Summer Doldrums: A Small Tale

Doldrums (noun): a state of period, inactivity, or depression

Out of all the seasons, only summer gets the label doldrums attached to it. A dichotomy that I never understood even as a child. And most especially when I was a child. This made no sense. Summer was to be the time when you were supposed to be having fun outside of school. Yet somehow these days would appear out of nowhere. Where no matter what is attempted nothing seems to fit, or give you any joy. These were the doldrum days. They could last for a single day, or go on for an entire week. It wasn't until later that I learned why this was. Why these days existed to begin with. They were the days when you saved up your fun, putting it aside for a later time. When the later time was has yet to be seen. I'm hoping it's a doozy when it all shows up.

Visiting the City That Never Sleeps Part 1

That's right, I took a vacation!!!

This is a big deal. Not only did I go someplace new and unknown for a whole week, I went across the country to do it! Why?

I haven't had a proper vacation in over 8 years.
To me, a proper vacation means going somewhere that isn't family/visiting related, obligatory, or less than two days away from the house (time-wise, not distance). Day trips are nice, but as the name implies, they are something done that same day. 

I've split this into two posts. I did quite a bit of wandering, and even though I only saw a very small portion of the city, I still fee like I managed to do quite a bit in my short time there.

I took a red eye flight from my airport to JFK late Monday evening. While a 5 hour nonstop flight made the transition quick, it was not a smooth or comfortable ride. I never can sleep on planes. But the end result was that I arrived bright and early in New York  around 8 am on Tuesday.





Tuesday

New York is big. I mean really big. I've been told this, and maps show a city far larger than the one I live in. But it's really an eye opener when it takes you nearly two hours to get from the airport to the hotel. Tuesday was a strange day where I had to remember that I was three hours ahead of my time zone while I wandered the nearby streets of my hotel. I was waiting for my friend to arrive from Chicago on her own flight later in the day.

I wandered around Penn Station, discovering the metro, as well as a flourishing market of food shops, pharmacy items, and clothes for sale in this underground structure. As well as the Amtrak. The two are layered one atop the other, and people can visit the city, or leave it entirely as long as they are on the right track to board and disembark.

My friend Mikaella arrived, and we began our tour of the city. We first started with a quick walk around the corner for lunch. We ate, of course, pizza. After that it was to wander further out and see what was in the general vicity of the place we would be staying for the week. We walked to Times Square, and found the famous divide on which multiple movies have filmed.

Having found our bearings, more or less, we wandered back while simultaneously searching for food. Discovered the Pennsy Food Hall. Vegetarian tacos were had in the form of cauliflower, along with a crab taco, and a chicken taco.

Wednesday

On Wednesday an acquaintance was coming in via train, but disembarking at Grand Central Station. Another journey out to find this place, as well as greet the friend. In a surprise twist, a second acquaintance showed up! We took a moment to admire the ceiling, and the architecture of the building before leaving.

 Unsure what to do with our day, we decided to do the one most touristy thing we could think of. We took a tour bus of downtown New York. I took many photos of the architecture as we drove past famous buildings.

The evening ended with us discovering another set of food stalls, known as the Broadway Bites. They were two blocks up from the Penn Station, and there was a wide variety of savory and sweet food to choose from. I ordered bao buns, and chose the Peking Duck and the Pork Belly.  There was also chicken tenders in waffles. I don't know which I liked more. Both were equally delicious.More stalls beckoned, but it was late, and we planned to return another day.

The Empire State Building likes to have its top floors light up at night, and the foggy evening did some pretty nifty effects that I managed to capture.

A Look Back: My Yearly Round-Up of 2017

So you may be asking yourself, what happened to this poor blog? It was doing so well and then it suddenly stopped?!

Yeah....
..yeah....
.......yeah......

It's the new year, so I thought I'd do a look back at the entire year of 2017, and summarize how it turned out. In a word: busy.

I admit, 2017 did not quite turn out the way I intended for it to go. It all got rather sidetracked. Much of it devoted to working and going to school with very little free time to write for myself. If I look back at it, I can see I managed to keep going until August, and then it became radio silence. About the same time I started my fall semester of school. Which, I decided would be a great time to double my class load to get myself done a year earlier. It worked. And in the process I learned I am not cut out to be a full-time student.

This year, I do have another semester's worth of classes that I'll be taking, but they'll be my last ones until I decide to return to academia. These first 4-5 months will be the difficult ones for me since I've got all higher level classes. But after that, who knows? I've got some vacation time saved up, and a long list of places I've always wanted to see.