Getting By, Dreaming Big

This is a blog for me to share my thoughts on my favorite things: books, traveling, food and entertainment!

Running in New York City – a True Marathon August 9, 2007

Filed under: NYC Experiences,Ruminations,Running — readerbean @ 11:30 am

Running in New York City is truly like running a marathon except that you’re the only person running. For those of you who have never run a marathon, imagine lining up with anywhere from 20,000-40,000 people at a start line and once the gun goes off weaving in and out of thousands of runners to claim your little bit of the road for the next 4 1/2 hours. Over the course of those 4 1/2 hours every now and again you have to readjust – you pass people, people pass you, you move left for a bit, you move right for a bit, you stay in the center for a bit to keep a little bit of the road for yourself until you cross that finish line and the marathon is over.

Now imagine running that marathon except instead of 20,000+ runners (and maybe not for 4 1/2 hours) you have thousands of pedestrians, yellow cabs, tourists, and traffic lights!

After a 6 week mandatory rest period due to a stress fracture I’m back out pounding the pavement and I have to say it feels good! I’ve been increasing my mileage slowly so as not to injure myself again and am back up to 4 mile runs. I really missed having my running time, my time to myself, my time to explore, my time to see what my body can do. However, now that I’m back at it I’m running in a totally foreign environment that I’m still struggling to get to know.

When you’re running 4 miles or under it’s not worth it to go to Central Park (unless you live right there) or to head over to the West Side Highway (again unless you live right there) because by the time you run there it’s time to turn around and you didn’t get to enjoy any of the perks about those great running places in NYC. So right now while I’m upping my mileage I’m running in my neighborhood.

The other night my DH and I went out for a 4 mile run, my longest to date during my recovery period. Running most places in NYC is chaotic – you’re running on the sidewalk and you’re battling pedestrians that are not paying attention to where they’re going let alone other people on the sidewalk, you’re battling traffic lights (when you’re running the blocks the rule of thumb at my pace is that you can usually get 2, maybe 3 under your belt before you hit a red light), you’re battling sidewalk closings because of the constant construction going on in the city. And when you see that the sidewalk is just to crowded and you decided to brave the street (while seriously hugging the sidewalk and running towards the traffic!) you’re battling buses (you never know when they’re going to stop or start up again and move out into traffic), cars and cabs that hate pedestrians (mainly because the pedestrians don’t pay attention when crossing the road), you’re weaving in and out of people and cars to just keep going and not have to stop too often (isn’t a cardinal rule of conserving your energy not to weave?) and you’re thinking to yourself this is crazy. This isn’t the relaxing me time that I’m craving. At least that’s what I was thinking.

But then I hit the turnaround point (having lost my DH at this point – it’s funny if you miss a light and the other person makes it through you end up taking completely different routes home as you move with the lights) as I turned again down 5th Avenue I started looking around me. I passed St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, the New York Public Library and as the hill crested and I started going downhill on 5th Avenue (oh yes, NYC is hillier that most would lead you to believe) I looked up and saw that I was running towards the Empire State Building. And it occurred to me this is pretty amazing – I’m running past history, past iconic places that most people in the world dream of seeing!

So while I prefer running the rolling hills of Vermont, running past the Victorian houses on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, MN, running through the vineyards of Napa and down the trail at Lands End in San Fran and believe it or not the hills of Newton, MA! Right now I’m running in NYC and it won’t be forever so I’ll embrace it and make the most of this experience, and as I increase my mileage I’ll explore Central Park and the West Side Highway, and hopefully by the time I leave NYC I’ll have loved running here as much as anywhere else. And during my time here I’ll keep you up to date on the cool places I do run.

 

When It Rains….It Pours! August 8, 2007

Filed under: NYC Experiences — readerbean @ 1:10 pm

Wow this morning’s commute was an experience! There was major flooding early this morning in NYC and surrounding areas. If there is one thing I have learned in the short 6 months I have lived in the city, it’s that whenever there is any significant amount of precipitation, be it rain or snow, the transportation in this city becomes a mess and you can count on delays.

This morning I got a call from my DH, and he informed me that none of the subways were running. That seemed crazy to me so I turned on the news and sure enough no subways were running. He asked me to look up the buses to see if he could find a bus that would take him downtown. In the end he found a cab (a miracle!) and was able to get to work at a relatively decent hour.

I quick got up and got ready knowing that it was going to take me awhile to get to work. I waited for awhile at the bus stop across the street from our building only to learn it only comes every hour. Then I headed over to Broadway hoping to hop on the M6 downtown. I was probably the 60th person online for that bus. After 3 buses passed us with only 5-10 people getting on over the course of 20 minutes I realized that wasn’t going to work. So along with many New Yorkers this morning I decided to walk the 4 miles to work.

I decided to look at it as an adventure since I wasn’t going to get there any faster any other way. It was pretty amazing – there were hundreds of people walking downtown – hundreds! I must say that everyone was in a pretty pleasant mood given that it was in the high 90′s and everyone was walking to work. Everyone was sweating a ridiculous amount – and just trucking down the street. I walked Broadway the whole way with my DH giving me updates on how much farther I had to go because I really didn’t have a great concept of where I was at times. People were making friends with those walking around them and people met up with friends and co-workers who were walking in the same direction. It was one of those moments of camaraderie. Personally I thought walking to work (although I was pretty hot) was a very relaxing way to start my day.

It’ll be interesting to see if things are up and running 100% by the time we leave.

 

Stardust, by Neil Gaiman (***) August 7, 2007

Filed under: Book Reviews — readerbean @ 4:05 pm

After seeing a preview for the movie Stardust I decided to read the book. Whenever I can, I prefer to read the book before I see the movie, also I was excited to give this particular author a try since I had heard a lot about him.

Stardust takes place in an English town called Wall. One night when accompanying his “crush” Victoria Forrester back to her house, Tristan promises to bring her back a falling star they see in exchange for anything his heart should desire. Victoria believes he’ll never do it so she tells him to bring it back. The next day Tristan sets off through the gap in the wall to Faerie, the magical land on the other side of the wall, in search of the fallen star. A magical, fairytale ensues.

I enjoyed the story very much and Tristan is a very well developed character. Aside from Harry Potter it was my first foray into science fiction and I think I would really enjoy reading more stories like this. My only complaint about the book is that it really should be tagged under young adult reading based on the writing level. I am very much looking forward to seeing the movie so look back for my review!

 

Congratulations Kate!!!! August 6, 2007

Filed under: Uncategorized — readerbean @ 12:03 pm

I wanted to give a big shout out to my sister Kate for completing her first ever half-marathon yesterday morning! She ran the New York City half-marathon in 1:55:04. A great time for a first effort!

My DH and I were up and out the door at 6:30 AM to meet my parents, my sister’s bf and friend at 7:00 AM at 57th and 7th. We decided to walk up to the park so that we could see her at the 1.5 mile marker and then walk back down to 57th and 7th to see her at the 7.5 mile marker. I have to say that watching all the runners made me miss racing. I’m still recovering from my stress fracture and slowly but surely building my mileage – I can’t wait to get back out there at 100%.

Kate’s friend Jackie had made all these great posters for us to hold up while we were cheering for her. While waiting to see her at the 1.5 mile marker I saw a Boston Medical Center (BMC) marathoner from our 2007 team! I was so excited to see someone who had been part of our marathon team – my whole family started screaming like crazy. And since he was in front of my sister we saw him in all 3 places we went to cheer (mile 1.5, mile 7.5 and mile 13). He must have been so confused as to why these random 6 people were screaming so loudly for him!

We saw my sister at mile 1.5 and she looked good as she began her journey. We stayed there for awhile and cheered on all the runners and then moved to our 2nd cheering spot at mile 7.5. We got to see a lot of the elite runners, which was awesome. My DH and I cheered real loudly for a runner wearing a Boston Red Sox hat and he was pretty excited to see us. The two cops in front of us however were not to pleased and jokingly told us to pipe down or they’d have to take us in:) We spotted my sister as she was coming into the water station right before where we were and started screaming like crazy for her – she came over and slapped us all five she looked awesome – like she was feeling good and having a great time.

Our brother and his girlfriend were waiting for her as she ran through Times Square – imagine running through a closed down time square – so cool! I’m definitely going to have to do this race.

Then we hopped the subway to the finish and got to see her finish strong. I love road races, watching all these people out there for different reasons, accomplishing goals and dreams, it’s just so great! It was 9AM and we had already had so much excitement for the day – meanwhile most of NYC wasn’t even awake yet!

As we were walking to the subway to head back home we passed this film shoot (whether it was for a movie, commercial, etc I’m not sure) but as we’re walking around the cameras we look across the street and there is a naked woman standing next to a cab among people dressed in business attire – that’s what they were shooting. It was truly one of those only in NYC moments!

 

The Bourne Ultimatum (5 Stars) – The Ultimate Experience August 6, 2007

Filed under: Movie Reviews — readerbean @ 11:48 am

While this is ultimately going to be a movie review I also want to take a minute to comment on just the whole experience of going to see The Bourne Ultimatum on opening night in New York City.

My DH and I love the Bourne movies so we were really excited when The Bourne Ultimatum came out this weekend. We decided we wanted to see it opening night, which is something we rarely do. Friday morning I went on Fandango to purchase our tickets and by 9:30 AM the 8:30PM show that we wanted to see was already sold out! We decided to see the earlier show at 7PM. I purchased our tickets, printed out my confirmation page and went about the rest of my relaxing half-day Friday.

We met at the Kipps Bay movie theater at 6:15 – a full 45-minutes prior to our movie time thinking this would be plenty of time to ensure we would get seats next to each other. We wait in line to have our tickets taken and when we rounded the corner to go to the theater there was a line of about 150-200 people already there. WHAT!!!!! I couldn’t believe it. We weren’t the only ones feeling a little nervous about getting seats together. Then an employee at the theater walked by and said to a couple a few people ahead of us – “Don’t worry, the theater seats 600 people.” WHAT!!!! The theater seats 600 people – that seemed insane to me – I’ve never even seen a theater that large. The doors open and we move forward. We got great seats middle of the row about halfway up. As we’re sitting there waiting for the movie to start I look around at this redonkulously large theater and I comment to my DH, “I think this is larger than the theater we saw Avenue Q in.” (I checked later and it’s actually 205 seats smaller.) The show was sold out and sure enough by the time the previews started every seat in the place was taken.

How was the movie you say? Fantastic! A fun end to a great trilogy. My DH thinks it was the best one. I’d say they’re all equally great (5 stars across the board). You know it’s good when the whole theater claps out loud at the end of a fight scene. It’s definitely worth seeing if you enjoyed the first two.

The one thing I’ll give New Yorkers is that they definitely now how to move in a large crowd. When I moved here I was very crowd averse but after 6 months here, I’ve learned to calm down when I find myself jammed in the middle of a large crowd because unlike in a lot of other places everyone moves slowly and calmly and waits their turn until they get to where they’re going.

 

The Staten Island Ferry August 4, 2007

Filed under: NYC Experiences — readerbean @ 11:44 am


In the spirit of trying to do and see things that are on my NYC list I joined my friend Emily and her friend Gibby who was in town visiting on Friday for a trip on the Staten Island Ferry. We have half-day Fridays so the three of us went to get lunch at Subway (yum!) and then walked over to the ferry landing. When we got there there were literally hundreds of people waiting for the next ferry. I was finding it hard to believe that we were all going to get on the ferry – little did I know how big the ferry was.

Everyone moved very calmly onto the ferry and we got a great spot outside on the lefthand side of the ferry. As we took off you could see Ellis Island straight out to you left and Governor’s Island out ahead. As we kept moving towards SI, we went past the Statue of Liberty. I’m sorry – but no matter how many times you’ve seen our Lady Liberty it is still awe-inspiring! So like all the other tourists I snapped some great pics of both Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and then we sat down and ate our lunch. It was nice and cool even outside on the boat – there was a great breeze which was refreshing!

When we got to Staten Island you have to get off and walk around and get back on with everyone else waiting to get on. So we did that and then manuevered our way to the front of the boat so that we could see the tip of Manhattan as we approached. When you’re in the middle of Manhattan it’s easy to forget it’s an island surrounded by water. So approaching it via ferry was pretty neat. The three of us talked about what it must have been like for the immigrants arriving to Ellis Island seeing New York from this vanatage point – I can’t even imagine.

All in all it was a very enjoyable hour spent and I would do it again! Growing up I used to hear a lot about the SI Ferry, my parents would tell me about how they would go on dates sometimes on the Ferry for their date because it was free and at night with the city all lit up it was a beautiful ride. Now I understand what they were talking about. I definitely would love to do the Ferry ride at night.

 

I, Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalogridis (****) August 4, 2007

Filed under: Book Reviews — readerbean @ 11:33 am

Since my DH and I are heading to Italy at the end of this year, aside from trying to teach myself Italian I am also trying to read as many books that take place in Italy, specifically Rome, Florence and Venice. I, Mona Lisa had been on my shelf for 6 months and I decided now would be the perfect time to read it.

I, Mona Lisa takes place in Florence during the late 15th Century. Giuliano de’ Medici has just been brutally murdered and the effect of his death is felt throughout Florence. 10 years later Florence is under a dark cloud, more specifically the preaching of a monk Savonarola, preaching against the Medici’s and their opulence. The reader is introduced to Madonna Lisa, through her eyes we experience Florence as it crumbles under Savonarola’s preaching. Madonna Lisa finds herself caught up in a deceitful web of lies, plotting, and revenge. As she tries to find out the truth about herself and the truth about who is trying to overtake Florence the mystery begins….and she must hope that she can figure it all out before it takes her life!

This was a fun & fast read. I really enjoy historical fiction and I love everything about Italy so it was a good fit for me! I’m looking forward to reading other books that take place in this time period because I’d love to learn more about the Medici’s. Overall: 4 stars!

 

Books, Books & More Books! August 2, 2007

Filed under: Book Reviews,Ruminations — readerbean @ 2:14 pm

As one of my co-workers recently pointed out I am a book-a-holic! I am constantly talking about books, finding book recommendations, reading up on authors, finding out what’s coming out next, etc. My favorite question when I meet someone new or when I’m catching up with an old friend is: What are you reading?

I am currently reading I, Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalogridis and for whatever reason (maybe it’s all the time I have on my hands) felt compelled to google her and learn more about why she wrote this book and what she’s currently working on. In turn on her website I learned that she had a blog – as a fellow blogger I thought that was pretty cool. As a confessed historical fiction junkie I thought this blog might point me in the direction of other historical fiction authors I do not already know about or other websites that will provide me with additional information on historical people and places that I read about, I decided to check it out.

Jackpot! On her blog I discovered another blog (I know this is getting ridiculous!) called Blogging for a Good Book that provides a suggestion a day of good reads! It seems like the website was set up pretty recently (April 2007) because their archives are not extensive. Not only can you read about today’s recommendation but each recommendation is then put into a category, so if you want you can check out for instance, what historical fiction books they’ve recommended, or what chicklit they’ve recommended, etc. What a great reference for readers! Other great references are, amazon.com and goodreads.com both of which I have profiles on. And if you are in a book group or looking to start one I recommend readinggroupguides.com, here you’ll be able to find discussion questions for a vast amount of books.

OK, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system I need to go back to Blogging for a Good Book and see what the recommendations are!