1001 Reasons Why We Love New York

Just kidding, you probably wouldn't have time to read all that.  But here are a few!

1. There is always something to do.  Concerts, musicals, plays, community events, food, sight-seeing, museums, parks, shopping, etc.

(The view of Ground Zero from our friend's office building down town)

 (We won the Wicked lottery when John's family was visiting!)

 (Famous Jackson Pollock at either the Museum of Modern art or the Met-- I can't remember)

(The Brooklyn Bridge)

2. The FOOD.  I always heard that people in New York never cook and I thought that was so weird.  But now I understand why!  There is good food everywhere.  Anything you're in the mood for--from any country you can think of.  And it's pretty easy to find it for cheap.  We really like a Chinese place around the corner where we can both fill up (with left-overs) on $4 each.

3. People live in small apartments.  Can you imagine?  We know a family of 7 that lives in a two bedroom apartment (all 5 kids in the same room) and they ALL GET ALONG!  This is just one example.  Many families in New York live like this.  It appears to be good for the family.

4. Another result of small apartments--we spend a lot of time outside and less time sitting around inside.

 (The view from the Henry Hudson Park trail near our house.  George Washington Bridge above, going to New Jersey.)

(Central Park in the fall)

5. Doggies everywhere!!  It seems to us that having a dog is the thing to do in New York.  It is really fun for John and I because we love dogs and we get to pet them and play with them, even though we can't have any for ourselves because of allergies.

(The Halloween doggie parade in the Village!)

 (Can you believe this?)

 (So cute.)

5. NO CAR!!!!!!  Not having a car has been a luxury for us.  We have no car payments, no insurance, no parking, no driving in snow or ice, and no being stuck in traffic.  What a dream.  Everywhere we need to go, we can get there on the subway or the bus.  The public transportation in this city is amazing.  We are loving it.

6. Our neighborhood.  It is almost like living in a small town.  There is a library, post office, clothing/furniture/shoe stores, Goodwill, Staples, several groceries, cheap pizza, laundry, pet stores, bike stores, pharmacies, restaurants, and a movie theatre within walking distance of our apartment.  Quick and easy access to all the essentials.

7. Bike lanes all over the city.  New York has been getting serious about this over the past few years.  There are physically protected paths, bi-directional protected paths, buffered bike lanes, green painted bike lanes, and shared lanes all over the city.  Not to mention all the bike paths in the parks.  We love it!  John has access to special indoor, guarded bike parking area at his work.

 (Biking across the George Washington Bridge for cheaper groceries in New Jersey.)

8. Having a grocery around the corner, with cheap produce. This has been a huge convenience for me.  In Atlanta I drove 20 minutes to the grocery store and stocked up for the week.  Here I can just run over and get what I need for the day.

9. Our ward.  We are really enjoying our ward.  It is full of the most friendly and outgoing people we have ever met.  Before we even moved here we had friends.  We are always going places and hanging out with our friends from the ward.  There are also dozens of professional performing artists in the ward. And I mean the serious kind, that perform on Broadway and with the Met.  It is a little intimidating for me but really awesome.

Ok well, nine's enough for now.  Please come visit us.  We have plenty of floor space.  It will be so fun!

Our trip to Ireland

This post is way overdue!  I am a lazy blogger.

So here it is... the story of the rest of our summer travels:

Ireland.  Ireland is awesome.  I know why it is so green there.  Because it rains ALL the time!  It's also really cold.  I had to buy a raincoat and an umbrella and like 5 pairs of socks!  I was freezing the whole time we were there.  In August.  It was kind of funny actually--every time the sun came out (which was only for a few minutes at a time) and the temperature increased to about 65, everyone would start complaining about how dreadfully hot it was!!  Anyway, it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.  And Irish people are pretty cool.

We didn't learn our lesson from the first car rental and did it again in Ireland.  At least it was not a hybrid this time, but we did have to drive on the left side of the road which was WORSE!!!

Dad shifting the gears with his left hand.

We saw a lot of old castles like this one on our drive.

The beautiful fields in the countryside.  It's probably hard to see the stone walls that separate the fields but that was one of my favorite things to see.

Anyway, the first day we drove down to the southern tip of the island, to Bally Bunion.  People drive crazy mad in Ireland, like 80 miles an hour on the small two-lane highways.  Scary.  Bally Bunion is famous for golfing.  Even President Clinton was there once, and they built him a statue in the center of the town!

The reason we decided to stay there was because John and I have a friend in Atlanta from there.  His family is still there.  So we were planning to meet them but something came up with the family and we never ended up meeting them.  But it was ok, because we stayed a bed and breakfast that looked right out over the beach and the sea.  It was so beautiful.  Check out the ancient castle ruins.

By the way, there were toddlers running around NAKED on this beach!  I was barely able to keep from shivering with my sweatshirt on!

The next day we drove north.  We stopped by the Burren (pronounced "burrn") National Park in County Clare.   It is a huge area covered in limestone rock with little cracks where the grass came through.  While we were there we saw the oldest man-made structure that I had ever seen.  It is an ancient tomb and I think they estimate that is is 5,000 years old.  Here is someone else's picture from the internet.

The Burren had stone walls like this everywhere.  Some of them were reeeeally really old.

We also stopped by the Cliffs of Moore which are these really cool cliffs along the ocean.  Sorry, no picture.  I think it is where they filmed some scenes in the new Harry Potter movie!

Anyway, Dad and John went home the next morning and Mom, Carlene and I stayed for the epic event that we had been waiting for... the whole purpose for our trip to Europe.  The Fleadh!  The biggest traditional music festival in the woooooorlddd!  This year it was in Cavan.  It was awesome.  We stayed with a host family who we paid 35 Euros each per night.  They made a killing off of us.  (Everyone in the town rented rooms for the same price so I guess there was no way to negotiate it.)  The mom cooked us traditional Irish breakfast every morning.  It was more like meatfast than breakfast but what can you do.  They eat this weird thing called black and white pudding which I never ate because I heard someone say "pig's blood" and that was the deal breaker for me.  But I did really like their brown bread and porridge.    Our host family had four children who had names like Cian and Cara.  It took me a few days before I could understand anything they were saying but they were nice to us.  Their house was freezing all of the time.  I took a shower as little as possible because the window to the bathroom was always open and I hated taking a shower while cold air was blowing on me!  One night we asked them if they could turn the heat on and they looked at us kind of funny and then brought a little space heater into our room.

This was the view of the front and back yard of the house.  The house and property had been in their family for many generations.  I can't imagine what that would be like!

Well, we started out the week by attending the Scoil Eigse, a big music camp that proceeds the Fleadh Cheoil.  All of the students were divided into groups by instrument and ability level.  I joined the adult mixed instrument class.  The teacher of my group was Mary Nugent and she was so cool.   This was my first experience learning tunes by ear and it was really hard.  I played the whistle, by the way.  It was the easiest one to carry all the way over from the US.  Mom was playing the flute and Carlene was playing the fiddle.  Other traditional Irish music instruments are: accordion, banjo, uilleann pipes, and concertina. Every evening after we spent the day memorizing new tunes, they had a huge "session" with everyone in the camp.  It was crazy to be in a big room with like 500 people all playing tunes together!  (A session is when irish musicians get together in a pub and just play tunes together.  Kind of like a jam session I guess.)

This is my teacher's cd that just came out.  (She's the one playing the flute!) I love it.  You should check it out.

At the end of the week the town became flooded with thousands of Fleadh-goers.  There were concerts and sessions going on all over the place, and competitions, and (my favorite part) busking going on all over the streets!  I didn't know what busking was before this trip.  Basically it's when you play on the street for money.  People of all ages (even cute little kids) were playing by themselves and in groups all over the place.  And the streets were packed with people listening and enjoying themselves.  Literally, the streets were packed so tight that sometimes I got stuck in a human traffic jam and couldn't move.  It was crazy to see how excited these Irish people were about the music.

This was a spontaneous street session that we joined for a little bit.  After a while people had to start sessions on the street because there was no more room in the pubs.  

Some young buskers.

Mom and Carlene played in a few sessions.  I was never brave enough to join in. 

This session was fun because there were kids playing in it.  The bar served them soda instead of Guiness. 

Some of our highlights were seeing Andy Irvine (front row seats!!), Lunasa, and my favorite--Dedannon!  They were soooooo awesome.   One of the main draws of the Fleadh are the competitions.  They have competitions for every instrument and every age level.  We went to some of them, and were totally blown away at how good all of the kids were who participated in the competitions.  There were little kids playing the fiddle who would knock the socks off of some of the famous fiddle players in the US that I have heard!  And that goes for all the instruments.  Banjo, concertina, etc.  It's like they were born with the music in their blood.  The most interesting competitions we went to were the whistling and lilting.  They would just stand in front of the room and whistle tunes!  They were very serious about it.  Lilting is hard to describe, but it was also really cool to watch.

Andy Irvine

Going to the Fleadh was the most intense introduction to Irish music anyone could have.  It was awsome.  I am totally into it now.  "Trad" is what they call it over there.  I love "trad."  I listen to it all the time.   The thing that really surprised me was how into it the kids were.  There were hundreds and hundreds of kids at the music camp and in the competitions who were SO good.  I've never been to a music camp that had so many kids who were so excited to play music.  It was really unbelievable.  I can't wait to go back someday (but I probably won't be able to afford it for a long time)!

NEW YORK CITY!!!!

Ok, well if you haven't already heard, John and I are moving to New York City!  And we are doing it in SIX days!  I have been meaning to announce it on here but I have been keeping myself busy and away from the computer.

Things are crazy around here!  We are packing up our house, selling our car, and spending time with as many friends as possible before we leave Georgia.  I am sad to leave Atlanta (I will miss the hot weather SO much) but I am terribly excited to live in New York.  John of course is in heaven and we haven't even gotten there yet.  New York is one of his number one favorite places on this planet.  It is my dream come true to live in a place where we don't have to own a car.  No car payments, no insurance, no more being stuck in traffic, no more finding a parking space!! Yay for the subway!  I'm excited about lots of other things too, but at this moment the car is on my mind because we are trying hard to get that thing sold and out of our hair.  Anyone want a 1999 Camry?

We were just in NYC last weekend looking for an apartment and boy, what an adventure that was.  We think we found one (cross your fingers), but we haven't signed a lease or paid any money yet.  It's in the Washington Heights/Inwood area in northern Manhattan.

SO, consider yourself invited to New York.  Please Please Please come visit us.  You have no excuse not to come now.  A free place to stay in New York!  You CAN'T pass that up!  So go buy your plane ticket right now!

Oh yeah the reason we're moving is because John's fellowship program is sending him to the New York City Health Dept. on assignment for two years.  He is really excited to work there.  It will be good for him to rub shoulders with some important people in the field.  And he competed with several other people for this position so go John!!  As for me I am going to find a job.  Somewhere, somehow.  Hopefully I will be able to use my fancy expensive degree.  We'll see.

Ok, back to packing.  Any tips on how to pack hangers?  Box or garbage bag?

Our trip to Europe

Sooner or later I will use this blog not just for updates about my life.  :)

John and I went on a fun little trip to Europe last month with my parents and Aunt Carlene.  The trip started out when Mom, Carlene, and I went to hang out in New York for a few days.  We stayed with John's brother and sister-in-law Josh and Mattie in New Haven.  You would have had quite a laugh seeing three country girls trying to find their way around the Big Apple.  First time for all three of us. 

We got to eat New York hot dogs, New York cheesecake, rode the subway, saw street dancing on the subway, went to the top of 30 Rock, saw the Statue of Liberty, and most importantly, saw Wicked!!!!!  (It was awesome.  Totally worth the money and the trip to New York.)

Dad and John met us there after a few days and then we all headed for London.  Everyone went to see the famous Tower of London (which is actually a castle?) while John went to visit the London School of Tropical Medicine where he's thinking about going for a PhD.  After learning our lesson to never plan to meet in a huge train station (that none of  us had ever been to) in the middle of a big city during rush hour right before we were supposed to get on the airport bus several blocks away to catch a flight to Scotland, the grown-ups finally found John who finally found me after I had left the group in a desperate search to find him.  Whew.  Close call.  

Anyway, off to Scotland we went but not before an episode on the plane involving a passenger having a heart attack and another passenger giving CPR until the medics finally showed up and worked on the poor man for an hour or so right there in the isle while we all sat there watching, buckled up and ready to go.  (They eventually carted him off the plane and we never heard from him again.  Hope he made it.) Finally we made it to Glasgow late in the night and after a good night's sleep, a hearty breakfast of Hagis* and beans, and a looong walk through town with luggage in tow we made it to the train.  Just in time for the train ride that we had been waiting for all our lives but didn't know it yet.

It was hard to beat off the jet lag during this most beautiful ride through Scotland's countryside, but worth it.  It was also hard to get our trigger happy fingers to stop taking pictures so we could just relax and take it all in. 

 

Recognize this bridge?  Does Hogwarts Express ring a bell?

On the train ride we also learned about Scottish culture and politics from the few sentences we understood of our conversations with the natives.  We rode all the way to the edge of Scotland to a little fishing village called Malliag.  I actually don't know how to spell it but you say it like "mallet" and just as you're about to pronounce the "t" switch it to a silent "g."  

The next morning bright and early we boarded the ferry that was to carry us to the Isle of Skye.  It was there there that I was called a "poor lass" by a Scottish seaman (I must have looked really bad that day).   When we arrived on the island we walked around like lost tourists until a nice man suggested the right road to take, where we soon found ourselves at a big mysterious castle in ruins.  

 An ancient bath house.  Looks good to me!

The castle was owned by (and the island ruled by) the McDonald clan, of which we (the Blackham side of the family) are said to be descended from.  Pretty cool.

The next day, after a delicious meal of fish and chips (well, veggie burger and chips for me) we boarded the train back to Glasgow and I tried to teach everyone how to play Euchre but they were definitely not into it like I was.  

From there we took a quick train to Edinburgh.  To our delight (and Dad's embarrassment) there were two very friendly old men on the train who saw the fiddle and insisted that there be music.  So Aunt Carlene got out the fiddle and Mom got out the flute and the men got out their robust singing voices and there was music.

Around what seemed like midnight we arrived in Edinburgh (pronounced "Ed-in-burrrreh" make sure you roll the "r") and found that we happened to be there smack dab in the middle of a big huge cultural arts festival.  Which was cool but we felt kind of dumb standing there in our grubby clothes and back packs with all the Scottish hipsters in their skinny jeans, scarves, and come-over do's.  Anyway, we made it to our hostel after getting lost several times because the streets did not match the google map in John's head.  THANK heaven we were assigned to a room with a group of Asians who were nice and quiet.  

The next morning we went on an awesome historic tour of the city lead by our American tour guide who didn't have a hard time letting her fake Scottish accent slip through.  We learned all about how unsanitary  it was to live a couple hundred years ago.  And how much it sucked if anyone suspected you of being a witch (for REAL it seriously scared me).  And that if you got caught stealing they would nail your ear to the board in the town center and people would dump their rotten vegetables on you and even empty their chamber pots on you ewwwww!

Then we rushed (because one of us (ok, it's me) gets really stressed about making it to the airport on time) back to the airport and barely (just kidding--we were there three hours early) made our flight to Geneva.  And this brings me to one of the most memorable parts of our trip: the rental car. 

Why did the Hertz lady think that a group of people from the American West would know how to drive a Prius?  Especially one that had an owner's manual in every language except English.  Was it because we wouldn't speak French with her?  And why oh why did we think that a Prius was just like any other car?  Well, after an hour or so in the parking lot trying to figure out how to get it going we finally asked some guys walking by (remember this was like midnight) to show us how to do it and we got it running!  But we only made it a few feet because the e-brake was on.  Luckily the Hertz lady was just then walking to her car but she pretended not to see us so we stopped behind her parked car so she couldn't get out until she told us how to undo it.  We should have asked her how to work the GPS too.  Oh well.  We made it to our hotel after asking lots of people for directions.  We were all sleep deprived and grumpy but it turned out ok the next morning when we got to go on a gorgeous scenic drive up to Interlaken.  That was until we stopped at a rest stop half way there, and then couldn't figure out how to start the Prius.  We tried and tried and tried.  So John went in and found an English speaker to help us call the rental company.  Luckily they sent a guy out who showed us what to do and we felt kind of dumb but we were on our way.

At least we didn't use very much gas.

Anyway, we visited the famous Chillon Castle (written about by Lord Byron in "The Prisoner of Chillon"), and that evening made it to the beautiful town of Interlaken.  John and I stayed at the cheap hostel but the grown-ups stayed at Hotel Interlaken, where Felix Mendelssohn and Lord Byron had stayed many years ago.  The next morning we rode the train up into the mountains and went for a hike.  It was so beautiful.  Maybe the most beautiful place I have ever been.  

See that piece of cake on the table?  Well we should have brought more snacks with us because Mom and John could not resist sneaking a bite of the abandoned dessert.  Well, guess what it wasn't abandoned.  The two asian ladies whose cake they stole came back for it and we got out of there real fast.

The cows in Switzerland really do have bells!  I thought it was just for show but I think they use them because there aren't any fences up there and how else would the owners keep track of the herd?

Not quite sure what this was--maybe a trail marker?

Oh boy, am I not done yet?  This keeps getting longer and longer.  Anyway the next day (because we never wanted to be in one place for more than one day) we headed back to Geneva and flew back to London.  From there John's friend from Ghana who now lives in Sheffield, Frank, picked us up from the airport.  After all the meeting and greeting, we walked a long ways out to Frank's car only to realize that he only had enough room for three of us.  There was either a misunderstanding about how many of us there were or how big we were.  Too bad Frank's house is a few hours from the air port or we could have just made two trips.  So John and I waited for the midnight bus and arrived at Frank's house around 4:30am.  Anyhoo, the next day we relaxed at Frank's house and met his wife and new baby.  He cooked us a really delicious Ghanian lunch.  Then it was off to Liverpool.

We didn't actually do anything in liverpool because we spent all of our time in traffic trying to get there on time to catch our ferry for Dublin.  It was a good idea to take the evening ferry so that we could save on a hotel room--but not a good idea to cram five people into a four person bunk-room with no ventilation.  Oh boy.

Anyway, the next day we were in Ireland and that is a whole nother story that I am going to save for another day.  Thanks for reading, I'm amazed you made it this far!

* Want to know what Hagis is?  No you don't.  Stomach, heart, liver, and lungs of a sheep or deer, oats, onions, suet, salt, and pepper.  I actually didn't know what it was made of until yesterday when I found the recipe in a book that I actually own.  Good thing I didn't eat any.

When I made that last post I thought that I was going to publish more frequent updates about the status of my dissertation!  But it just got too busy and stressful and once it was finally all over, I really wanted to take a break from the computer.  Plus I got a Netflix subscription as a graduation present and I've been catching up on all the episodes of Scrubs that I missed.

Anyway, I did get my dissertation turned in, and I went up to Iowa for my defense in April.  Thankfully I passed, but my committee requested that a lot of additions to be made before turning in the final draft.  I almost drove myself (and John) insane for two weeks trying to change and add everything I needed to, and barely turned it in by the deadline!  What a relief.  I hope I NEVER have to do that again!

This was everyone who came to my defense including my committee members, Himie Voxman himself, and two of his close friends.  Himie is the one in the very center.  He was so nice to come to my defense, even though he wasn't allowed to participate.  (I wish he could have--he always has something funny to say and we could have used some laughs in there that day!)

And here he is, reading my manuscript.  I hope he has enjoyed reading about his life.  I know for  sure there are a lot of things in there that he has forgotten about.

I was so surprised when my parents AND John's parents wanted to come to my graduation!  I hadn't planned on it, but since they wanted to go we did.  My parents drove out (and even brought Uncle Nolan with them) and John's parents and younger sister flew to Kansas City, borrowed John's aunt's van, and drove up.  I'm still amazed that they were all willing to make such a big sacrifice to be there!  We actually only spent a few hours in Iowa City on the day of my graduation and spent the rest of the weekend in Nauvoo, IL.  Some friends from Iowa City let us stay in a house that they own there.  

John and Anna on the carriage ride in Nauvoo

All of us at the temple

Sunset on the Mississippi

Before the graduation ceremony

The hooding ceremony

This is Dr. Huckleberry--he hooded me.  He is one of my favorite professors.  I'm so glad he was there, because my own advisor couldn't make it and I was worried that I wouldn't have anyone to hood me! 

My robe. 

A lot of people have told me how impressing it is that I earned a doctorate degree, but I really need to give the credit to John.  John was the only one who was able to get me to sit down and just write it.  He was really supportive and helpful throughout all of it, even on the days when I was too busy writing that I didn't cook any food, clean the dishes, or even get dressed.  He solved all of my formatting problems and even at the very end, when the thesis office sent back my final draft because of a formatting problem, he just fixed the whole thing for me (probably because he knew that I would have a major nervous breakdown if I had to look at my dissertation one more time!).

Thanks John, I'm so lucky to have you!

Mr. and Dr. Hustedt  :)