Astoria: Week One

I've been in Astoria for a week now and it still doesn't feel like this is where I'm living yet. It feels like I'm just visiting friends but it's comfortable. It took awhile to get the apartment together but with help from Scott's parents everything really came together. There are only a few boxes left in one corner of the apartment that need to be emptied and find a place for, which does not exist yet. The last piece of furniture needed, for now at least, is a desk. Which, like just about every other piece of furniture will be a hand-me-down. Don't get me wrong, I do not mind at all. I like the fact that my apartment has an array of furniture collected from different people, it gives the apartment some character. 

I don't feel like I'm living in the city when I'm home though. It's such a quiet neighborhood, until the train goes by, but there aren't too many cars that go past and not too many people that walk down our road. I'm so glad for that! It feels nice to know that if I need something from the store I don't necessarily have to drive, I can walk ten minutes and be on a busy road with a bunch of different stores and restaurants. I also have Astoria park right down the road, which is beautiful and safe. 

The first day I was here I walked to the little corner market right by the park,Parkside Market, I got myself an egg sandwich and sat on one of the benches by the water. It was really, very cold that day but it felt so nice to be outside, to walk around, and enjoy nature.

The first weekend in Astoria was filled with visitors. Scott's parents came on Saturday, helped us really pull the apartment together by hanging pictures and getting everything for the kitchen out of boxes. Saturday afternoon Aunt Jean and Uncle Jim came over for dinner so Fran, Jean and I went to the thrift store and an antique furniture store, Nook and Crannie where we found our bookshelf! Jim went to one of the greek restaurants, Telly's Taverna, and ordered a delicious spread of food. We had champagne and wine and enjoy our first guests! That evening Tom, Scott and I went out to watch the football game and have some drinks, we stopped at Mugshots. We will not be returning there, the bar didn't have a keg line and it smelt like backed up sewage, gross! We finished our drinks and headed over to Ditmars Stations bar & restaurant. I believe this is a fairly new place, everything was so nice and clean. We ordered some nachos, had some more drinks and headed back to the apartment. Tom went to bed while Scott and I headed over to Tyler and Mandy's place. 

Sunday morning Fran and I took a walk to Parkside Market for milk and tried to walk around the park a little bit but the wind was bitterly cold. My parents got in around 10:30 for a 11:30 reservation for brunch at Bear with Scott, myself, Fran, Tom, Tyler, Mandy, and Ben. I thought brunch was pretty good, the bloody mary's were probably the best part. They were really good bloody mary's except it was missing the horseradish! 
On Monday, Aunt Sheila, Uncle Harry, Morgan and Harrison came over. They brought left overs with them, since we didn't have any food! We took a nice, long walk in the whole park. We walked over to the pool, the skate park and walked along the river on the way back. When we got back to the apartment we played this random fishing board game, heated up some left overs and then of course it was time for wine! Scott's friend Ben came over to check out our new place, ended up having left overs and apple pie with us. Aunt Sheila, Harry and the kids hit the road and some more friends came by and we went out to The Break Bar, which has a bunch of pool tables, air hockey and ping pong! Really cool place!

The rest of the week was spent organizing and hanging out. Yesterday, Wednesday, my cousin Kaitlin and I met for lunch. She traveled into Astoria from New Jersey, I met her at the subway and we walked over to The Sparrow Tavern. We both had the veggie burger with rosemary, onion, garlic french fries. The burger was good it was in a whole wheat pita but the french fries were so delicious, the little pieces of fried rosemary in there was such a little treat, I love rosemary! After Sparrow, I showed Kaitlin my apartment and went down to Parkside where she got a cup of coffee. We continued to walk down to Crescent & Vine wine bar. I've been to Crescent & Vine many times before, and it was just as great this time around. Kaitlin and I split a bottle of Grenache. We both really enjoyed the wine and the atmosphere. We got there at 5:00 and didn't even realize two and half hours went by when we finished the wine! Crescent & Vine wasn't crowded but it wasn't dead either and we weren't bothered by the bartender, he came over and checked on us when we were finished with the wine but didn't feel pressured to leave. 

Today, I had my first classes at the Brooklyn campus of St. Joe's. My first class, History of Art II, was at 11:10 so I left my apartment at like 9:40 because I didn't want to get stuck on the BQE. I'd rather be really early then being late and panicking. The parking is valet which is amazing although I paid $40 a semester for it, I think it's so worth it. My art history class is really small only like nine people, the professor seems pretty laid back. The second class, Painting I, started at 1:40 so I had some time to walk around and eat lunch. We started painting today, which was cool, really simple assignments. The professor reminds me of an art teacher from high school, Ms. Connolly, who I loved! Hopefully this professor will be like her. I thought this painting class was going to end up costing me a lot of money in supplies but the professor provides us with everything! I was so shocked by that, but I guess when it's a private school that you pay a big buck for, they should be providing those items...if only they would provide the textbooks! The Brooklyn campus is a lot different from Patchogue, it doesn't seem as up-to-date and it's spread out in different building over a few blocks. I've only been in two buildings so far so maybe the other ones will have more technology in them like the Patchogue campus did. The traffic getting to school wasn't too bad although the exit I had to get off at was so congested for a few minutes, seemed like everyone on the BQE was getting off there! Coming home wasn't too bad either, I mean it was congested but I wasn't sitting in traffic forever, I'll take that any day! Tomorrow is my first "early" class, starts at 9:30 so I'll see how the early morning BQE traffic treats me...I'm going to probably leave by 7:45 just to be safe....