Trip to the US, round II

New York. The Big Apple. The City that never sleeps. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Took the train in and went straight to Harry's place in Brooklyn... after taking the train too far and having to backtrack, I finally arrived and was welcomed with freshly homemade bread and a beer - delicious! We went out for a noodle soup dinner and after some walking around decided that relatively quiet Mondays combined with winter cold made Plan B - a movie at the apartment - the ideal way to spend the night! Watched "Ghost in the Shell" which has a lot of potential but deserves to be watched by yours truly when sleep deprivation isn't an issue, ahem. Tuesday was spent running errands after having homemade gravalax for breakfast (turns out the Manhattan Red Cross has an amazing souvenir store - that's me in front of the building on the right, projectors are as expensive in the US as in Bolivia, the best burgers in town are in an unexpected spot to say the least, Colombia has a beautiful campus, the Hungarian tearoom near Colombia has a lethally yummy chocolate mousse cake, and walking across town is exhausting!) and before meeting up with my mother and Allegra & Gang for tea... Serena (my goddaughter!) has grown so much and has such a sweet tooth that she asked my mom to send her cupcakes to Sweden, and little James is adorable! It was great catching up with the Grevelius family, can't believe we managed coordinate a Swede-o-Swiss-o-Bolivio get-together! On the right: Allegra, me, Karl, James in blue and Serena in red. Had steak for dinner and then went for a drink with Tiarnach and mom before calling it a night. Wednesday I had lunch at the Penn Club with someone fantabulous from the Alumni office, and then I met up with Dina! Lots of talking. Went back to Hoboken for the night, met the roommates over a delicious dinner cooked up by Dina (photo on right is us out for a beer... left to right: Leanne, Emily, Dina, me and Christine), and on Thursday... What a day. Took over a table at Cosi's with Dina and Tasha to talktalktalk and catch up, whooshed to Hoboken and back, and the night began. Wine and Cheese with Natasha Gopaul, dinner at Azul with Karla Zepeda, her Swiss boyfriend Blaise, Tiarnach and his friend/mentor from Sudan David, Joel and Dina, and drinks at Gallery Bar in Lower East Side (see boys' photo - left to right Blaise, Tiarnach and David, and girls' photo - left to right Dina, me, Karla). There the turnout was stunning! Rebecca, Harry, Jake, Tiarnach, David, Dina... ooh and the margarita's weren't bad either! Will leave it at that, sheepish grin. Friday I headed to Philly where I spent 3h at New Deck eating yet another burger while chatting with my Freshmen girls (Deep, Nikki, Ko et co), ran random errands (such as becoming the Penn for Bolivia), and made it to Mad4's happy hour (on the top left, me, Ko and Nikki being silly)! Tim made it too, just like old times . Well, almost. Had a scrumptuous dinner with Stefizzle and headed into West Philly for Yaz's birthday bash, not surprisingly more fun than a barrel of monkeys (see Yaz and I on the left, second photo from the top)! Saturday I had lunch with Eirik the Viking and Lindsay and went to see the last Rocky with the Viking before meeting up with Lauren who was in town from Boston/San Fran for 24h! We went to dinner with Stef, another secret spot where we ate the house special which isn't even on the menu and has to be pre ordered! Spicy (I was sniffling like a baby) but delicious! Then Monkey Bar and a club with a random crew and Tim (see photo on left - that basically sums up why Tim and I are friends) where I made up for living a hiphopless life in Bolivia! :p