Okay, well, I've finally completed my first week here in New York. I'm currently writing this sitting in my 'sub-let' which is actually me just conveniently house-sitting for Clare's friend Manuel for a small fee. This is good, as it gets me out of Clare's way for a week, and also allows me some of my own space. The space is in many ways relieving, but also very very lonely.

The first week was very hard - I was exhausted and lonely and overwhelmed for most of it. And the idea of not having a stable living environment for september was making it worse. However, September seems to be going quickly so far - I don't know if that's because I was busy this weekend or because things are just less shit now that I'm sleeping more or what, but it's great. Anyway this weekend was fun - on Friday night I went out with Clare and Simon and a bunch of their friends to an all you can eat sushi bar - yum! On Saturday we went shopping downtown - window shopping for me, since I can't afford anything, but imagining what I might buy if I had money is entertaining enough for now. It was pissing rain, and so after three hours of wandering around we decided to head back. For dinner we went to a Thai restaurant, which, for Manhattan, is actually pretty cheap - main course for about 12 bucks. We had to run through the rain to get there, and then had to wait an hour and a half for a table, but it was great. During the wait we went to the bar next door where I got to experience my first 'pint' (it's in scarequotes because american pints are TINY) of american beer - blue moon, to be exact. And it was delicious. Apparently Americans CAN actually make nice beer, they just choose not to export it. How greedy! Everyone went out to a brazilian club after dinner but I went home because I was so exhausted. Yesterday we went down to a brazilian street party in little brazil, and then had a nice dinner in, at Clare's, where she made us yummy pizza. This was especially good for me as I had run out of money by this point. Lol.

Today is labour day - which means it's like a bank holiday and so a lot of things are closed. As I am poor and this is my first week of uni, I decided to stay home, read the paper, organize myself, and update the blog. Do let me know how you all are - I look forward to all your comments! (even those that seem to be telling me to keep up my penis...)

Oh, and it looks like I'm definitely flying over for Conor's brother's wedding in January, and so I'm going to be popping over to Edinburgh for a few days around January 7th to 10th or something like that. I can't wait to see you guys again!

Good luck at the pub quiz tonight!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Lisa