Last weekend a group of us decided to go to Boston. My first reaction to the Boston excursion suggestion was, “What’s in Boston?” But now I know it is one of the best places in the world. I can’t think of a better place to spend Memorial Day weekend.
 
We left at 6:30 am Saturday morning (4 hour drive) on the Chinatown Express and came home 8 pm Sunday. It was a pretty sweet deal; it only cost $15 one way and then we split the cost of the hotel room. Our hotel was right in the middle of town, meaning that we were pretty much within walking distance to anywhere in town.
 
Coming from NYC, I couldn’t believe how small and clean Boston was. Their subway system is way less confusing and cleaner. Even the street performers better and the bums were totally high class. I loved seeing all the old architecture surrounded by all these new, tall buildings. Most of the remaining old architecture were churches from the 1700s. I couldn’t believe how well they were kept up. We went to two cemetaries that are in the top three oldest cemetaries in the country. We saw the graves of Pul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, victims of the Boston Massacre, Ben Franklin’s son (I know, kind of a jip), and Mother Goose – that’s right. Her real name is Mary Goose and she had like 20 kids.
 
We walked through Boston, following the Trail of Freedom. It took us by the Old North Church (“One if by land, two if by sea”), Paul Revere’s House, all kinds of old government buildings, and the Bunker Hill Memorial. We walked to the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial, which is 294 steps. You better believe I couldn’t feel my legs when I got to the top and they wouldn’t stop shaking when I got to the bottom. We tried to see the Boston Tea Party boat, but apparently it is invisible. Or perhaps it is sailing the high seas.
 
Boston also has the best Little Italy I have ever been to. It’s not like New York’s where it just feels like someone put tons of Italian restaurants down the street but made sure to keep the Chinese vendors. I really had some of the best Italian food I have ever had in my life. And it was probably about half the price of New York.
 
And you better believe that we went to Cheers. I have really been singing the Cheers theme song for about 5 days. I go to sleep singing it and pick it back up right when I wake up. It actually become our Boston theme, not just the Cheers theme. And you know what, it really did feel like everybody knew my name and they’re always glad I came. I want to go where everybody knows my name.
 
There were also this really cool break dancing group that put on a show in the middle of one of the squares. My friend Sara and I were used in their show. Our job was to stand with six other people in two rows and bend over while this guy did a front flip over us. Sure I couldn’t see what was going on since I was looking at my toes to avoid dying, but I heard it was really cool.
 
I know that this goes against everything that most people believe in, especially since I already blogged about how cool the Yankees are, but I am also a big fan of the Red Sox. We ate in this restaurant that is really just in the outfield. There is really just a metal gate separating you from the grass. It is really cool, too, because you can just eat their during the games without buying a ticket and you have some of the best seats. Go Red Sox!!!
 
Two days was the perfect amount of time to spend in Boston, even though I wanted to stay there forever. It’s amazing how many things there are to do in Boston, but everything is so close that you can do everything in a really short amount of time. It as this amazing energy, too. You are surrounded by all of this history that you can’t help feeling patriotic and reverence for what happened there. But then it is such an exciting and alive town at the same time. Everything seems so relaxed and calm, as opposed to NYC. I felt like people were actually human and have feelings, which I don’t think has been discovered in New York yet.
 
Anyway, if anyone is thinking of going to Boston, I highly recommend it. And if any of these pictures really cool, they probably weren’t taken by me.

Last night was the Wired Magazine Party. IBM buys advertising space in Wired, which is why we were able to go. The party was a rooftop party at the High Bar. I don’t think I have ever felt so cool in my life.  This is how it happened ….

We walked up to the building with two bouncers outside. I didn’t know if I was just allowed to walk past them or if I would be killed, so I asked if it was the Wired party. The large men then directed me toward a guy in a long dark hall with a headset and a clip board who asked me my name. “Stewart,” I said like a celeb (but probably like a B list celeb because if I was an A list I wouldn’t have to say my name). “First name?” “Carolyn.” “Ok, you can go ahead.” I was totally on the list.

My two friends and I proceeded down the hall. Upon turning the corner a woman was there with a glass of champagne. I didn’t know what to do; every Young Women’s lesson and conference story was racing through my head. The next thing I knew my friends and I were walking into the party with champagne glasses. Luckily, we knew zero people there. I am sure we looked so dumb because it was obvious that we weren’t drinking them we didn’t know how to hold the glasses like the B list celebs we thought we were. So we ended up just sitting down and putting them on the table for the rest of the night.

The roof was really cool. It felt very beachy with couches and pillows everywhere. It was super cold and windy, though, so we pretty much just sat in the corner of the only covered part. After sitting there for a while, we began to be parched, what with the full champagne glasses and all. So we ordered this drink that this other Mormon girl told me was really good. So I called the waitress over and asked for three cranberry juices with seltzer and a lime. How cool, but totally lame, did I feel? Pretty darn. So she brought us our drink, only to find that it was seltzer water with about three drops of cranberry juice. It was quite painful. But we were parched. What else were we to do? I ended up getting used to it actually, but I won’t be ordering that again.

As we were leaving, we went into the bathrooms, which were totally contemporary and cool. I felt just like Dana Carvey in Opportunity Knocks when he goes into that fancy bathroom. There were guys there to turn on the water for me. There was Listerine, hair gel (why?), spray deodorant, lotion, perfume, and mints. It pretty much changed my life.

InStyle Scratching

InStyle Magazine hosted a party at my work Thursday night. I downed a ginger ale or two while everyone else got their drink on. After I continued to stay sober, I found out what I really want to do in life. There was a DJ there who was teaching people how to scratch and I was all over it. It is way harder than I thought it would be and you better believe I was not good at all. I just listened to it again and was laughing sooooo hard. In my defense, there was other dance music on that was way louder than the music coming out of the DJ’s laptop and I received very minimal training. Despite my poor performance, I have included my scratching for you listening pleasure. Just click on the “InStyle Scratching” icon above the text. Enjoy!

P.S. My new stage name is DJ Liberty Mounten.

I am so glad I was able to find a new hair stylist and dentist so close to my house.

Here are the BYU interns walking to church. It’s pretty startling to see a group of at least 15 people in suits and dresses walking through New York, but it’s what we do. The first Sunday we went to church we got wildly lost on the way home. We ended up walking through Central Park and essentially across the island. It took us about and hour and a half to get home when it should have taken about 30 minutes. The park was super pretty, though.

Here is the New York temple in Lincoln Square. It is right outside of the subway station, but it still took me about 10 seconds to actually see it; it’s very sneaky.

Yesteday my friend (Melissa) and I discovered a KMart just a couple blocks from work. It was a wonderful discovery. Now we don’t have to go to the Bronx to go to Target. But the real discovery was yet to come. So we were buying our things on the first floor (ground floor being the 3rd floor), but we didn’t know if we could get out there because we were way underground. But we saw the exit and started walking only to find that there was a whole city! There was a full-on mall with food court and everything. We couldn’t believe our eyes. We called the new found city Atlantis because we were sure we were at the center of the earth.
 
Upon further research today, I found that my lost city of Atlantis is in fact Penn Station. Apparently it’s kind of a big deal. Who knew?

Last Saturday, a couple friends (Sarah and Jared) and I went to a couple Broadway shows. We didn’t really have any shows in mind when we went down there. We just wanted to see something. The first show we saw was “Chicago.” What can I say about this show? Well, I think I saw enough mesh and spandex (on men) for a lifetime. Nay, two lifetimes. Thank goodness we only spent $26.

The second show was “Cry Baby.” This was a huge improvement, perhaps because people were wearing clothes, but I could be wrong. It’s a new musical based on the 1990 musical starring Johnny Depp. It’s kind of like Hairspray, but more sarcastic and exaggerated. Anyway, it was a really fun show.

So, I went to Serendipity on Monday for desert. For those of you who don’t know, it is a restaurant made famous by the movie “Serendipity” with John Cusack. They are also famous for their $1,000 piece of cake, which, by the way, you have to order two days before you come so they can import everything they need. Anyway, they are supposed to have the best frozen hot chocolates ever (pretty much a chocolate shake). And they do. But don’t think that it is cheap, what with all the freezing of hot things. It was $8.50, which isn’t $1,000 for sure, but still more than I wanted to spend. It was however, totally delicious.
 
The best part of the experience is that their service is the worst. But they are allowed to be the worst, because people will keep coming and spending $1,000 for cake. To ensure they get the most money out of you as possible, there is an $8 minimum for everyone at the table, luckily nothing on the menu is less than $8. So everyone doesn’t have to order something, but the bill does have to add up to at least 8 x the number of people. This definitely caused some problems for us because we were going to share and things, but the waiter would not allow such things. It was a really cool place, though. Super ecclectic and chill.

This last week I also took part in my first greeting cheek kiss. My friend was there to witness and said that it looked like I had done it a million times, so that’s good. But let me tell you, it totally threw me off. I didn’t know if the girl was going in for a hug or a hand shake. And then was it going to be a double cheeker. All of these thoughts were racing furiously through my head for this half second event. By the way, not as weird as I thought it would be. Sorry, Jenn, I am just adding to the European problem in America.
 
This was, however, very weird. Me and a couple of friends were talking around Greenwich Village shopping around. We went to go try on some things in this store’s dressing room. Upon entering the dressing room, we noticed something very startling. There were no individual dressing rooms. Just one big room with mirrors all around. People taking clothes on and off all over the place. I am sure we looked totally retarded because we just stood there for a few seconds in total confusion. “What a large open room before we go into our own room,” was my first thought. But alas, I would be having no privacy. And why weren’t we warned of the dressing situation? Please ….

I went to the Yankees game against the Mariners. It was super cool. Just so you know, East Coast fans are out of control. They get pretty intense and I am so thankful that the Yankees won, otherwise there might have been a lot more swearing and yelling.
 
We got to see the new stadium. It looks like it is going to be really cool.
 
The best part of the game was getting there (insert sarcasm here). The subway was so crazy crowded. I have never smelled so many different stinks. It was really like a giant group hug, except without love and happiness. Just stink and strangers. But don’t worry, because when we got out of the subway, we were able to walk through Harlem at night. No, it really wasn’t bad. We had two guys with us, so it was fine. We sure did stand out, though.
 
Go Yankees!!!

As most of you know, I am interning at MindShare. I am planning and buying media for IBM. I have discovered since working in New York that women on the East Coast don’t really wear makeup or do their hair. On my first day of work, I was incredibly overdressed and overdone. Since then I have had to tone it down; mostly just no bright colors. You are pretty safe with black … all the time … all over. But it’s good.