closet dunkin' donuts lover....some meaningless rambling

well i just grabbed a few munchkins (donut holes) and a coffee during lunch after eating part of my organic/ vegan meal from the health food place across the street (bell bates). there are so many dunkin donuts' here in nyc (there are actually 5 in my area less than 1 mile away :o). it's like they are calling my name every day i walk by them, and i always resist but today i could not bare it. i gave in and now i sit here as if everyone knows i just stuffed four in my mouth as i rounded the corner back to the office.

no one in the office ever eats them or brings there coffee to the office in the morning, but i have a hunch they are closet donut lovers too! when i got here i went to the bathroom to make sure i had no glaze flecks clinging to my face as evidence, what a pig huh!!!

how i can eat what i ate for lunch then have a wonderfully bad for me donut full of bad for me stuff i am not sure, but here on my blog i am free to profess my love as all my family knows i have a weakness for donuts :)

Sylvia's Soul Food - Harlem

I went with some friends to check out Sylvia's in Harlem today. We had some delicious Soul food. I even met Sylvia herself as I was leaving the restaurant. This is yet another great New York gem. We even had great live music to go with our corn bread, grits, fried cat fish, fried chicken and collard greens....yum yum :)

not to be cynical or anything but this does has some truth to it : )

double click on comic to see bigger and more clear, ahhhhh i love being an architect : )

coffee addict.....

i have been a slow blogger these days as i continue at this crazy new york pace. but i just had to comment this morning about my growing coffee addiction :) today it was coffee from the cuban restaurant as we call it (actually it is called sophie's). good not too strong.

mind you i already had 2 cups at home. i don't know what comes over me but when i am walking from the subway stop to work i have the hardest time resisting buying a cup of coffee. every corner has has another coffee shop. anyway...dad i am sure you are reading this and thinking that hannah, since i know you always hated that i drank so much coffee.

this is one of those random thoughts i am putting down but you can read it or not so that is the beauty of it. i just decided i would record this passing random thought as i sip coffee #3.

in addition to good coffee they have very good cuban food, it's an office favorite but is quite heavy for lunch. see what cuban girl has to say below :)

Posted by cubangirl on 10/24/2005Great Cuban Deal!
This place has the BEST cuban sandwiches I've tasted in a long time. I'm part cuban so when I say this place is good, it's GOOD. Cheap prices, huge portions and authentic cuban food. The restaurant itself is kinda noisy but that's with almost all authentic Latin places. I would def. recommend this place to anyone looking for some good food. Make sure you go there with time though because the sandwich service is kind of slow but well worth it. Delicious maduros (just like Abuela's), rice, and beans, and malta sold for a $1. What more could a person ask for from a place in the city! I would def. go back, without thinking twice about it.

oh yeah forgot to add something about the snow in my last post

i was so excited about my little move i forgot to write about the event of the day . i was sure that i had survived this unusually warm new york winter" as most had told me but....

"For those of you who thought snow would never arrive - you were wrong," deadpanned Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York. In fact, the storm, delivering 26.9 inches, broke New York City's previous record for a single snowfall, 26.4 inches, set in 1947.

this woman walking her dog took this terrible un-flattering photo of me but at least it helps you get the picture : )

moving to the upper east side, snow day and room mates

Well it's been quite eventful since my last entry and here I am exhausted on a Sunday night and just making it to my little neglected blog.

hmm well I am settling into my new place after ending my stay at the "nunnery" as my friend Dana calls it : ) the upper east side is quite different than Chelsea but different in a good way in the sense that it gives me the chance to know another part of the city.

The whole room mate thing is already an experience in itself but at the moment I don't have the energy to rant about how much of a clean freak my room mate is. Yes, I know you are thinking who is Hannah to call anyone a clean freak when I am the one who use to get called "misses clean" by my sister, but this woman beats me out. However, I have decided that there could be a lot worse problems and will just try to go with the flow. I am just happy to have a nice little kitchen to cook breakfast as you can see from the photos: )

we don't quite have the same ideas about decor, but at least there is not too much frilly girly stuff well except our very purple bathroom that has a purple toilet seat cover with a snow man on it to go with it. But really no need to complain the whole situation is a gift from the lord, the price the location everything even the frosty the snowman toilet seat cover is small potatoes in comparison to having all that other stuff right.

hmmm still working

i don't have much to add tonight since my crazy pace is still crazy at work. thanks jen for your comment, yeah this blog is not that interesting when i am not out exploring the city.

you do learn a lot about your co-workers though when you spend 14 hours a day 7 days a week with them. despite the fact that working late and on the weekend is never fun no matter how much you like your job at least i am working with a team of people and by default having 12 people commiserate with you seems much easier than going at a big deadline alone. anyway for that i am thankful.

not to mention lots of free out to eat yummy food. tonight we had take out from this very good vegetarian restaurant called gobo, you can find the link at right. I had some interesting meat substitute thing called setain. It was quite good actually, interesting but good. i feel like I am turning into a big bump on a log though, too much food and no movement. Well there is always next week : )

WORK...WORK..WORK

no time for seeing the city these days : ) only the inside of my office. work is hectic with a big crunch till the 6th so dad you will have to wait for more photos till then. maybe i can snap a pic of all of us workaholics here, but i am not sure how exciting that would be. ok have to get back to drawing my sections here.

Horray for Density! Photo finds of Japan on the net

I ran across a link to this website with these amazing images of Tokyo and other parts of Japan. Here is one of my favorites.

One thing I love about New York is it's density, although it's not quite as intense as this. Anyway, this blog is full of all kinds of thoughts and images not just NYC so I thought I would include a link to these wonderful photo for other viewers pleasure. I hope I can visit Japan some time in the future...... click here to see more pix like this

Welcome to Harlem

(check out the text on the sign just above the mural with Nelson Mandela, it reads "Eat what you want then come see Puppy" in reference to the womens large sizes : )

Harlem Shuffle - some thoughts on yesterdays wonderings

Since I arrived in New York I have been wanting to explore Harlem for obvious reasons, but also to explore the area just north of 125th where the future Columbia University will be. It's difficult for me to imagine this Ivy League school placed among the diversity, history and poverty of this area. I hope it will be a happy marriage....will see in 10 years what the gentrification affects are.

It was great to visit Harlem; it feels so different from other parts of New York City especially those south of Central Park’s north border. In some ways it felt less pretentious in the sense that you don't see anyone walking around with their little dogs dressed in Gucci sweaters or women with huge sunglasses that eclipse half their face. You get the sense that their lives are much different than those of the latter. Rather you hear the sounds of hip hop and Spanish music blaring from the inside of stores, you see more older people, children and colorful run down houses next to soul food restaurants and hair braiding salons. The contrast was refreshing.

WF @ Union SQ. - Post 2

I just thought I would add this photo (click on image to make it larger) I took today, sitting from a similar place that I took the first one I posted earlier. The day started off so gray and it looked like it would rain, but by 5:00 it was a beautiful sunset. The view I get of the Empire State Building is my favorite part of sitting here.

I also found this group of guys just outside the door of WF trying to sell their cd.

Union Squre is so great to visit on nice weather days because the park is packed with people eating and people watching and little stands selling seasonal stuff like apple cider etc.

WF in NYC

For those of you who know my Whole Foods Obsession just thought I would post this pic I took from their Union Square location here in NYC. Not a bad view from your table considering you are eating in a grocery store. Even though there are a million places to eat here WF still has some of the best high quality good for you food that is relatively inexpensive. So that is why I still myself here nearly every weekend for one or two meals : )

A little politics for the day

This post needs no additional text other than this slogan to convey how I feel about bush. I was compelled to add a bit of politics to my blog today after listening to this speech given by Al Gore on MLK Day.

Chelsea Art Galleries

There are about 6 blocks in Chelsea that are full of Art Galleries, one after another more than 50 maybe. Most are free and have a variety of work from sculpture to paintings. I enjoyed walking the blocks from about 19th to 25th between 10th and 11th Ave.

I went with Nadine one of the girls from the Residence here. She is the one in this first picture. The photos I am posting are of the most interesting work I saw in all the galleries. The artist Willie Cole makes these amazing large scale pieces with old shoes, most are womens high heals. Well you just have to see for yourself in the pix to understand and appreciate this very novel use of recycling womens shoes.