Lazy Sundays, spending time alone on campus

Hej, 

todays theme is spending time alone on Campus or rather spending time alone while living on a Campus. Is it appropriate to spend time alone on Campus, even if you can go in for so many things to do with your Roomie or Friends? Answer: Yes, it totally is, or are you spending every minute with your friends or family when you're at home? No, right? 

In my opinion it's is actually important to spend some of your time alone, and there are 4 reasons why:

1. Spending every minute with someone provokes conflicts. 

2. You can't allways be the shiny one, acting the way you're expected to act in public.

3. There are some things you would like to do, but your friends refuse it. Go for it, you aren't supposed just to do what your friends like to do aswell. 

4. Shopping and sightseeing can be easier alone, because you just need to go to the spots you wanted to go and you can stay as long as you want. 

Note: This is not supposed to convice you to become a wallflower or lone wolf! It is important to have friends on campus, don't scare them off. Because after all everything is more fun with someone else, If you don't stick to each other the whole time. 

See u. 

German-American Steuben Parade

Hej, 

Yesterday I was to tired to blog, so I'll do it right now. Why I was tired? Well, my day started at 8:30am yesterday, pretty early for a Saturday, right? 

So I stood up at 8:30 am, made myself ready in a hurry and headed to the train at 9:30.

Catched the 10 am train and reached Grand Central at 10:40. Grabbed breakfast at Starbucks and hurried up to 5th Ave; 75th Street to watch the German-American Steuben Parade and it was totally worth it to Star up that early!

I got a first Row place close to the Grand stand at 79th Street, so I had an awesome view on the parade and on the Central Park behind it. 

Next to me were a couple from Donauwörth and one of their friends, whose adult children participated the parade. 

The parade took about two hours until all parade floats and german musicians passed the Grand stand. 

The participants came from all german speaking areas like German Cities, Swiss cities and Austrian cities and even American based German communities participated, which made the parade really multifaced. 

After watching the parade I did a little uptown tour. I went to the Central Park, visited the lakes and the conservatory water, heared the oktoberfest, which was unfortunately sold out and saw some kind of a chess championship until I decided to eat in the Zoo restaurant - expensive! 5$ for a simple hotdog.

My way back to grand central became a sightseeing tour aswell, because I decided to visit the New York Palace Hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria and the amazing building of the United Nations, which was really impressive for me! Did I told you that I participated their junior Modell United Nations three times?

And I ask myself, what was going on in New York City. The hotels mentioned were guarded by the police, more than I saw before, and there were police barricades everywhere! 

And in front of the UN Building I saw two demonstrations. 

By the way, when I walked up to the 75th Street a man shouted: There (pointing in the sky), that's the Air Force one! 

Do you know what was in Manhattan yesterday? I'm just so curios about it.

See u. 

Activities in New York

Hey guys, 

New york City is such an amazing City and there is so much to see and do. It's not just Times Square and Liberty lady, therefor I would like to give you some tips and trip ideas to make your stay at New York City unique.

Typical New York City Places to see:

Times Square (junction of Broadway and 7th ave.; W 46th Street)

Rockefeller Center (5th Avenue; 50th Street)

     Known for the City's best view

Empire State Building (5th Avenue; 33th Street)

Chrysler Building (Lexington Ave.; 42th Street) 

Grand Central (Park Ave.; 42th Street) 

     Visit the Zoo, it looks like in the movie Madagaskar

Flatiron Building (junction of Broadway and 5th Avenue; 23th Street)

Ground Zero and One World Center (West Street; Liberty Street)

Central Park (between Centralpark Street and 110th Street; you can't actually miss the park, it's huge)

Guggenheim Museum (5th Ave.; 88th Street)

MoMa (Avenue of the Americans; 53th Street)

Wall Street (self-explanatory)

Statue of Liberty (Liberty Island) 

     You'll have an unbelievable view on the Liberty Lady If you use the Staten Island Ferry AND It's             

     actually free!

Brooklyn Bridge 

Places you should add to your trip! 

Brooklyn Bridge Park

      Perfect point to see the skyline of Manhatten, especially nightimes

Castle Clinton Monument in Battery Park

      Just looks stunning

United Nations (united nations plaza; 44th Street)

The High Line Park (parallel to 10th Avenue; Gansevort Street- 30th Street)

     Did you know that this Park is build on old rails? It's super replacing up there!

The New York Palace Hotel (Madison ave.;  50th street)

Waldorf-Astoria (park ave.; 49th Street)

     if you know Gossip Girl you'll recognize those two hotels

Things you should do!

Fly with a helicopter over Manhattan

Go to the Top of the Rock

Go on the Empires roof

Take the subway

Visit some of those awesome parades in Manhattan, like Thanksgiving Parade or the German-American Steuben Parade, which actually is tomorrow (20th Sep.)

Eat at ShakeShak! Their burgers are mind-blowing

Visit a Yankees Game or a American Football game, even If you're not a sports fan you'll definitely enjoy it!

Visit a festival, the Festival in little Italy ends this weekend! 

Visit as many markets as you can find, the fruits and vegetables are the best

Visit Hoboken, New Jersey 

    That's where Frank Sinatra really lived.

    I heard, that the coffee in Hoboken is simply the best

In conclusion, be open-minded, New York is the Melting Pod, you nearly can't avoid a clash of cultures. Follow your instinct and just go with the flow If you want to, because Adventures want to be found, they're not waiting at touristic hot-spots for you! 

See u. 

Technics

Hey guys, 

I'm kin for in trouble with my technics over here. 

Last Saturday, my phones sim-card stopped working, and I have no idea why! That pretty ennoying If you can't cal someone or send someone a text without internet. :/ 

Last Monday my IPad started struggling as well, It always tell me, when I want to charge it, that charging is impossible! And that's so strange, because I didn't changed my charging routine...

And yesterday I was a little pissed off, becaus I'm not able to update my phone OTA with iOS 8, just because it's a German phone in America -.- and I have no Laptop with me to do the normal update.

So to solve my problems I went to Apple 5th Ave. today, but they weren't able to help me at all, though I didn't had an official appointment. 

One of those Genius guys told me that I could make an appointment easily via the internet, but the next possible day would be Wendesday and I have no idea of my next weeks schedule, so I told him that I'll set up an appointment at home. 

I'll hope that I can solve these problems on my own earlier. 

See u. 

Routine

Hey guys, 

School started exactly a week ago, so the day got a routine which is so much better than lurking in your bed all day, like I did after Graduation. 

So weekdays I stay up at 7 and eat breakfast at 8am, except for Wednesdays, because schools starts at 11:45 on Wednesdays, so I eat breakfast at 9am. And there I'll grab something to take with me for lunch, because I don't have that extra 5$ every day. 

School ends between 1 and 5, so I'll take dinner right afterwards. 

 

If theres enough time I might go to the gym or If i don't  have school in the afternoon at all, like thursdays I like to go to NYC. 

Greets.

First flash of sickness

Hey guys,

today was really the first day I really missed my home and my friends and actually felt kind of sick. 

It all came up to me in iLab class, while listening to a familys story on the internet. 

The story was so sad - the teller told the story in such an emotional way, that I suddenly felt sad as well. 

Afterwards I asked myself If it was a good idea to stay in New York for 6 months, regarding everything that went wrong last week. I tried to encourage myself that it was a good idea doing sports in the gym, when suddenly something went wrong, again. 

Feeling that kind of sick I left the gym and returned to the dorm, where I misunderstood some friends for which reason I was scared eating alone in the cafeteria - luckily I found someone to go to dinner with me. 

At dinner I compensate my sports eating a lot, which surely wasn't the best idea. Burning calories first and eating them afterwards is a zero-sum situation.

Returning to the dorm with an endless full stomach I just wanted to be alone and sleep, while listening to Eminem. After that procedure I felt much better and realized that It's just not my day and that things may be different the next day. 

Finally I went to the campus movie night and enjoyed a really old comedy called something with Ferris Bueller, which was kind of strange but actually had been the highlight of my day anyway. 

Hope that things be better tomorrow. 

See u.

Special Interest Classes (SPIN)

Hey guys, 

monday is SPIN day! So Monday classes should be based on your interests and your skills, as I said, should be. Whatever, every student at EF New York should be able to choose their SPIN classes, right?

Well, I think they skipped that part this year, because every Intesivcourse student had been placed randomly in any class. 

I really wanted to work on my photographie skills here, and of course learn English related to the subject I want to study ( molecular Biochemistry ). But they just randomly put me in classes like: Colloquial English and Comedy, nothing against Comedy, but that's not what I'm here for!

But as I told you, every Intesivcourse student is placed in any classes without beeing asked. 

I hope that we'll get the possibility to change the SPIN classes or actually choose them on our own, otherwise I payed on learning stuff I never need again, which would be kind of stupid. 

Tomorrow I just have normal English classes again, so...

See u.