitled to be eating the delicious yoghurts on offer. Adam’s crew - ‘The Varsity 8’ - bet Dartmouth who they raced against, then we all boarded the yellow school bus to head back into town.

We watched the crew eat an excessive amount of brunch then went on a tour of the University a la Adam Smith.

View from the architecture building

Adam pointing to "some old building.." that was built in 1750 - Was New Zealand even inhabited then?!?!

Top tour mention goes to:

The Gym - 10 storeys high, and has the facade of a Cathedral. Apparently some old lady donated some money to the school a long long time ago for the purpose of a Cathedral but the school built the biggest gym complex you’ve ever seen that simply looked like a Cathedral. As she was so elderly they only needed to drive her past to prove they had in fact built her request. 

This is the race pool, they have another for training also.

Indoor rowing set up, just like the movies! Each crew has their own room with one of these.

Cathedral like entrance to the gym

Is it a government building? Or is it a dining hall?

(one of many serving delicacies we could have only dreamed of in Otago)

Seeing the Secret Societies on campus was cool, and I should also mention that Adam's friends were the most polite and fun 20 year olds to be around. Let's hope that school is rubbing off on him.

We kicked off Saturday evening having a few drinks with Adam’s roommates then moved on to some campus Frat parties - which were exactly how you’ve seen them in the movies. We even got a tour of the basement ‘grinding’ room which wasn’t in action on this particular night - but looked like a sufficiently dangerous place to leave your drunk friend grinding against a wall.

Brunch on Sunday is reserved for da Boys only - no exceptions, ever. So Rosanna and I dined solo ensuring we made the most of the free food again with two courses each. We then made an attempt to explore the Yale Art Gallery hungover - not sure why I was surprised but they have some amazing art in there and entry is free too!

I finished up my time in NYC by heading to the Guggenheim and catching up with Harley, Monica, Talia & Jesse at a couple of their favourite spots in Brooklyn. I am still thinking about the delicious frozen mojito we had at Surf Bar.  

As I am heading back to NYC in June I did have to put a lot of the key sightseeing activities on hold until then so Mr Reed didn’t miss out - but it was a great way to kick the trip off. 

Next post - COACHELLA! 

xx