First thing you see when you walk in. Notice how from this angle it still doesn't look like we've moved anything in yet!

Living room from opposite perspective into the kitchen. We need a bookcase or somethin' for that wall to the left. And look at Alex do those dishes...

Into the living room.

here it is...

More kitchen.

The eat-in kitchen from its doorway. The table's a bit bigger than it looks here.

My favorite feature! The anteroom/changing room, and then the bathroom is beyond that.

The bathroom...close-up.

Looking back down to the front door from the bedroom hallway. I told you we need a real table there or something...

My room...if it wasn't foggy you could see the Manhattan skyline through that window.

Alex's room...he wants you to know that it's messy because his "parents are terrible and threw him out of the house with all these boxes full of crap he doesn't want anyway". And "he's such a hard worker he doesn't have time for petty tasks like unpacking".

t-gives

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I certainly did as I explored New Jersey holiday culture. Thankfully, we had a half-day of work on Wednesday, so I figured we'd beat the rush down to Jersey. However, apparently everyone in New York has a half-day before Thanksgiving, and this made our commute a little crazy. After waiting for a stalled subway and maneuvering through a sea of people at Penn Station, Alex and I met up, jumped aboard a double-decker train and stood in a packed car for the majority of the trip. That night the Foard's made lamb, though, so that made it all worth it.

On Thursday, we loaded up their Volvo full of food and headed to Morristown, NJ where we had a big suburban Thanksgiving with Alex's parents' best friends from grad school. They've been celebrating it with them for the last 30 years, and it was fun to have a big Thanksgiving (about 16 in total).

Colin and Susannah, Alex's twin and sister, respectively, didn't come home for the holiday, so it was just the 4 of us for the Foard Thanksgiving on Friday. The food was amazing, and I don't think I've ever eaten so much over a 3-day period.

I had a great time meeting his friends that were home and seeing all of his gang's hangouts.

Chris, Alex's dad, drove us back on Saturday morning with another load of his stuff. We spent most of Saturday having a much-needed day of movie therapy. My friend from high school, Cindy, was upstate for a few days prior to this and came down to spend two days at our place. We saw an awesome Bollywood movie at the Indian movie theatre down the street, and then on Sunday we did all kinds of New Yorky things like brunch, a play (I took her to see The Receptionist for free), and a little shopping down 5th Avenue.

I've decided to have a mini photo-shoot of our apartment tonight. So, I will post some pictures in a few hours. It's definitely not in a finished state yet, but when our budgets and schedules allow, we'll get a few more items (primarily a table and mirror for our humungo entrance hallway).

November is supposed to be the crappiest month for weather in New York. So far, that's been fairly accurate. More times than I can count, my winter coat has gotten soaked through because it's always about 38 degrees and raining. Naturally, I usually forget my umbrella at either home or work. Today is no exception.

This weekend was my first time in New Jersey, and I had a lot of fun. Friday after work I met Alex and we took the train down to his house in Little Silver. Since we were planning to take his parents' van to Ikea the next morning, it made sense to stay at his place that night. It was a really fun trip, mostly because I got to indulge in the suburban experience that I have oddly been craving lately.

It was my first time meeting his mom, and she's really funny and smart. They are absolutely a traditional (albeit ultra-liberal) suburban family with nightly meals and walks around the neighborhood. They were very accomodating, giving me Colin's (Alex's twin who's away at grad school in California) room and bathroom to use when I stay there.

New Jersey is actually quite beautiful. I'm not sure exactly from where it gets its negative reputation. And they are actually experiencing a fall! The trees were very notable, unlike the few in the city. Alex gave me the grand tour of his town and the neighboring ones, and he's only about 10 minutes from the ocean, so we went over there too.

Ikea proved to be fairly successful. We managed to find almost everything we needed, with the exception of a few items that were out of stock, so now we are mostly set. We brought the load of unassembled furniture to our apartment in the van, then drove the van back down to Jersey and came up again on the commuter train. Then we had a furniture assembling party that lasted well into the night. All in all, a very long but productive day.

The strike is still going on this weekend, so I wasn't able to see August: Osage County. But everyone is raving about it, so hopefully there will be another chance to see it once the strike is over. Whispers from up above say that it probably won't be lasting too much longer.

Work is going well. I gave them my notice that I will not be returning next semester. It was a difficult decision, but I've learned to trust my gut instinct by now, and it had definitely made up its mind. While my position is important and pretty rewarding for the time being, I've learned basically all that I can learn in it, so staying in an internship that works me too many hours for too little money doesn't really make sense at this point. I love MTC though, and they like me, so I know opportunities in the future will definitely be a possibility.

I have an interview tomorrow morning with Hartig Hilepo, an agency that represents actors in film, television and on Broadway. I'm pretty excited about it, although I'm not sure that it will be a good match for me right now. It's basically an apprenticeship that will most likely become an assistant agent position. I'm going to prepare for it in a little bit, but since I don't know what to expect yet with hours/pay/start date I'm not going to get my hopes up. It's a well-respected agency in the city though, and these positions are the key to getting into that biz. So, we'll see.

I'm so happy there are only 3 days of work this week! I definitely am feeling the 60 hour work week, and I need some time to reboot. I'll be going down to Alex's parents' for it, so I'm excited about that. His mom is supposedly a really good cook, and I hear that they do two Thanksgivings with different groups, one on Thursday and one on Friday. It will be my first T-day away from home, so that will be a bit of a bummer, but being an honorary Foard for the weekend will be fun.

And I got a haircut this week (for $30--great for NYC), so I'm not shaggy anymore. Always a plus.

Things are moving along quite nicely. After living in the new place for a week with nearly no furniture (except my new awesome bed), Alex and his dad brought up a big load of furniture yesterday that they are kindly lending to us. Now, we have a sofa and chair in the living room, the table and chairs in the kitchen and a few other odds and ends. We are still quite a way off with getting some necessities, but I think we might try to run to Ikea next weekend with his parents' van to pick up a few cheap but cool things. Primarily, I need to get a small desk and nightstand for my room and a coffee table for the living room. And a TV stand. (Thanks to Dad and Barb for sending all my bedding--I got the comforter in the mail yesterday!)

Speaking of TV, the cable/internet guy came today and installed our package, so now we are successfully plugged in. It's been difficult not having internet for the last week, so this will be a great improvement, especially on the job hunting front. I've been working all day today, and I'm totally jealous of Alex who is sitting at home at this very moment indulging in a TV/internet extravaganza.

Yesterday was my first time meeting Alex's dad. After we finished moving the furniture in, he took us out to lunch at this great Argentinian restaurant. He's really cool and is very interested in the arts, so we talked quite a bit about my internship. They are excited that I will be going to their house for Thanksgiving...they seem to really love houseguests!

Right now my high school friend Alan and his entourage are in town, so we've been hanging out. We went to a hip diner on Thursday night and I showed them around the midtown/Times Square area. Unfortunately, there is a strike occurring on Broadway at the moment because the stagehands keep making more and more ridiculous demands. So, all Broadway shows (excluding all of ours and the other non-profits) are cancelled until further notice. This is apparently loosing the city of New York approximately $18 million per day in revenue. Our plans to see a show this weekend were thwarted by this.

Hopefully it will be over by next weekend because I have free tickets to see the new hot play, August: Osage County.

Some bad news for MTC...apparently we had to cancel The Starry Messenger, our spring show with Matthew Broderick. It was going to be absolutely huge, and they were planning to make a movie of it afterwards, but apparently there are some "scheduling conflicts". I actually just found out about this today from news online, so I don't know any details or what we are going to do to replace it. Tomorrow's going to be a very interesting day at work, no doubt.

Oh, and the other night I was walking past Rockefeller Center and they were putting up the big tree! There was a crane and all these men on platforms setting it up. The season is drawing near...

I'm in the apartment! I decided to take a personal day on Thursday and move myself in. It all went very smoothly, and my bed was delivered in the afternoon. I've been sleeping on the mattress the last couple nights because the assembly process seems a bit daunting.

Alex moved in yesterday with most of his stuff and a lot of kitchen supplies. We were able to pick up the TV we bought on Craigslist with his parents' van. The apartment is a pretty good size, so we're going to have to get creative with filling the place on a budget. The rest of his stuff (the big stuff like his sofa, chair, etc) is being delivered hopefully next weekend, so that will help clear the echo out.

Overall, it's a really great place. Our neighbor from below came up to introduce himself to us and said that we have the nicest apartment in the whole building! So that's good to know. AND one of the best parts of my room is the view: I can see both the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building from one of my windows.

I must be heading because this weekend has been crazy and I still have to get to Target tonight (yes, one of the only two Targets in NYC is one subway stop away from the new place!), but I will keep you updated soon. I will post pics of the place as soon as we get some more stuff put away.