Empire State of Mind - Alicia Keys, featuring Jay-Z

I'm officially living in New York!

So why the sudden move? Well, let me tell you! Last March, I met a girl, named Kelly Ryan, on my very first service trip to Honduras with Students Helping Honduras. We became really good friends, and I visited her at her Brooklyn apartment all the time. Fast-forward exactly one year: she gets a job in Honduras working for SHH, she has a room in a four-bedroom Brooklyn apartment that needs to be filled, and I've been wanting to move to New York since... forever ago. She left most of her furniture, so all I had to do was bring clothes. Sans job, I took a leap of faith and moved into her apartment. It's probably one of the boldest moves I've ever made in my life, but I'm the biggest proponent of living outside of your comfort zone, and I could not be happier about my decision. Of course I'm nervous, overwhelmed, and a little too paranoid that I'm going to get kidnapped, but I'm also looking forward to this new chapter of my life, living in this huge city, learning to live on my own.

I moved half of my stuff in last Wednesday, went home for the weekend, and came back with more stuff on Sunday and officially got settled. HUGE thanks to Becky, Erin, and Zack for driving me all the way to Brooklyn and helping me move in. You guys are definitely city girls (and boy) in my book!

Yesterday was my first official day living in the city, so I ran a few errands. I signed up at the Crunch Fitness in Fort Greene, and worked out next to Adrian Grenier from Entourage. Totally normal. On my walk to the gym, I saw a man lying in the middle of the sidewalk with a plastic Iron Man mask on with half his crack revealed and five policemen surrounding him. He seemed pretty harmless, but I guess they wanted to create a barrier around him just in case he awoke from his sidewalk slumber.

I ate lunch at a vegan/vegetarian deli called Healthy Nibbles, took a peek inside a vintage store called 1 of a Find, and applied to the Madewell in Soho. I got so lost on the way home on the subway, and ended up in Sketchville. I asked some reliable-looking ladies for directions, and I got back fine. I did some light grocery shopping, which means I bought the essentials: fifty CLIF bars, hot sauce, soup, and rice. Then I spent the rest of the evening watching The Bachelor, sending my resume out to the world, and chatting with my roommates. It was a pretty solid first day.

Today, and probably the rest of the week, will be more running errands, more working out (and hopefully an Adrian Grenier sighting!), and more applying to jobs. I am looking forward to having more run-ins with celebrities and sloshed superheroes.

c.k.