Question 15-20 (Travel Edition)

Okay, the questions I'm getting are awesome - for real. I get excited when I see one pop up in my inbox! I'm still making my way through the questions, trying to group them as best I can. Keep tuning in for more posts - I'll try to finish them out by the end of the weekend! The questions have really inspired me - letting me know that people actually read this little corner of the internet and it reignited my fervor for blogging!

So, now, I take on questions regarding places, locations and travels! This is fitting as I am in the midst of planning perhaps the biggest trip of my life so far for next year - details to come as they're all firmed up!

What should I check out in Williamsburg?

I don't hang out in Williamsburg regularly, but there are some fun things I like to do there, such as - see shows at the Music Hall of Williamsburg (I've seen OkGo and Against Me! there), eat at delicious places like Wild Ginger or Sea, have crazy late night times at a bar called The Levee (board games + beer = Jesse's favourite bar), drinking at the Brooklyn Brewery, and my new favourite place: Brooklyn Bowl. Oddly enough, this alley-slash-restaurant-slash-venue has the best margaritas I've had in New York. No lie!

What do you think of Manhattan, in general, as the metropolitan human being you are?

Like every city, there's something to love and something to hate. For now, I focus on the love: you're never bored here. If you say you are, it's because you've decided to stay indoors. There's a million things going on in this city every night. Also, I love love love that there's always something new opening or an undiscovered secret restaurant or bar. The food is amazing; there are so many great places to eat. And I would eat out more often if I could afford it!

Where is your favorite place that you have traveled to?

Definitely Panama. You can't beat seing your family and staying in the tropics where $200 will usually last you a month. My favourite place was a secluded beach where my family, Jesse, and I rented cabanas for $10/night. We stayed outside all day, swam in the warm but refreshing Pacific Ocean, bodysurfed, grilled, made a fire, watched the sun set, watched the moon rise, watched the tide go low...at least half a mile out, where we walked with the brightest full moon I've ever seen as our guide. It was, quite simply, our own little paradise for the time. I think about those days often.

Other notes, now that I'm on it:

In the United States, the three cities I've visited when Jesse was on tour and really love - Portland, San Diego, and Austin! I'm planning a trip to Austin in 2010, too.

City I was suprised to not like: San Francisco.

City I was surprised to like: Detroit.

If I were coming to New York for a long weekend...say Thursday-Mondayish...with C, what are some of the top things we need to see/do, eat, watch, etc??

Secret: I am the worst tourist. I have yet to visit the Statue of Liberty. I've seen it...once...from a moving car. When people come visit, I try to show them the nightlife and the people - I'm not exactly one for bus tours. Here's what I would do: 1) See a show - any kind of show - there's always one going on! - whether it be an indie band at a dive bar, Ricky Gervais at Carnegie Hall, a broadway play (you know Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig are doing that, right?) or an independent film at the Angelika Theater. The venues, to me, are part of the show, and are part of the New York experience. 2) Hit up a museum - right now there's a Tim Burton retrospective at the MoMA and I desperately want to go sometime soon (it runs through April I believe). 3) Eat, eat, eat. DON'T GO TO A CHAIN IN NEW YORK! Though we all enjoy a Chipotle here or there, if you're coming to New York, the food is part of the experience, and the city has LOTS of choices. 4) Walk around a lot - everywhere. New York streets are a grid; it's nearly impossible to get lost. You'll find so many interesting stores, see a lot of people, and if you look up, you'll see some neat architecture. (Neat? Hahaha)

That's all I've got for right now. I wouldn't be the best at writing a straight-up travel guide. My favourite thing about being somewhere else with another person is experiencing it together. I'm not one to experience a city with a checklist of must-see places: let's get there and see what happens.

Where did you originate from, and if it wasn't New York how did you end up there?

I was born in Panama City, Panama. My father is from New Hampshire and he met my mother in Panama, where she grew up. My father was military, so I grew up moving around, oh, every two years. It was more fun than it sounds like and I wouldn't give it up for anything: I don't have a hometown and I don't care! It's easy for me to make myself home wherever I go; that's what I learned to do. So for now: New York is home. After going to college in Boston, I spent a year in Rhode Island saving up to move to New York where my best friend Kelly was already living. I've been in love with New York since some trips growing up; I also spent my sophomore year of high school's spring break traveling from Kentucky to see Kevin Spacey in the broadway run of The Iceman Cometh. That trip pretty much solidfied the fact that I someday HAD to live in this city. And so, when the time was right, I did it.

What inspired you to move to New York? Did it start out just you and Erica or did all of your friends move at the same time?

I've been itching to move to New York since high school. I'd been inspired by the many trips I'd taken there; I knew I was attracted to cities more than suburbia and I also thought that because of all my moving around growing up that I would need to live somewhere that didn't bore me, somewhere that I wouldn't want to move away from after a year. Like I said, New York is not boring. I applied to a college in New York, but decided I liked Boston University's campus better. However, I spent most of my college Spring Breaks in New York with Kelly and Amber. (We did stuff like wait outside of SNL and meet Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey, measure the width of our tiny hotel room which was the length of my arm span, and eat the $1 hot dogs for every meal because we were poor, poor college students.) My friends and I had always planned to all live in New York at some point; Kelly, Christy, and Jiscilla were already living here. (Though Curbside's first gathering was in Rhode Island!) Erica was living in Rhode Island at the same time as me, and we had both separate plans to move to NY at some point, but as our friendship grew, our plans converged and we did it together!

Got any more questions?!

What are your plans for the weekend? Tonight I'm seeing DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL acoustic at Highline Ballroom! I am ultra-emo excited.