College 2.0

I just got back from a pretty crazy weekend. No, I didn't go back to Palo Alto to sneak into undergrad parties and relive my last four years, but spent five days in New York catching up with friends and enjoying my complete lack of responsibility.

Sure, New York would be a lot less fun if you had to go to work on Monday morning (and I know that I will be included among this group before long), but it still is great to be able to have brunch with college friends, happy hour with a future colleague, dinner with a family friend from childhood, and go out to a bar with some friends from camp, all in one day. I traversed Manhattan's neighborhoods relentlessly on my quest to hang out with as many people as I could, and in doing so gained a familiarity with the City that will make finding a place to live a lot easier in December.

I was staying in my sister's studio on the Upper East Side that she was generous enough to loan me, and although it's not the closest neighborhood to where many of my friends live, I felt like a genuine NYC citizen being able to leave my friends at 3am to catch a cab back to "my apartment".

I visited my friends Gabe and Jordan in their new apartment way the hell up by W. 125th street to help set up a wifi network and help Gabe open an account with one of the last Union-owned banks around. I spent time in Hell's Kitchen, having brunch with $8 all-you-can-drink mimosas with Mark, an old friend of mine from Camp Kesem. I schlepped to the Flatbush section of Brooklyn to help Becca move her stuff out of her grandparents' house that she had been staying in for the summer.

But what really made the weekend great was all the time I got to spend in and around the East Village, where I hopefully will find myself living in just a few short months. I walked up and down 1st Avenue, A, and even ventured as far east as Avenue B, enjoying sushi and sake bombs, burritos, and drinks with college friends, camp friends, and new friends. First Avenue between Houston and 23rd is home to at least six groups of my friends, and also happens to be within a 20-minute walk of my soon-to-be office. Although I may not actually get to share an apartment with any of them, it's great to know three months before the fact that I'll have so many friends within a short walk's distance.