Last Day of Summer

Well, today was the last official day of summer. Although a sad realization, I'll admit I'm kind of eager for fall to start. And with the risk of sounding even nerdier, I'll say it, I like school. I'm the girl who spends her days studying, reading and writing. This is my last year in middle school and next year I start high school. To add to the pressure, high schools in New York are extremely competitive, the one that I want to attend, Stuyvesant HS, is probably one of the most competitive with 27,000 students applying and only around 2,000 getting in. 

Well, babbling aside, we went to 17th street for some last minute shopping and later ate around there at a place called Dogmatic where they serve "gourmet sausages" inside a baguette. 

 

 

 

Afterwards, we went to Union Square, where we went to the Green Market. Green Markets are great, you can buy produce, cheeses, breads or even sweets of any kind- all organically produced. Apart from everything having great flavor at cheap prices, the atmosphere is amazingly refreshing.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

  

  

 

After we had bought ever fruit known to man, we walked around a little more and found "FREE HUGS".

 

  

  

U.S. Open

Yet another sacred tradition of New Yorkers... the U.S. Open.

New Yorkers aren't especially known for their love of sports. But every year, during the U.S Open, New Yorkers stop and watch the matches. In park and squares, the matches are shown in big screens, while New Yorkers sip their Starbucks and watch carefully.

Every year, we go to the U.S Open and watch a match. This time we saw two matches- Women's and Men's singles in the Quarter Finals. Venus Williams v. Magdalena Rybarikova and Rafael Nadal v. Nicolas Kiefer. The first game was fast but the second left everyone in the edge of their seat, lasting nearly 3 hours. 

The Rise and Fall of Manhattan

Brooklyn Is The New Manhattan

It's tragic. It's sad. It's true.

Manhattan is over.

Don't get me wrong, Manhattan is great- it offers culture, diversity, shopping and much more...but unfortunately that "much more" includes yuckies- better known to the rest world as "yuppies." Yuppies are a species of New Yorkers that until recently had been rare, ridiculed and isolated, exiled by Manhattan's trendy. The species of (Y)oug (U)rban (P)rofessionals are young people with no aspiration in life other than to makemoney. With high-paying jobs, dollar signs inscribed in their eyeballs and affluent lifestyles, they have managed to gain power throughout the island. They started with Wall Street. Moved on to surrounding areas. And eventually, they got to it all. It was too late. It was over. The battle against the yuppies was lost. We had surrendered. And we had lost.

Disheartened trendies hoped to find a new way of life. They found it in the form of Brooklyn. The task was hard. Brooklyn would need a lot of work. It would take years. With hope for a yuppie-free city, they carried on the impossible dream. Years later, proving that it was in fact possible, Brooklyn emerged as trendy, fabulous and better than ever. Beware, parts in Brooklyn are still horrible places, which are the parts that most people know. This is Brooklyn's advantage. It is a mystery- a gem not yet discovered, saving the city from Minnesotan suburban tourists and the... (gulp)... yuppies. The "best parts" of Brooklyn serve as the home to artists and up-and-coming designers in up-and-coming neighborhoods. It's the young people- not the young billionaires but rather the ones without the millions of dollars. It's the families- not the Upper East Siders with the perfect but secretly dysfunctional family- but rather a sincere family. Not the people shopping at Chanel- but those shopping in Salvation Army and other thrift stores. The ones living life.

Here are a few shots from my day at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden...

Central Park

" The most unusual and surrealistic place in New York City is Central Park..." -Christo

While on one of our Manhattan excursions, we took a detour and ate in Central Park... and it was- as it always is- fabulous. When you find yourself in New York, you can no other word use but- fabulous...

By mere accident, we found the John Lennon's "Imagine". This is probably a good time to mention... that... well...

I am Eugenia Sanchez and I am a Beatleholic.

Upper East Sider Pigeons... the very best kind.

Talk about diversity- crepes, empanadas and coffee.

Only in New York...