Saturday, June 6, 2009

NYC

I've not been able to get at a computer really for the last few days, but I am in fact in Brooklyn staying with Cassie. It's been a really fun couple of days.

I got into the city on Thursday, Morgan and I rode the bus in from New Jersey. We hung out in Port Authority until Cassie was able to meet us. Straight from Port Authority we went back out to Brooklyn to drop off my bag. Cassie shares a two bedroom apartment with her boy and two other roommates, one of which lives in the living room behind a curtain. All the rooms though were bigger than I was expecting and it's a pretty nice apartment over all. And I'm not just saying that 'cause Cassie'll read then when I'm gone. It started raining that day, but it didn't deter us. We went to Mood Fabric and marveled at all of the fabrics. Seriously we spent probably 4 hours in there. Then we wondered around the Fashion district, popping in and out of wholesale stores who happened to have sample sales. Cassie took us out to the Lower East side, a place called Spice. It was some of the tastiest Thai I'd ever eaten. There were plans after to meet up with two of Cassie's friends, two German guys, who ended up being three German boys out trolling for girls. Matt, Cassie's boyfriend, met up with us at the Subway station before we got to the bar, which ended up being Off the Wagon. The most stereotypically college kid big city bar evar. The music was good, the beer was astromonically expensive for anything other than Bud and it was all so loud you couldn't hear a damn thing from even the person you were standing shoulder to shoulder with. All of us ended up leaving and heading to the Belgan Beer Bar, a much quieter bar that I had seen on our way over to Off the Wagon. The beer was pretty pricey there too, but it ended up being a much nicer place. At one point we thought le German boys had left us so Cassie had me drink down my beer quick. But it turned out they were just sitting outside in the beer garden, so we joined them and had another round. Cassie, Morgan, Matt and I didn't end up leaving Manhattan until midnight and due to a miscommunication one of the german boys, Sasha, followed us down into the Subway thinking that we were going back to Brooklyn to drink more, when infact we were all dead tired. It got straightened out before he got on the train, so he was (hopefully?) able to meet back up with the other two, Bjorn and Andreas, before they got too far away.

The next morning Morgan and I had to get up SUPER early. Like 6:45 am. We had to be at the subway station heading back to Manhattan by 7:30 am to meet up with Russ and go with him to Timberlake Studios. We actually made it there without getting terribly turned around and before Russ did. The studio was much smaller than I thought it was going to be, but they had studio cats, who were super friendly. Sara Timberlake was really interesting to listen and talk to, she went through how she got jobs, the process of taking designs and turning them into mock ups, then about fittings and the like. She let us at one point get into small groups and describe what we thought would go into the making of these designs. It was all very cool. After the workshop Morgan headed back out to NJ to go back to her home town to catch up with high school friends and I followed Russ's group to lunch. Cassie had an interview at 1:30 only a few blocks up from where the second workshop, this one a make up workshop, was being held. The group I was tagging along with was a local to home high school group, the director of which I knew from last summer's job at the REP. Apparently they go on a yearly Tony's trip. But the make up designer they had come in to the Geiger studios and show them how to do different make up tricks like old age and fanstasy was Angelina Avallone. She's the make up designer for most every show on Broadway right now. I stayed for her workshop as it ended up finishing near when Cassie was done with her interveiw. At this point, as interesting as Angelina was I was near falling asleep in my chair and needing to go back to Brooklyn. So Cassie and I met up, trudged through the rain and came back to Brooklyn so that she could change out of interview clothes and I could just rest a bit. Getting back to Brooklyn, Matt came home and we decided to to out to dinner. Which I have learned is a trek. It took us an hour to get to anywhere that sounded decent. They don't have a car, so subway is the only mode of travel, and we had to switch trains to get down to the place. It was FANSTATIC food, but far out.

Today we slept late, then Cassie and I went out to the Renegade Crafts Festival in Queens. Another hour long subway ride, but this one was worth it. It was a very very cool crafts fair. AND! It was goreous out. The rain that had been drizziling down for the past few days cleared up and it was sunny and warm the whole time. When we'd seen the whole crafts fair and picked up various trinkets we headed into Union Square to meet up with Matt and sit a bit. After meeting up with Matt we ventured down to Chinatown as I'd had a bit of interest in getting one of the famed fake bags from the Chinese vendors. I found a really nice one that is, to me, pretty indistingishable from a real thing. Now we're getting ready to head down to the produce market to get food for dinner and cook for ourselves in the apartment. Cassie and Matt are getting ready to move to a new apartment in Astoria which they are really excited about, but leaves you short sometimes in the grocery department.

No comments: