Extra! Extra! City Girl Finds Her Curl in the Big Apple

I visited my friend, Tara in New York this past weekend. It was very fun! She is the food editor for Ladies Home Journal so I had a tour of the magazine, everyone should read it. She creates all the recipes you see in there, she is a genius! We spent most of Saturday shopping on 5th Avenue. I have my fall wardrobe! Then that afternoon I had an appointment at Devachan Salon, a salon that only serves curly haired folks. That's me!

This is a picture of the salon's hair washing place, fancy huh?

So my hairdresser, Rick basically told me everything I was doing with my hair was wrong. He taught me about the products I needed to use and there is even a specific towel to use when drying my hair. It was fun to be pampered and learn how to manage and style my curly hair after having it for 30 years. When it was all done, I had my natural curl with really no product in it and it felt soft and had lots of fun ringlets.

Here I am with my new, naturally curly hair! Rick said I don't need to cut it again for another four months. Anyone up for a trip to New York in October? :)

That night Tara and I saw The Little Mermaid on Broadway, it was cute. And Sunday we just relaxed after a busy day of shopping and running around New York. It was crazy to go from DC, which is a pretty big city, to New York. The minute I stepped off the bus, it was louder, way more crowded, dirtier, and smellier. If I become a real city girl, I don't know if New York is the city I would choose. Love to visit, glad to leave. Here are some pics of the weekend!

Fun in Times Square. So, so many people!

This is the view from Tara's terrace, where we enjoyed our Sunday lunch.

Me and Cute Tara saying good-bye on Sunday.

This is the bus that brought me back to DC and took 6 long hours to get here. The trip is supposed to take 4 hours! Lots and lots of traffic, something this "city girl" is not a fan of.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

I was able to go to the Nationals Baseball Game with a group of friends, and they won! It took them 11 innings, but they did it!Since the game was going kinda long, we got a little bored and took pictures of our feet! The guy whose shoe is double the size of the cute girl feet is 6 feet 8 inches tall.

Lisa, Patti, Me, and another Angela enjoying the game. You can see we were pretty high up, but still had a great time.

Acclimating to My New Surroundings

So here are a few things I have learned and/or had to adjust to while I have been living here on the East Coast:

1. Bugs Everywhere! I have three bug bites on my toe, a spider bite on my arm, and have killed many bugs in my room, yuck! I need a mosquito net to wear daily but I may get a double take or two. I need to invest in the nice smelling OFF and have that take the place of my perfume. On the nice side of bugs everywhere (yes, there actually is a nice side) is the lightning bugs. They are everywhere at night and are so, so pretty and just kind of make it summer to see lightning bugs when we are out at night. They are kinda ugly normallly so it is so good they have the whole light thing going for them.

2. People are nice! I am amazed and impressed by how kind and hospitable EVERYONE is. I have been called sweetheart at the restaurant, honey at the grocery store, and one day when I was running in the neighborhood, a kind, old man said, "Keep it up, kid!" In stores, restaurants, on the streets people are always saying hi and are just cordial. It makes me want to be happy and kind to everyone I see too.

3. Everything happens late around here. We eat breakfast at 10:30am (I usually eat around 8:30) and we eat dinner at 8:00pm (I usually eat around 6:30). We stay out until midnight and don't go to bed until 1am which then means I get up around 9:30. So technically I am doing all these things on Utah time and shouldn't complain.

4. Beautiful neighborhood. I live in a great neighborhood of Arlington, VA. There is a park on every corner, huge trees line the streets, and it has a neighborhood watch committee, so it is nice and safe! (I will post pictures of my cute neighborhood soon.)

5. Cars and Freeways everywhere! I have actually been really lucky to not be stuck in traffic too often. But the number of freeways here are amazing. They have freeways, routes, parkways, everything! I usually will get on at least three different freeways to get somewhere 20 minutes away. I miss the nice, simple Interstate 15 in Utah that pretty much gets us everywhere we want to go.

Night Life in the City

So I have had something to do every night this week! The city is fun and everyone loves to play here. We also eat out every night. (I need to find a job just to pay for food!) One night we went to Theodore Roosevelt Island where there is a huge statue of him and some great quotes of his on stone walls. That night we also visited some of the monuments at night which is my roommate, Patti's favorite thing to do and is quickly becoming mine. It also pays to know the right people around here. Some of my new friends have a friend who is performing in a play at the Kennedy Arts Center. So we went to see his show for free! As we were coming out of his show everyone was arriving in formal wear for the Opera Ballet. My goal is to go to something super fancy like that at the Kennedy Center! The weather has been kind of yucky making it hard to do much during the day, but that is okay, I have to save my energy for evening plans. We play till midnight and sometimes longer! City life is late, but I can sleep in the next day. :)

We are posing like our man Theodore. I am not exactly sure why they have him posed like that.

Me trying to be artsy. Theodore Roosevelt's quote about nature with nature in the background. Fun, huh?

Kind of a bad picture but it was dark and we wanted to emphasize the Washington Monument.

Did you know there was an Albert Einstein Monument in DC? I didn't, but I do now!

Going to a play at the fancy Kennedy Center. It is gorgeous there. I plan to go back and get some more pictures to share.

My Man Magellan

So I decided a needed accessory for my adventure was a GPS that would both help me get here and guide me around the crazy city streets. My GPS is somewhat gender confused because the brand is Magellan which is totally a male name, but it is a woman's voice that guides me in the right direction. Even though I don't know whether to say he/she, "it" has been my lifesaver for my first few days in DC. I have found an Ikea, a Walmart, and grocery stores all because of my great friend, Magellan. I feel confident going anywhere and not having to worry about looking down at maps or getting lost in a scary area. My favorite thing about Magellan is that he/she doesn't get mad when I make a wrong turn. He/she simply recalculates and gives me new direction. I still make it to my destination and feel successful because I didn't end up going the wrong way on a one way street or make illegal turns all over the place. (okay I have done a few of those.) I wonder if I could find a man like Magellan. Doesn't ever get mad at me, just changes his schedule to match my wrong turns... I will have to look into that!

By the way, I have managed to go to the gym two days in a row now WITHOUT using Magellan. I am getting to know my way around already!

I Have a Blog

So I have to admit I never even thought about starting a blog because it seemed pointless for me to write about my mundane Utah life and my daily workouts, or what book I was reading. But now that I have moved to DC for the summer I feel I am worthy to start a blog. Just the trip out here warrants a "post." I, Angela Day, drove across the country from Utah to Virginia by myself! It took me three days and I suffered through torrential downpours, slow trucks, and entertaining myself but... I made it!

I am living in Arlington, VA with three roommates. There names are Patti, Sharyn, and Mary. They have lived in DC for some time and have been super nice already in helping me figure out how to live here. I feel like this small town girl who has never seen a freeway or taken the metro into downtown. Though I know I can do it, I have been in Utah for a long time and life is just different there. Here I think I will learn lots, make a fool of myself often, and have the time of my life! So I am chronicling my summer and inviting you all to learn about life as a city girl through my eyes. Enjoy the ride!

Learning about my new home

Once I arrived to my cute little home in Arlington, VA I met two of my three roommates, Sharyn and Patti. They are so cute and we had a delightful dinner. They are both amazing cooks. I seem to always end up with roommates that know how to cook, yeah for me! I was asking them what they liked and didn't like about living in DC. One thing that came up was about the year of the Cicadas. I, like many of you I assume, had no idea what a Cicada was. They explained to me that it is a bug that only surfaces every 17 years but when they surface, they take over the DC area. These bugs are everywhere and they are loud. Thousands of them all over everything. I was so fascinated by this bug which sounded cool, yet gross at the same time, I "googled" it and found out that the last Cicada Arrival was in 2004. They make their appearance for 2-4 weeks in the month of May and then head back underground for 17 more years. Scientists have many theories about this species right down the reason they only come above ground every 17 years (some Mathematical reasoning that has to do with survival). So while I won't have Cicadas take over my home, street, and everything else in the city while I am here perhaps I will come back in the year 2021 to see this rare phenomenon. Look at me learning "stuff" my first night here!

This is a small gathering of cicadas on a tree. Imagine the whole tree covered with them. That is what my roomates told me it is really like!