Capitol City & More :)

Hi again!

Here's some more of what I've been up to of late!

So Joe came to New York for a couple of days at the end of March/start of April so obviously I

 had to meet up with him. After bringing me a HUGE bottle of Apple and Blackcurrant Juice, 2 bags of Mini Eggs and 2 large bars of cadburys - which unfortnately I couldn't eat bcause I had given up chocolate for lent - we went for a lovely meal at John's Pizza (one of my favourite New York restuarants, due to the fact they do lovely Brick Oven Pizza, and it's a renovated church, which makes it a beautiful setting), it was bizarre to see someone I knew but really nice as well.

Topshop Opening

On April 2nd, after months of anticipation, TOPSHOP finally opened! I was extremely excited to see this "flagship" store so I headed down to Soho that weekend to see what it was all about. On my way to the subway station, I happened to stumble upon a free concert that was taking place outside of Macys -- but it was a band I hadn't heard of, called "Push Play" but they weren't half bad... 

Anyway, after getting distracted, I headed downtown to SoH

o and went to Topshop. I had to queue outside to get in at first (for 15 minutes or so, but I got a free bottle of water) which I thought was kinda crazy at first, but then it turned out to be a good thing as they were only letting so many people in at one time so the shop wasn't mad-busy. 

When I eventually got in, I was in heaven! It felt like Topshop inside, they were playing British music and even the clothing sizes were in English AND American sizes. 

The shop was spread out to four floors; Topman was in the basement, but it was not as big as I had expected it to be, but it was still a decent size. Then I had to head over to the fitting rooms, where I waited 30minutes for a fitting room! Of course as most people didn't know what the clothes would look like on, they were grabbing everything they could and taking a while to try them on - there was no limit to how many items you could take in either. I ended up purchasing a lovely Black Cotton dress and a pair of footless tights. Lynne (my host Mom) had given me $50 to spend in the Store because I had been so excited about it, so it made it quite a cheap purchase! 

Because it was within the first fours days of opening, they had stations where you could get complimentary makeovers for nails, hair and make-up. Unfortunately they didn't have any available appointments for nails, but I did manage to get my make-up done, and hair styled for free - also, while I was waiting for my hair appointment, I sat down in a area where they had free mini scones with jam and clotted cream! Overall, it was an amazing day, and I will be going back again very soon!

Washington DC

Easter weekend was my weekend off, so to make the most of it I wanted to visit Washington DC, on the premise that it was also the famous Cherry Blossom Festival. I went with 2 other Au Pairs, Jenni (English) and Annali (German), and we left Friday evening, heading into New York and getting a bus from chinatown. We arrived in the capitol at around 1.30am and took a taxi to our hotel, which was about 20minutes from the city centre... we managed to get one which had complimentary "continental" breakfast -- though in my previous experiences a continental breakfast doesn't included waffles -- but that helped save the cents! 

On the first day we had book a "Hop On-Hop Off" tour, which turned out to be the best bet because it was lashing it down with rain, so we decided to take the complete tour and saw everything and only when we had been through one complete circle did we get off and take a closer look. We saw all the main attractions like the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument and of course the White House. We had been told that if we got there early enough to the Washington Monument then you would be able to go to the top of it (for free!) but we were pretty sure that we wouldn't be able to get that. So instead we had been told about the Old Post Office which you could also go up for free but you could go any time of the day and be able to get to the top -- and from the top you could see the whole of DC! 

One thing I really liked about DC was the complete and utter contrast to New York -- so much cleaner and smaller, and the buildings were breathtakingly beautiful due their high rising white columns. And the subway system was like stepping into the future, the underground was in a kind of a cylindrical shape, much more pleasing on the eye than the ancient New York ones.

The only thing which I found odd was that most of the shops and restuarants closed very early -

 at about 5.30pm on a Saturday, which is very early compared to New Jersey even! At one point we saw a Starbucksm, but when we got up to the door it had been closed since 6pm (at this point it was 6.15pm).  

In the afternoon we visited some of the museums (which were all free of charge!) which was interesting and a good way to avoid the rain fall. Unfortunately we did not get chance to visit the National Archives because the queue went round about 3 blocks and as we only had a short amount of time to see everything, we didn't want to waste time in a queue. 

By late afternoon the weather had cleared up and we went to visit the White House, which was surreal but fantastic to see. That evening we went to watch some of the fireworks which were going on due to the ending of the Cherry Blossom Festival -- most of the blossom had disappeared on the saturday because of the rain. We also got to see the Capitol, the Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, and the White House (which are all lined up with each other in some way) all lit up at night which was breathtaking, then we finally went for some food as we were all extremely exhausted having had little sleep and been on our feet all day, getting back to the hotel just after midnight. 

The next morning we had planned to get up early  -- but due to the alarm not going off, we had to make do and cut out some things. On the positive side the weather was much more nicer on the Sunday, with no clouds in the sky. Because of our hotel being outside of the main city limits, we had to carry our bags with us the whole day as we would not have had time to go back before we had to catch our bus back to New York, which made getting about tougher than the previous day. But we went to see the Lincoln Memorial and we got to walk through some of the parks, before we had to leave. 

It was a short but sweet visit, but one that I enjoyed completely, and it's definately a place I would like to go back to!

May(so far)

I've now finished my college courses that I was taking at Drew University - Spanish and Linguistics - and so I'm free in the week, but I've just started taking a weekend class in New York. The class is interesting enough, it's about the history of America and Niagara Falls, but the teachers competence can be questioned -- he couldn't describe what "treason" meant and was pretty patronising. Part of the course requires us to visit the falls as well! This turned out to be a really good deal because as it was part of my educational requirement, my host family has paid for the course and the trip! The trip takes place June 5th-7th. 

Also this last weekend I had a Manhattan Boat Cruise, which I had booked back in March. Most of my friends had also booked for it too so it was a really fun evening. We all had the opportunity to dress up, and it was only for Au Pairs and West Point Military Cadets. Luckily it didn't rain, even though it was forecast to (and therefore I had to bring with me a jacket, a coat AND an umbrella.. in true English fashion, but ended up not needing any of them) and so we got to see a stunning Sunset, and the New York Skyline at night and the Statue of Liberty. I had a great time, although the girl-to-guy ratio wasn't that good, but on the whole it was a good night out.

That's about it for now, I'll try and keep up to date from now on!

Charlotte xx

PS Please leave a comment if you read it! :)