An Apology (But Blame The Parents)

Firstly, sorry for getting all behind and suddenly dropping off a cliff (in metaphorical blog terms, rather than actual death and tragedy rebel Without A Cause terms). My family arrived and I have suddenly turned into acting tourguide so everything got a bit hectic. So, as ever, you can blame the parents. Just like in Rebel Without a Cause! omg the connections are just coming in so thick and fast; you'll just never guess what we did last night. Actually, I'm afraid you'll have to wait to find out because if I start at the end and then just hop about in time for a bit until I have said everything there is to say about my last days in NY, it might get a bit confusing, and although you're all bright and can definitely cope, I never fully understood Doctor Who so I would get totally lost and feel like I'm floating in a very disorganised and unstructured mess and start repeating things. Which would clearly be awful because a) I can't deal with that amount of chaos (my need for routine again, can definitely blame the parents for that one) and would get all anxious and b) anyone who is using valuable time to read my partly nonsensical ramblings on New York would definitely not appreciate repetition and it would be highly dull and c) catching up might actually take, like, four weeks anyway because I have done so much and there is so much to talk about and so much to catch up on that repetition would make it take, like, four months. And no one wants that. Aaaaand in four months time who knows what I'll be doing or where I'll be and I will probably want to be focusing on that. So to recap; no jumping about in time, Doctor Who style.

So. Where were we??

Oh yes, that was it.
I'd been given my new silk romper and was uber excited to trry it on.
After the designer had left I got back to work, doing some planning for the min Editorial Awards Harper's are entering, getting together all the hard copies and electronic copies that were needed for each category and entry.
I did more of my sad 'last time' rituals. Whenever I go anywhere I get really attached to it and have to, like, say goodbye to my toilet.
I took some photos of my view but I doubt it will do it justice. Standing there, on the 25th floor of Hearst Tower, overlooking the Manhattan skyline on my last day, I felt suddenly empowered. I had been shit scared two weeks ago, and yet here I was, alive. In fact, more than alive; I had totally owned it. The whole experience had been incredible and I had done it and, I think, done it well. I gave myself a pat on the back (in my head. I had, thus far, managed to keep my total insanity hidden from view of the Harper's office and appeared quite sane. I did not intend to ruin that at the last moment).

Amazingly, a hurricane was predicted for that afternoon. Lisa was, she informed me, terrified. hurricanes are not regular occurrences in New York City and I too was not looking forward to that. I'd felt that I was actually inside the eye of the storm whilst the thunder had raged and the lightening struck on Monday (twenty five floors is high up) so I'm imagining that a hurricane at that height would have been scarier. There was mass hysteria. Hurricane-alert was a new fave excuse to do no work.

My last task at Harper's was back with the archives. Me and the archives became bessies. I had another huge list from a woman called Hanna of issues I needed to pull and helped her sort them and take them to her office on the 18th floor. I also made friends with an intern shadowing a scary looking lady in blood red shoes. Typical me to achieve that on the last day.

Then, saving the best till last, Lisa took me on a massive tour of the Harper's office. We saw the production team and the art department and the stylists and the make up artists and the beauty department and the birth place of all the features and a tall beautiful girl with short dark hair cropped close to her face who looked like Audrey Hepburn and was wearing zebra print trousers being photographed. We saw girls pulling out clothes from rails of choice and lying them on the floor to piece together outfits, a feature on denim and diamonds (big next season: you heard it here first folks), hundreds of hats, a wall dedicated to Manolo's, an entire section of floor space devoted to the red soles of Louboutin, belts, gloves, even some fur coats and a cupboard for beauty products bigger than my kitchen. Lisa also got the heads of each department to explain to me what they do and how they do it and show me what they were working on, which was so interesting and quite exciting. I loved seeing the ideas for a feature based on the statues on fifth avenue take shape and develop, and it's so cool to think that it will appear as a fully fledged feature in a few months time, but that I've already seen it. I'm in the know, me, what can I say. I also saw how much putting together the magazine is like piecing together a puzzle. My head hurt a little bit afterwards. But ohh it was so exciting, I loved it!! I felt so like I was actually a part of the magazine and I was all like, ooh I think I can see myself here, in this environment, as a career. Certainly, the features and editorial is something I would love to do, although I am aware that I'll have to do soooo much work to be able to do anything like that.
I do think it's unfair the way the fashion magazine industry is portrayed; it's run by smart, intelligent individuals who have to work hard and think hard. It's not about matching a bag to a coat and it's not run by shallow people obsessed with clothes and being thin and it isn't like 'The Devil Wears Prada'. *Rant over* Ahem. Sorry about that, I'll sit back down now...

My tour ended at 4.45 on the dot and I was suddenly like waaaa this means I'm leaving for the last time! I wouldn't tell Lisa I'd see her tomorrow and I'd never hurtle down the 25 floors so fast that my tummy flipped again. It was all very emosh. No really.
Lisa gave me a card and an absurdly heavy wrapped present and a hug, which was sweet. I logged off and shut down my jazzy Mac a final time and, taking a quick snap of the huge 'Bazaar' emblazoned on the imposing glass door of the equally imposing office in which I had just spent two weeks, left Hearst Tower.

I couldn't believe it was all over and that I had actually done that and that it had gone so horribly fast. I'm an emotional wreck (trust me, that is not exaggeration) so it will come as no surprise to those who know me that, as I headed for my daily post work frappe, I had tears emptying themselves down my cheek. They were neither happy tears nor sad tears, just a complete well-of-emotion-tears.

Always good to be in touch with your emotions, I find.
Yes that includes when watching the Pampers ad. You can probably blame the parents for that too, actually.

Last Times

omg I'm so sad. To think that this is the last time that I'll walk down Eighth Avenue to work and stop off for my fruit salad and coffee; that this is the last time I'll use my visitor card to get into Hearst Tower; the last time I'll tell the doorman to have a nice day; the last time that I'll be corrected for calling 'beets' 'beetroot' whilst ordering my salad at Balduccios; the last time that I'll suddenly catch sight of the view out of the glass walls and be totally awed.

It's so strange; I'm so comfortable here now. In the morning I greet Lisa and settle down at my desk and check my emails, and I know where everything is and how everything works and more or less who everyone is. Compared to the nervous and unsure new girl who arrived last Monday I feel so different!    

I left slightly earlier than normal so that I could buy flowers from the stall near work and Rain and I spent ages last night dithering over what to write in our thank you cards. Lisa was so sweet when I gave it all to her; all 'Ohh don't be silly you didn't have to!' and gave me a hug. I really like her, she's laid back and cool but also really on everything so she should be intimidating, but she's not, she's really sweet and has made this whole experience so worthwhile and fun for me when it could easily have been awful. 

Today her friend came in to show her some clothes from her resort collection from a design called Isola Isabella and she let me sit in. It was so exciting and they were all lovely! 

She lives on a boat because her and her husband sail those massive yachts that rich people hire out, so she's sailed the world. I'm pretty sure I'm not describing this properly, but her life sounded so exciting! I now want to go  on a boat to track wales for six weeks straight after university and then basically never get off. What a way to see the world! We had quite a long chat about my trip round Europe, with Rome apparently being her favourite city after New York. 

So her designs stemmed from watching women on these yachts and what they pack and what they actually wear, and how 'vacation' clothes need to work better. Apparently, the idea was not just 'beach to bar or day to night, but day to night and then home too'. So all the clothes were beautiful blues and corals and pinks, inspired by the cobbled streets and roof tiles of Italy, all in gorgeously soft silk fabrics. I'm not a fashion writer so I don't know how to properly describe the beautiful draping of the skirts or the perfect pleats of the silk drawstring waist shorts or the high necked low scoop back blouse which perfectly fulfilled my backless garment fantasies, but trust me, they were lovely. Lisa put on a blue maxi with a waterfall skirt over her clothes and then just kept it on for the rest of the meeting, which I loved. And I wanted to steal the silk shorts, they were so impractical and lovely that I just adored them. Thankfully, I didn't need to steal anything. They gave me a lilac silk 'romper' (which I thiiiink means playsuit) that Lisa said I had to take because I would look super cute in it and it would brighten up rainy London. And after that reasoning, how could I refuse. I'm so excited to try it on! 

Rain and Roz go to the Zoo.

We woke up gloriously late after our night of live music and disrupted subways.

I once again headed to Central Park - how can I resist its charm when it's just thirty seconds from my door and the weather is so glorious?! - and sat in the dappled shade listening to the jazz of two buskers. A little girl and her dad danced in front of them.

There is a lot of dancing in this crazy city.

The endless stream of cyclists, runners, skaters and even the occasional horse and cart swept along below me.

I read a book and applied suntan lotion. It was perfect. Again.

And THEN we went to Central Park Zoo. Jump up and down in excitement on my behalf y'all! I certainly know one person who will be very jealous.

There was a bit of a queue, but we were determined to go, so we stuck it out, and it really didn't take very long. Plus, the price of an adult ticket is only $12, which we were very pleasantly surprised by.

It's actually quite small and there are no lions. NO LIONS. However, I got over this when I saw the polar bear. omg excitement. It was huge and much yellower than I expected and very sleepy. The snow leopard turned into The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Snow Leopard which, don't panic, is a lot less dramatic than it sounds; we couldn't see it, there were some grumpy children and one growling fat man threatening to sue but it hadn't actually escaped. The penguins smelt very fishy but waddle in such self important manner that I just find them hilarious. The red faced and red bottomed baboons were so funny and human like that we watched them for hours, as they fought and played and groomed. The reptile house and bug world was seriously creepy, although the giant green frog and inflated toad made me wish other people were here already and every single furry animal and fluffy face made me miss my dog, despite not actually looking anything like the old fat border terrier he is. The sea lion show was very clever, with Frisbee throwing, ball catching, somersault practising sea lions reigniting my childhood ambition of being a zoo keeper all over again. I thiiink you might need, like, a PHD in biology but a Biology AS Level is basically the same, right...?

After we'd seen all the animals and watched the sea lion show, we sat in front of their pool on the steps in the centre of the zoo, surrounded by the trees of Central Park, the beautiful apartments of Fifth Avenue and the skyscrapers of the city. We could even see Hearst tower, probably my very floor, from where we sat watching the sea lions gracefully swim through the water and emerge, jumping onto the rocks, showing off as they splashed and clapped.

We got really into the sea lions actually, clapping along with the toddlers every time that they leaped out of the water. We learnt all about the difference between them and seals (unlike seals they have external ear flaps and their front flippers can support their body weight. Total fact of the day right there. Aren't you glad you bothered reading this just for that titbit of information?? Impress all your friends with your sea lion knowledge!) and practically started naming them.

At that point we decided to make a move back to the park.

So we returned to our fave place in NYC; Central Park and did some more lounging, people watching, outfit critiquing, polite head shaking when approached by beggars/a man selling his poetry in the afternoon sun.

We made plans for the upcoming week, in order to squeeze the most out of our remaining time in New York.

Oh if you could hear our plans...

I'll fill you in as we do them, don't you worry!

Thunderstorm in NYC

Everything New York City does is crazy.
From the garishly beautiful bright lights of Times Square to the young man with sunglasses and a jaunty hat who serenaded me with his guitar whilst I ate my lunch today, through to the size of all their portions to the clash of cultures in peaceful harmony in East Village and the flow of aggressive creativity in Brooklyn, everything that goes on in NYC edges towards the extreme and mildly insane.

I am constantly surprised by the craziness of the city, and the way in which it is like no where else I have ever been. Everyone says it, but it is so true; New York can't really be described and the first time you visit is certainly special.

So of course, when it rains in NYC it clearly doesn't just rain.
Today the oppressive heat was (partly) broken by the biggest thunderstorm I have ever seen. From the 25th floor of Hearst Tower I watched it rage over the city, with strikes of lightning scarring the skyline with graphic intensity. It was terrifying, but also one of the most amazing things I've seen in New York so far.
It wasn't just the strength of the storm that made it incredible, although that really was extraordinary, but also how long it went on for. It started about an hour after I returned from lunch, and was still raging by the time I walked home. I love how extreme weather makes people come together, even in New York, where they're used to extremes. I looked after the bags of a highly groomed woman in the shelter of Hearst Tower whilst she ran to see if her car had arrived, and laughed with a young black man who caught my eye as we both cursed our wet feet after wading through an ankle deep puddle of warm water in order to cross the road, and chatted happily with a German girl who was querying her choice of white top which had turned entirely see through in the wet.
As ever, it felt just like a film.

The rain made me feel slightly at home, but, as ever, New York did it better; the sudden extravagance and magnitude of the storm's rage can hardly compare to the moderate dampness of London drizzle...

New York

New York is fabulous! Driving from the airport was so amazing, it was like the opening of every Jennifer Anniston film ever. In fact, everything is like being on the set of a film. Sitting in the late afternoon sun in Central Park yesterday I kept expecting Serena van der Woodsen strolling through.
And when we drove over Brooklyn Bridge the city just hit us, just how the credits always make it look.
We went to Times Square last night and it's insane. It's such an assault on the senses I couldn't really take it all in... The smells and the lights and the noise and all the millions of people and the traffic and... Not even being born and raised a London girl can compare you for this.

At the moment we're staying in this really cool part of town in Upper West side - lots of boys in caps, card games outside apartment blocks and old people Spanish dancing in the street (all in the stifling night heat).

We've semi worked out the subway (which is way more complex than it looks!) but the whole street/avenue system is amazing; you can literally never get lost! I'm about to go and do a trial of my subway ride to Hurst Tower for tomorrow (eek!!) and then we'll do an open top bus tour (spiritual home, obvs).

I'm so excited to get out and going, so for now, that's all folks!

'Have a nice day'