Reverb 2010- Travel

Travel How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year? 

view of the slide from the bottom!

I traveled to two places in 2010.  In January I flew out to Missouri to drive back to NJ with one of my good friends.  That trip was fabulous!  We were outside of St. Louis and visited the city everyday.  We went to a really cool museum (http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp).  The museum is basically a huge playground for adults and kids.  Jen and I were crawling and climbing and running all over the place.  It is also very beautiful inside, with a lot of mosaic tiles on the floor.  The best part?  The guard told us that on weekend nights, the place opens up a bar!  If anyone is going to St. Louis, I highly recommend this place.  


We also went to the Anheuser-Busch beer tour.  This tour was intense.  We walked around for about an hour, saw horses, and learned all about how beer was made.  The brewery was also really pretty in some places, and smelly in others (we saw where they canned the Budweiser, and it smelled like a bar --stale beer all over the floor!).  After the long tour, you are brought back to a large cafeteria style room, and you can taste two of the beers and eat pretzels.  It was nice sitting there, drinking free beer and talking.  My only complaint was that we couldn't take home the glasses we used (Sam Adams gave us glasses).  Of course me being me, I decided to take my glass.  I now have a great souvenir from Anheuser-Busch. 


Jen and I also went to the Gateway Arch.  It is 630 feet tall, and in the shape of an arch.  You start at the basement, and you ride up these little cars.  Once you get to the top you can see all of St. Louis.  It was a magnificent view.  Jen and I enjoyed looking at the maps, and trying to find the buildings.  We were also able to admire the architecture of St. Louis.  I am hoping that I will be able to return to St. Louis in the near future, and explore some more.  For being in the middle of nowhere (sorry if you're from Missouri), St. Louis was a really cool city.  


The second place I went to in 2010 was Myrtle Beach for spring break.  i went with two friends from URI.  It was another fabulous trip.  We did a lot of shopping, spent time on the beach, and drank a lot.  After leaving Rhode Island, I haven't been able to spend a lot of time with my Rhode Island friends.  Being away for a week was great for bonding, and acting like we were still in college.  I am not a big beach person, so I do not know if I would go back to Myrtle Beach, but I would love to see the rest of South Carolina.  


I have no definite traveling plans for 2011, but there are a few places I would love to go.  First, my best friend just moved to Chicago a few months ago.  I would love to go out there for a few days, and visit her.  I would also like to go out to Arizona, since one of my friends just moved out there, and it's gorgeous out there.  Another place I would love to go to is California again.  I would love to go to San Diego again, and visit friends and family, or go to San Francisco and visit my aunt and uncle.  And I want to go down to DC and visit my friends in law school, and my fabulous cousin!!!  Hopefully I will be able to do a lot of traveling!

Reverb2010- Community

Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

I am sure many of you have heard me complain about Montclair State University.  I really do not like the program I am in.  The education program is very unorganized, and I am not a big fan of the professors.  However, I have found the community of the students to be amazing.  Either bonding over the horrific teachers or projects, I have found a few great new friends.  

I started at Montclair a few weeks after I graduated from URI, and I knew no one.  It was very scary taking my very first graduate class, and not knowing anyone.  Luckily, everyone in my class was extremely nice, and I became very friendly with everyone.  I also found two really great friends.  I am not sure I would have survived Montclair without them.  They, along with a few other new friends, got me through fall 2009.  

This past spring, I became really friendly with one girl who lives two towns away from me.  We started talking about how annoying our classes were, and eventually decided to carpool together one night a week.  The friendship has grown immensely, and I now talk to her everyday and hangout with her and her sister almost every weekend.  This friend I am talking about is Stef.  She is the one who started the cooking blog with me, and is teaching me how to cook!  

Of course over the summer and this past semester, I have made many new friends as well.  After taking a very stressful test, I went to get drinks with two girls in my program.  It was a blast getting to hangout with them, and not think about school (even though most of the time we bitched about Montclair).  I also went to go see "Next to Normal" with a girl from one of my classes.  We had a great time talking about Broadway, and seeing a show. 

As excited as I am to graduate from Montclair, I am going to miss making new friends.  The best part of meeting people in school is that we all have something in common and something to start talking about.  Eventually you branch out and start talking about different things, and create a bond.  Hopefully I will be able to make more friends in the real world!

My Faux-Resolutions

Happy 2011 everyone!!  I hope you all had a great New Years Eve, and a fabulous first day of 2011.  My first day of the New Year was amazing, and I know this year will be the best yet!  Starting the New Year, I had absolutely no resolutions for 2011.  Every year I have made the same resolutions, only to be broken within the first few weeks of the New Year.  My usual resolutions are: become more organized, go to the gym more often, eat healthier foods, and stop procrastinating.  This year, I decided to not make any resolutions, but to just see where the year takes me.  However, when I was driving my friend into the city last night, I had an epiphany.  I've come up with my resolutions, and I want to share them with you.

1. Explore NYC- After coming back home from college, I have started to spend a lot of time in New York City.  I have gotten to know Manhattan pretty well, but not well enough.  My father knows the city like the back of his hand, and I'm very jealous of him.  My resolution will be to spend every other Sunday in New York City.  Each Sunday I go in, I will pick an area to walk around.  I want to learn all the street names, locations of stores and restaurants, and go into all the hole-in-the-wall places.  I am also going to bring my camera, and document my findings.  So if you want to spend time with me on Sundays, you will just have to come into the city with me!!

2. Take more pictures- For Chanukah I bought myself a new camera, and I am in love with it!!  Lately I have been taking a lot of pictures of Pudge, but I need to start taking more pictures of friends and the places I see.  From now on, I will make sure to always have my camera with me, so I will always be ready to take pictures.  When I was younger, my family used to take RV trips, and while driving, my dad would stop every few minutes to take pictures (usually of cows).  I remember getting so annoyed, just wanting to get to the next location, or away from Jeremy.  Looking back on it now, I have no idea what my rush was to get to wherever we were going.  Who knows if I will ever revisit those places again, and all we have are our memories and the pictures we took.  In ten years, I want to be able to look through my pictures and remember all the good time’s I had with my best friends. 

3. Relax- One of my friends stayed over my house yesterday because she observes Shabbat.  It was such a relaxing day.  We read some magazines. I hung out with my brother, and watched a movie.  One day a month, I want to try and do absolutely nothing.  Wake up without an alarm, read through some of my magazines, and watch movies on Netflix.  I’m excited to have a whole day to myself to do absolutely nothing.

4. Skype more- I started a Skype account a few months ago, and still only have three people on my contact list (and out of those three, I only speak to one person).  Even though I only talk to one person on Skype, I have learned to love it.  I’m not a big phone person, but I love being able to see the person I am talking to.  It makes it more personal.  So if you have Skype and would like to chat with me, send me your contact info!!

So now that I have shared my New Years Faux-Resolutions with you, what are your resolutions for 2011?