"In The Heights"

Last night we went to try our luck at the student lotto again from a Broadway show. We went to try our luck at  " In the Heights". It's a musical about a neighborhood in the Washington Heights district of NYC. Most of the neighborhood consists of immigrants and their struggles. Corbin Bleu ( from the Disney Channel) recently starred as the main character, but left about 2 weeks ago. Jordin Sparks ( American Idol winner, " Battlefield", " One Step At a Time", " No Air") is now starring as the main female lead in the show. It's her Broadway debut!

At the lotto, which starts about 5:30,you put your name on a piece of paper and stick it in a bucket, in hopes that the will pick your name. It's very nerve racking! We were SO lucky and 3 of the members in our group each won 2 tickets in the front row! All for $26.50! So, we were all able to go see the show! I had never been in the front row of a Broadway show before, so I was so excited! It was so cool to be in the front row! You can literally see the spit flying from the performers! As well as their awesome facial expressions.We were also right by the orchestra pit, so we were able to talk to the conductor a bit during intermission. I highly recommend this show! It has a WONDERFUL Spanish feel that makes you want to dance, and the storyline is very inspiring.

After the show, we rushed down to the stage door to try to meet Jordin Sparks and the rest of the cast. We were successful! I was able to get a picture with her and an autograph! NYC is definitely spoiling me...

UPDATE!

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile! It has been very busy in NYC lately. I started my internships on Wednesday! I have two internships, one with Razor and Tie Publishing and one with Universal Music Publishing. Here's a recap of the two!

Razor and Tie
First impression: really cool location! They are located in the SoHo district and right next to NYU. It was about a 40 min train ride into the city. This company is very different than the past companies I have interned with. They are an independent company  but very nice and friendly. They mostly have smaller indie bands and heavy rock music. My supervisor is the VP of A &R and is highly respected. She graduated from Belmont and she is very smart. She is also one of our professors. I was able to attend a meeting about a couple of bands and projects. It was very informative, but I was a little lost because I had never heard of the bands. My department took me out to lunch at this AWESOME Mexican restaurant. I think this internship will definitely be a learning experience and will show me how a smaller, indie company conducts their business in the industry.

Universal Publishing
First impression: VERY different from Razor and Tie. It's building is located in a high rise building about a block from Rockefeller Plaza. They run a pretty tight security system over there too. I have to be escorted up and show my ID every time I come into the building. However, this will soon change because I will get my
" official" Universal ID on Monday! Universal  has a pretty vast catalog of urban rock/pop music. I'm more familiar and enjoy this type of music a little better than Razor and Tie's catalog. I wasn't able to do a lot of work at Universal yesterday because my user name and password for the computer system wasn't set up. It's amazing how much work we do on computers nowadays! So, I helped my supervisor underline some charts and she told me about a few bands to check out that were up and coming. I also got to attend a meeting with her and one of the universal writers. It was neat to see how they set up his writing sessions and how she gave her opinion about his latest songs. It reminded and confirmed that this is what I want to do in my future career.

I also got to go shopping yesterday!! I walked along 5th Ave and I was able to go to some of my favorite shops. I bought a few things, but I'm trying to wait to buy new clothes until the weather is a bit cooler.
Tonight we are going to play our luck at the student lottery for Broadway tickets! Hopefully we are able to go see a show! Again, I apologize about the recent lack of updating! I promise I will be updating more frequently soon!

The day of rest

Today was a much needed day of rest. I slept in till about 11:00 and then we were trapped in our room because the hallway finally got carpet! So, we turned on the TV and watched 1 of our 4 channels we receive. It was awesome. Sometimes it just feels good to stay in your pj's and watch TV you know? Later on, Rebekah and I researched some nearby churches in Brooklyn. Rebekah found this church called Trinity Grace church that seemed good, so we decided to go to their 5:00 service.

I think the Lord really must have been testing our patience this evening because it seemed like forever for the train to get to our stop. Sometimes trains are not very reliable in the city. It reminds me that I really don't have control over everything. A good lesson. It's so different having to base the amount of time to reach a destination when you take a train. I'm so used to getting in my car and it taking about 20 min to get to almost anywhere in Nashville. I guess I have been spoiled. The church service was really great! Smaller, non-denominational church that was located in a nice location in Brooklyn. They had a guest pastor from another branch come in to give the sermon tonight, so it was hard to know what the regular pastor was like. We will have to go back and check it out! At church, we ran across a guy who just graduated Belmont in May! What a small world! We knew each other face from working in Freshman orientation together. It turns out he moved out to NYC and it was his first time visiting this church as well! It was such a coincidence! Makes me remember that their are people from the south that live in NYC!

Saturday

We decided to take today a bit easier because we have been going all week long! It was much needed. Everyone slept in and had a relaxing morning. A few of us wondered to the laundry mat for our first time. It wasn't bad...but i must say our neighborhood is very diverse. There was every culture imaginable at the laundry mat this morning! It was fairly cheap too! 1.75 per load in the wash...not too bad for NYC.

After spending a good amount of time at the laundry mat we ventured to a local Barnes and Noble a few subway stops down. One of the classes I am taking this semester is called Artist Management. Our teacher has already sent us over 50 e-mails of articles that we should be aware of and our class starts next Tuesday!! Needless to say, we started reading the e-mails. I found a great spot in Barnes and Noble, right near the MCAT study books... I must say I did get distracted a lot from all the cute med. students close by. That is definitely  the place to study!

We decided to stay in tonight. We ordered some Chinese food and watched "Tommy Boy" and "17 Again" on the big screen. Afterwards, all the girls hung out and had a good  girl bonding time. I'm really happy to say that I'm getting to know the girls in the program more and more each day! I've really come to appreciate everyone of them and I'm excited about the up and coming semester. I do miss my friends very much back in Fayetteville and Nashville, so it is good to feel a sense of community and friendship here in NYC.  In the last few days I have also become more acquainted with the staff and " RA's" here in the building. All of them seem very nice and are glad to have English students living here! ( most of the students that live here are international). Yesterday, I also met a guy that just graduated from Auburn named Alabee. He is originally from Nicaragua and is a HUGE SEC fan! He was so glad to meet people from the south and told us that we have to watch SEC football together. Even though he is an Auburn fan, he was really nice!

Coney Island

Yesterday we decided to use our City Passes and check out the Natural History Museum. I've never been to one before so I didn't really know what to expect. It was located right by Central Park and had a beautiful entrance! The museum mostly contained animals, dinosaurs, and a few exhibits on space. With our city passes we got to watch a free documentary on stars in a special theater. It was neat because the screen was on the ceiling and the chairs leaned back to where we were almost on our backs. Overall, it was a good thing to see. I don't really recommend it, but I'm not really interested in Natural History. After words, we grabbed some food from a street vendor and ate by a bench next to Central Park.

Last night we also made our way down to Coney Island! Home of the famous Nathan's hot dogs! Coney Island has recently gone through some major improvements ( heard through grapevine) and it seemed cleaner than it was supposedly in the past. It looks almost like a county fair, but along the beach. A few of us rode 1 ride ( at $5 each....) just to say we rode a ride at Coney Island. Then, we grabbed a hot dog! I had the famous chili cheese dog! SOOO GOOD! We then went on the beach and waited for the fireworks! Every Friday they put on a firework show on the beach. It was a really good show!! After that, we headed back to Brooklyn and played pool on the 4th floor in the building and called it a night.

Movie in the Park

Today started off of a great note! I received a call from the person I interviewed with at Universal Music Publishing! She said she would love to have me as their creative intern for the fall semester! Now I have two internships lined up for the fall semester. I'm going to be a busy busy girl. My other internship is with Razor and Tie Music Publishing. They are a smaller publishing company that has Dave Barnes and a bunch of other smaller bands. Universal is on of the top three music publishing companies and has over 350 writers. I will be in charge of helping out the A &R staff as well as Film and TV.

We wanted to check out what Brooklyn had to offer today. We stopped at a local park that is about 2 subway stops down called Prospect Park. It was beautiful! Nice location and really nice size. I saw lots of dogs and it made me miss my dog Tucker! We hung around there for a bit and then went back because it was very hot. Later that night we went to a free movie in Brooklyn Bridge Park. It was so cool! They set up a big movie screen that is right by the skyline of NYC and the Brooklyn Bridge is right behind you. The movie that was showing last night was " Blues Brothers" and next week is           " Indiana Jones". The weather was amazing too--77 degrees! It was the perfect night for a movie as well as the perfect place!

"Promises, Promises"

Yesterday was such a GREAT day! We woke up very early and headed into Manhattan. We wanted to make sure we got to the " Promises, Promises" box office when it opened, so we could get the best student rush tickets. We ended up getting 5 tickets together in the 3rd to the last row, which is a bargain for $30! We walked around Manhattan more and discovered Bryant Park. Bryant Park is such a wonderful get away! I could imagine the fashion runways there from watching too much Project Runway Bryant Park is also the venue that GMA uses for its summer concert series! We are going to try to go to Rhianna and Katie Perry's concert in the upcoming days. We found some much needed front porch rockers and took a rest for a few minutes. We then decided to go check out Grand Central Station.  It's pretty neat! It was nothing what I was imagining, but still a landmark to hit while I'm in NYC. We also explored into Pop-Tart World. We weren't very impressed with the store, but decided we would come back and try their " pop-tart sushi", which includes fruit roll up's as the seaweed and crushed up pop-tarts as the middle.We grabbed a quick lunch at a food stand on the street and I had the best Lamb pita! Very fresh! We wanted to catch a quick rest before the show, so we decided to head back to Brooklyn.

Bryant Park

Inside Grand Central Station

Pop-tart Skyline of NYC

For Mom,Dad, and Kendal!

Wonderful Rocking Chairs

I was so excited to go to this show! I have been wanting to see Kristin Chenoweth perform for as long as I can remember. She has become more popular with her performances on "Glee" and her Broadway appearance in " WICKED". I love her because she is so petite and has a powerhouse voice! She is actually 4'11! The same height as me! I also was very interested in this show because it starred Sean Hayes. He played the character Jack in the TV show " Will and Grace". The show was WONDERFUL! We got to move up to the 3rd row in the balcony because it wasn't sold out! The show was very funny and I thought Sean Hayes did a fabulous job! I couldn't help but see " jack" in him. After the show, we raced down to the stage door to try to catch the stars before they left. They usually will sign autographs, talk to the fans, and take pictures with them after the show. I was so lucky to get Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth's autograph and picture! After, we decided to go to " Juniors" again for some much needed cheesecake. We then headed back to Brooklyn and called it a night.

Kristin Chenoweth!

Her assistant and cute dog!

Kelly and I

The whole group

"Marge", she won a Tony for her role as supporting actress

Sean Hayes

Me with the Poster

Carrot Cake Cheesecake Before...

After

Barbara, Brandon, and I at Juniors

"The Beast"

Since it was a blistering 95 degrees today, we decided to use our free pass for " THE BEAST". "THE BEAST" is a speedboat that takes a group of people around the island for a cruise/sightseeing event. They warn you that while on the beast you might get a bit wet from all the waves, so we took precaution and wore our swimsuits. Once we were on the boat, it was a blast! The director was hilarious and straight from New York. They had Michael Jackson's " ABC" and " Sweet Home Alabama" playing in the background, and we got to take a boat ride around the statue of liberty, Ellis Island, and the skyline of Manhattan. However, we did not get wet, which was kind of a bummer because it was so hot.

The whole group waiting for the subway

My roomie is ready for the beast!

"THE BEAST"

The Statue of Liberty

NYC skyline

After that we headed back into Brooklyn and showered to go out to eat. We decided to go to K-town (Korean Town) to try some new food. However, once we got there we got scared about trying new food, and sticker prices, so we went with what we knew...pizza. We went to a great pizzeria though! I had a piece with fresh mozzarella and sausage and a size salad. After dinner, we found Macy's. My mother has been wanting me to find Macy's since I've been here and I finally did!! The group had to put up with me exploring the shoe section, but they got over it. We also got to ride on the original wooden escalators! I can't wait to go back and shop all 7 floors, but will wait to do that on a rainy day and with my mother and sister.

Brandon is interning at the Martha Stewart show so he had to support.

Original wooden escalator

Brandon and Barbara

" K-town"--look closely on the banner

Overall it was a great day! Tomorrow we are going to head out into the city early to try our luck on the student rush tickets for the show " Promises, Promises". It stars Kristin Chenoweth and Shawn Hays. I've been dying to go to this show and hope we get tickets! I'll keep ya posted!