hellooooo summer!

Yes, it seems that the warm summer weather has finally arrived! I hear it's still been kinda icky at home, but it's been pretty sunny here for the past few days (with the occasional shower in the afternoon) which is lovely. I think I'm finally going to have to cave in and get an air conditioner installed in my room because last night was pretty unbearable.

This weekend was a lot of fun! Saturday we had a really intense master class in the morning. It wasn't intense as far as the level of dancing, but rather it pushed us outside our comfort zones. As dancers, we don't like being put on the spot to talk. Most of us dance to express ourselves and aren't comfortable using our voices in performance. So in order to get us to "open up" more when we dance, the teacher (Sheila Barker) had us talk--about anything and everything--as we did the combination she had taught us. It was so strange but really made an impact. She also made us focus on our own eyes in the mirror, like staring ourselves down, which sounds easy, but is surprisingly difficult; you constantly want to look away or at the person next to you in the mirror. So that was an interesting experience that really has me thinking how I dance and "perform" in every class I take now.

After choir rehearsal Saturday night I took the subway to Nat's cousin's apartment in lower Manhattan and we had a feast! haha. It was great to have some really good food (not that the food here is bad, per say, just not always what I'd want). Oh, and we had some amaaaazing cupcakes that had frosting not only on the top, but inside the cake part as well!! haha. So we had a fun night watching movies, eating, and catching up :)

Sunday Nat and I slept in then headed out for a touristy day around 12:30. We started at Southstreet Seaport (which reminded me a lot of Newport! haha) where there was a lot going on because there happened to be an International Latino Music Festival going on. We walked around watching the boats and enjoying the beautiful day. Did some browsing in some of the stores, too. We stumbled upon this little old fashioned printing shop where they design all the stuff they sell with a printing press. It was really cute and they had some really cool NY stuff. When we got hungry we went searching for a place to get some food and found this AMAZING place called Just Salad. It was sooooo good! Everything was really fresh and they had so many things you could put in your salad or wrap (I got a wrap with lettuce, tuna, avocado, chickpeas, carrots, and a lemon vinaigrette dressing..mmmmm). We took our lunches back down by the water to eat which was really nice (but was making me miss the beach a lot!).

After lunch we decided to go explore all around lower Manhattan. We ventured to Wall Street and saw the NY Stock Exchange then made our way to Trinity Church and the World Trade Center Site. That was really strange for me because the last time I had been there was 2 months before they were hit. On my 13th birthday in July 2001 I went there with my family and so it seemed even more unreal when they fell two months later; it seemed like I had just been standing on top of them. If you didn't know better now you would think it was just like any other construction site...strange.

Then we walked to Battery Park City and sat by the water again. It was such a gorgeous day! We could see the Statue of Liberty here and took lots of fun pictures. We stayed for a while, and really didn't want to leave, but decided to find our way back to the apartment around 4:00. Then Nat invited me back to her house in Bronxville for dinner, so our fun continued. Had a delicious shrimp dinner with Nat and her parents. Then we went to the movies with some of her friends to see My Sister's Keeper. I'm not going to say anything about that here in case you haven't seen it. Slept in again Monday morning and then walked in to town to get bagels for brunch. We hung out for a good portion of the day and then I headed back to the city around 3:30. Had my cleaning shift that night and lyrical class. Classes are still going well and continue to challenge me daily. My tap teacher told me to try the next level up last night, so that's exciting haha.

I can't believe it's already Wednesday, which is great because I'm really looking forward to this weekend. I'm going out to Red Hook, NY on Saturday to spend the Fourth of July weekend with Ryan. I'll also get to see Rachel and Devin which is super exciting :) Can't wait!

Alright, I think that's all for now. Long day ahead of me...taking 3 classes! ballet, theatre, and then lyrical! Phew!

Tootles! <3