Baking with Todd

Todd and I took a baking class together at the school this morning, called Best Ever Breakfast Baking. We had such a good time and made some delicious breakfast treats - cheddar cheese biscuits, cinnamon raisin pecan sticky buns, chocolate chocolate chunk scones and bacon scallion skillet cornbread. As always, the instructor was great and we met some really nice people. We boxed up our leftover treats and gave them to the staff here at the apartment building. It's rainy here today so it was the perfect way to spend the day.

Some Important Lists

Well, with less than a month left in NYC, I decided to make a list of the things that I miss most about NC and CAN'T WAIT to get back to. And... this is in the order that makes the best sense to me at this minute.
1. Family/Friends/Dogs
2. Our Home
3. Fewer expenses!
4. Real Grocery Stores
5. All of my kitchen tools, spices and cooking space
6. Trees, Grass, Nature
7. Our garden
8. My Car (blessing or not?)
9. The less-than-$10-cocktail
10. The mall
11. Good old southern hospitality
12. Durham city water
13. Foster's market
14. Our high-pressure shower head
15. Karaoke machine!
16. Biking in relative safety
17. Washer/Dryer in the house!
18. A YARD!
19. Target
20. Tarheel fans
21. The ice cream maker

And, here is a list of the things I'll hate to leave behind:

1. My new friends in NYC
2. Great restaurants/bakeries
3. The subway!!!
4. Lots of going out options
5. Being able to walk anywhere
6. Gym in my building
7. Views of the NY skyline, especially at night
8. real pizzerias
9. Thick Brooklyn accents
10. Great Adventure
11. Rodeo Bar
12. Free daily newspapers

Finally, here is a list of the things I will NOT miss about New York:
1. Smells in the subway station
2. BAD customer service
3. Expensive dinners and drinks
4. "Bottle service"
5. Yeah, yeah, yeah
6. Carrying bags of groceries home
7. Crazy drivers

I might update this again, but for now, it's pretty complete. I think... :)

More Cape Cod Pics

I should have probably uploaded these to an official photo-sharing site! Oh well! These are three more whale pics and then a picture of the little lobster shack where I had my favorite Cape Cod meal (fish and chips!) and lastly Todd with a little dog named Stella who was hanging out at her owner's store. How cute!

Weekend in Cape Cod

I had a long weekend off last week (Friday through Monday), so Todd took 2 days off work and we went away to Cape Cod. We stayed in Provincetown, a charming town at the tip of the cape. We had reservations at a quaint little inn and tickets to go whale watching on Saturday morning. We left NYC early-ish on Friday morning, caught the train to Greenwich, CT, where we picked up my friend Gabriela's car. Thanks to her, we actually were able to do this trip without having to rent! Yay! It took us a solid 5 hours drive from Greenwich and we arrived in P-town around 5:30 pm. We checked in and set out for some dinner and to check the place out. We had a nice seafood (the fish is so fresh!) dinner at a restaurant called BUBELAH'S (I thought of you, Evie). Excellent and we ate outside, which I always love. Now, for those of you who don't know, Provincetown is probably the USA's largest drag queen community, especially for such a TINY town. The queens were out, even before dark, riding around on their bicycles, tossing their feather boas about. We managed to resist the drag show on Friday night, settling instead for just walking around town and early night to bed. We got up for breakfast on Saturday, then headed out to the pier to catch our whale-watching boat. The whale trip was amazing! We saw over 20-30 whales, mostly humpbacks, but we did also see a Fin Whale and some Mincke Whales. The humpbacks are HUGE, and they get so close to the boat. Many of you might already know this, but humpback whales do not have any teeth at all, they feed using filters on their mouths called "baleens." Basically, they just open their huge mouths (the size of a large hottub or small swimming pool), let a bunch of water and other stuff in, then close their mouths and push the sea water out through the small holes in the baleen, which are large enough to let water get out, but fish and small eels and plankton get stuck in and become food. Since they are such huge animals (80 feet or so for full grown), the obviously must eat a lot. And, since they breathe air, they have to come up quite often. This all means that we had a VERY successful whale watching trip. It took us about an hour's trip out into the ocean, then we watched for about an hour, then an hour back. It was one of the more incredible experiences of my life and I LOVED it! When we got back, we had lunch at this place on the dock, then went back to the inn for A NAP. Does anyone out there know ME to take a nap? Well, I did. And it was great. We napped for a few hours, then out on the town. We ended up bypassing the "Naked Boys Singing" show for one that was a little more family friendly, the lovely Cashetta (America's only drag queen musician). She was pretty good and we had a fun time. When in Rome, right? On Sunday, we did a little historical sightseeing and climbed the Pilgrim Monument and went to the museum. Did you know that the pilgrims actually arrived FIRST in Provincetown? The climb was great exercise, just enough to get us ready for our next nap. I know it's hard to believe, but I did take another nap! WOW! Sunday night we drove into Wellfleet (a slightly larger town about 20 minutes inland) for dinner at Moby Dick's and then the drive-in movies! We saw Ratatouille - great, fun movie and it was very cool to go to my first drive in (that I remember, anyway). We had to get up pretty early on Monday to get the car back and we spent almost all day on the road - it was rainy and yukky.
Back to work on T/W/Th at the restaurant. I will fill you all in on the details later, but know that I am learning a lot and definitely being challenged! Hope you all had a wonderful week and weekend!

I can't keep silent!

It's been a hectic few days since I started my externship in full swing. I have been working long hours and not taking any pictures, but I do have a few pieces of random news bits and a few photos.

1. The other night, Todd and I went to dinner in the East Village (to a place called Candela Candela - don't ever go there), but the point of this story is that we were walking down the road and saw a motorcycle get sideswiped by a cab. It was terrible! Tires squealing, people flying in all directions. The cabbie was trying to pull to the curb, I guess to pick someone up, and failed to see that there was a motorcycle behind him to his right, and just knocked them right off. Knocked the bike to the ground. I ran over there, wishing I was driving an ambulance, because all the EMT training in the world doesn't help when you need an ambulance. Thankfully, both of the people on the motorcycle were fine, although I'm sure a bit bruised and scared and the cab driver was stunned. He sat in his car and couldn't even move to get out. I think he was terrified. Hopefully he will drive a little more carefully.

2. The other Heidi ("TOH") had her baby!!! Isaac Edward Bell was born on July 11th, just one day before yours truly. He's adorable. I'm going to post his picture here. He is a beautiful, perfect little baby.



3. I went to a graduation party for a friend of mine from school (Angela). Here she is with her dad at his restaurant. Although the party was a graduation, and it was held at an Italian restaurant, guess what the theme was?? Yes, LUAU! We had great fun!





4. I also got to visit with my college roommate and dear friend Cheryl on Monday. We had the most wonderful time and here are some pictures of her sweet little kids. I love them and they love me!!!