Party Time!

My favorite thing about New York is my friends. Sure I love that there is something to do (maybe a little too many things) every night, different kinds of people every where you look and a bustling all around you like no other place I've ever been. Yes I love these things, but if I left it all behind for greener and maybe easier pastures, the hardest thing to live without would be my friends. And I've done it once before, so I know. In this hectic city, they are what keeps me sane, well somewhat.  

And last weekend we all got together — not that we don't pretty much every other weekend — to celebrate the holiday season. As we expected, the original guest list dwindled down with last minute cancellations and competing Christmas parties, to pretty much just the normal crew plus a few. But we didn't let that stop us from getting all fancy and dancing around the Christmas tree all night long. Who needs a massive crowd to make it a party, right? Just as long as you are surrounded by the people you love — that's the recipe for a great night in my book. And it was:  

30 Days to 30: Day 26

Mood: Mellow but a little out of it.

Progress: Worked, bought a book. Been on a reading stump for so long with everything that is going on lately. I just want to read a good novel, and I finally got around to getting my hands on one. I'll let you know how it goes. 

Mentally: I had some time to kill after work before dinner with Megan and Jules, so I wandered to the Strand book store and perused for about an hour letting my hands run through pages, read back covers and immersed myself in a room filled with millions of words. I forgot how good bookstores make me feel. 

Physically: My feet are killing me. The most expensive pair of shoes that I have ever bought kill me feet. Is that irony or just terribly annoying?

Emotionally: Feeling a little needy waiting for a phone call from across the pond.

Thoughts About Turning 30: Thought about life a lot today, but not in the context of turning 30.

My Upside Down Life

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It has been quite a week for me, as I may have eluded to a bit already here on the blog. Ever since I got back from London, the world as I know it, is no longer. Just as my year anniversary of living in Berlin passed this Monday, the final chapter of my days here has begun. I have purchased a plane ticket back to New York, as well as a plane ticket to Glasgow (need to get as much cheap travel in before I am back in the world of expensive rent and over-priced plane rides) to spend some much needed family (my bro and his wife and baby live there) and alone time before I go. 

As sad as I am to leave my life in Berlin (what I wouldn't give for another warm day at Badeschiff) and say goodbye to the person who made it so special, and as scary a feeling it is when your life takes a drastic change, I am actually quite excited about looking at the world from this new perspective and returning to a place I have lived, full of people I love, with fresh eyes. 

So I am back to the airport once again tomorrow and will write more soon...

Photo from LIFE.

Random Sunday

NEW YORK CITY—1979.

 

PARIS—1974. Restaurant La Bière, 1974.

SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN, Germany—The Island of Sylt, 1968.

Spotted

Look who I just found over on Facehunter: my friend Mitchell, who also happens to be one of the little things I love about New York. Hmmm, maybe this is a sign that it is time to move back.... 

Paris versus New York

Paris did remind me of my former home New York in its massiveness and metropolitan feel, but all the little intricacies were so different and the fact that Paris could be so big yet so lovely and cute while in New York there is always a feel of monstrous grit, definitely set them apart.

Now I can safely say that they are two of my favorite cities, so discovering this Paris vs New York blog via A Cup of Jo in which Vahram Muratyan creates "a visual but friendly match between those two cities seen by a lover of Paris wandering through New York's infinite details, clichés and contradictions," was just too perfect. Here are a few of my favorite, but definitely check out the others too.

Little Things I Love About Berlin...

...watching Woody Allen movies. I know it's a bit weird to name films that usually take place in NYC as a good quality about Berlin. But I really never started watching the old ones until I moved here. My boyfriend has always had a thing for Woody (an obvious reason we should move to NYC one day) and I have certainly developed a thing for dressing like a certain Woody muse, so it was only a matter of time...

Watching them makes me feel so at peace, I know that sounds dramatic and strange, but somehow I find comfort in the so real stories and dialogue. I can watch them back to back to back, as I did last weekend. It's like I am hanging out with a bunch of stylish, quirky, intelligent and hilarious New Yorkers from a better time for a few hours — when in fact I am just laying in an old grandpa recliner in my sweatpants eating greasy street food. I love it. 


So far we have watched Annie Hall, Deconstructing Harry, Manhattan and Crimes and Misdemeanors, Whatever Works and Vicki Christina Barcelona (for the second time). My mom sent me a list of her favorite Woody Allen films, now it is your turn. I mean, I have to get through the dreaded German winter somehow. So what Woody films do you love?

Random Sunday

NEW YORK CITY—Pebbles, JoJo, and Carol on the A train, 1978.

To Be or Not to Be...

Pic from ThisIsntHappiness.

Olafur Eliasson: Innen Stadt Außen, Berlin

My first Olafur Eliasson experience was gazing at his Waterfalls in New York as I rode the Q Train over the Manhattan bridge to work every morning — certainly making my daily commute a little more bearable. My second was yesterday a little later in the morning here in Berlin, the city that both Olufar and I call home.

The photos above were not shot with a Holga or altered by Photoshop, but taken yesterday in the depths of three large smoke filled rooms in the Martin Gropius Bau Museum that made me feel like I was in another, very colorful, dimension. Olufur plays with the use of color and light throughout the exhibition, offering many chances to feel as if you've entered an alternate universe — video, mirrors and shadow make you second guess what you are really looking at. It was all a playful way to start my day that added a little bit of fun to what could have been a regular morning — just as his waterfalls did in NYC but with a very Berlin twist.

Innen Stadt Außen is only running until August 8th, so if you haven't seen it I suggest you get on it. More details here.

Little Things I Love About New York...

...Berlin has balconies, but NYC has stoops — and nothing beats a stoop. Timeless inventions those seats.

NEW YORK CITY — Hanging out on a stoop in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Summer 1967.

NEW YORK CITY — Sitting on a stoop in the East Village, Fall 1984.

NEW YORK CITY — Erin, Megan M and Becca taking a break on a stoop in the Lower East Side, Spring 2008.

NEW YORK CITY — Megan and Megan chilling on a stoop in the Lower East Side, Summer 2008.

Farewell New York

New York is what it is: heat waves, rooftops, beaches, parks, subways, shopping, eating, drinking, biking. So fun, so hot, full of my friends and family, full of familiarities and full of all the comforts and drama that come with that. Some of my peeps are doing amazingly well, some seem sad and bored of the city, some are embarking on whole new lives and adventures and some were too busy to even see — this is my New York. It was my home for almost five years and feels mostly as it always was when I was back for almost three weeks. Every time I left the house I enjoyed myself, spent too much money, over-heated, laughed and walked my butt off. But despite it feeling just like home, I have come to the realization that it no longer is.

I was nervous to go to NYC at first because I thought I would never want to leave; then I was nervous because I was up for a job that would move me back permanently. In the end neither scenario played out: I came this close to getting the job but didn't and I definitely was ready to go back to Berlin when the time came. NYC will always hold a place in my heart and another dream job may lead me back there one day — but if the time comes I do not want to be dropped off splat in the middle of my old life. Although it felt good and comfortable to live it once again, I have realized that I should keep my eyes focused on the future and that somethings and some lives are better left in the past. So tschüß New York (that's German for toodles!).

Here are some pics from that past three weeks in good old NYC.

More pics here.