Troy Reunion: Lindsay's stay at Colleen's

So honestly, I think that Colleen should be writing this blog about how much she loved my stay in Troy last week. But she's off making Paninis (you'd think that she would have had enough of that at Panera Bread). Actually, I'm not sure if she actually made the bread at Panera. I'm pretty sure she's a super lame cashier who only asked if people wanted apples or chips with that. And then the customer would think she was offering them apple chips and say yes. Awkward.
Now would have been a good time to  have an embarrassingly awesome picture of Colleen in some sort of Panera Bread uni. with a name tag that says Rachel or Katie or something (she didn't want people to know her name). I'm pretty sure it said Katie.

So this is how I showed up at Colleen's place. Not really. I had a lot more bags. A lot more. This was just my groceries that did not go in the fridge.

At least I got a grand welcome. Colleen was super psyched to have me staying with her, just like old times. Her roommates were equally excited, but they were not there with a big sign and a super warm welcome, as they were both still at home. Too cool. Throughout the week, they definitely loved having me there at random points throughout the day. I think I was there more than they were. Liz and Lindsay were super nice for letting me sleep on the couch, and they hardly ever asked when I was going to leave their place and head back to the lofts.

Want to know who else came by right when I got to Troy 131. Or is it 138? Or 130? I don't know. I am hoping that by guessing three numbers in the 130s that I finally got it right at some point. Anyway, Mike brought us some carrot cake, that was affectionately called by Colleen as "dead cat cake." I hope Mike doesn't read this, because his neighbor gave him the awesome carrot cake that she made with homemade cream cheese frosting. So good. I did not go a day without eating it. Anyway, Colleen hates animals and is not at all sensitive to dying cats. Horrible. If you are a vet or a beloved member of PETA, then stay away from Colleen. She will offend you. She drew a picture of my dead chameleon John on a beer pong table with x's for eyes. He was my first pet. RIP dead pets. But let's get real. PETA is kind of crazy, and is taking the whole animal protection thing WAY too far.

On to the next part of the my first night there. This again involved Mike, and we also added Keely to the mix. We went to the basketball game against UCLA. Now, if any non-reader of our blog (which let's face it, is most people) asks me how that game went, I will be chalk-full of stories about how it was so close in the middle and a UCLA guy next to me got thrown out. That is not what happened. Having only been to a couple of games collectively, we failed to find the correct entrance to the game. We were already showing up after half time, which was pretty embarrassing. The bag checkers glared at us, because they had to come back outside to let us in and make sure we weren't trying to bomb the place. We did not know why they were looking at us that way. We figured it out when we found our seats. There were only two minutes left in the game. My analysis of the game: there were a lot of fouls, so that the Bruins could attempt to get back on top. They failed. We won. Time to go home. It was hot in the Galen Center.
Special thanks to Liz, Lindsay and Coll for letting me stay the week. I would return the favor any day. :) Please someone, yell at Ted so she starts blogging more. This is embarrassing.

Lindsay's stay in New York

So, considering this is a blog for travels, mainly of our future time in Prague, I will start by describing my experience in New York. This was not my first time staying with Colleen, her parents, siblings and nana, but it was my first time staying there when it was winter.

 The first night did not go well. I was cold, and by the time we arrived at Colleen's house in the fake Orange County, all of my clothes that had been in the trunk for the entire ride from JFK were freezing when I went to put them on. My slippers really helped me out that first night, and so did my awesome Amsterdam hat. Yes, I am also wearing my Northface. In short, I was cold.
Luckily, after that day, I started to warm up. Let's just say I'm not used to having to dry my hair before going out the doors. I normally use my car heater as a hair dryer, but oh well. I got outside to catch the train, and it was ridiculous. The air was definitely not a good hair dryer, and we almost missed our train each day, because I am super lame and can not get up and get ready on time. But who can wake up with Dunkin' Donut's coffee? I hate that stuff. All the creamer in the world will not make it good. And I'm not making fun of the east coast and their coffee. I am a big Dean and Deluca fan, and I also love Tim Horton's. Apparently Dunkin' should stick to the donuts, although I've never tried one.
The first day we went to Rockefeller Center and saw the big tree. Colleen, her family, especially nana, were very hospitable. It was cool to do some of the wintery things that I had never done. But the absolute best things that happened were as follows: lunch at Wohops with James, picture time in FAO Schwartz, finding our way through Central Park even though we never thought we'd make it to the other side and going to the Met. Although, what is the Met if the roof is not open? Pretty lame. We also got to see Kathy Lee, which I think that Mike was the most excited about, even though he was not even there. Awkward.

But nothing says New York style like a James Hurley dinner party. This dinner party did not have a jazz swing band and wine, which was a little bit upsetting, but it did include a French press for our coffee and tea at the end of our meal. It was good catching up with James and Kelly, who joined us finally, and I also got to meet Colleen's friend Kate. This has been especially great, because Colleen still thinks it is really weird that I know most of her friends at home. Unrelated to friends at home, Kelly finally joined us at the end of the week, and we watched Black Swan. If you are for some reason still reading this fairly dry post and have not seen Black Swan, go see it. It is especially fun to see this film at the theatre in the fake Orange County where Colleen lives. This mall that has the theatre in it was supposed to be the big hang out place for all Goshen residents, etc. But there were like five people in the whole theatre, not including us, and its not like we went there on a weekday. This was a Friday. Apparently everyone in Goshen has turned 21 and were out at the bars and not seeing the great soon-to-be-Oscar-nominated films that were playing at the lovely movie theatre. Such a tragedy.

The person who had the grandest time near grand central? That would be Kimmy. We took her for her first time in the city (even though she has lived in New York for 21 years). "I'm like a kid in a candy store, but the candy store is just really huge," said Kimmy as we drove into the city, singing to Aerosmith's Don't Want to Miss a Thing (okay, Kimmy and I were the only ones singing).  Her favorite part about the so-called "Big Apple," being not in, but next to Madison Square Garden, where she took a picture next to a Ranger's player who's name I don't know and never will. Her biggest disappointment? The tree. Apparently she expected it to be bigger. Best find? Miss Kimmy, my supposed buddy who abandoned me to do a lot of shopping at American Eagle and Forever 21, bought so much stuff, that I can't even tell you what her favorite thing was that she bought. Fashionista. Enough said. Weirdest thing that Kimmy did? She bought a hot dog instead of a burger at the Shake Shack. Awkward. We enjoyed our Shake Shack on the floor at the Port Authority Bus Depot. Classy, and a great way to end my ridiculously long and not at all witty post. Hope someone read it. More to come, and maybe we will get Colleen's even more boring perspective of my trip, if we ask really nicely. :)

Clearly we didn't save the best for last

Lindsay Marie Berg is also from Orange County, except it is the fake and less cool one located in Southern California. Although you may think that you know what the OC is like through such television gems as The OC and The Real Housewives of Orange County, Lindsay defies these expectations. She hates the beach and does not even know how to golf. She is blonde though, so I guess that’s something.

Although Lindsay is not very good at golf, she enjoys watching a vast array of movies and television shows that have been organized into a very efficient cataloguing system by her mom. Her favorite movie is American Beauty, although no one is quite sure why. I’m pretty sure Kevin Spacey is in it, although maybe it’s Kevin Bacon, so that could be a possible reason. She also owns and has seen every episode of Friends, and especially loves that episode when Joey gives Chandler a really ugly watch. And the one when Joey has fake children. She has also been known to occasionally watch episodes of Undercover Boss and weep uncontrollably.

 

Lindsay’s dream is to come up with some brilliant innovation that will make her an instant billionaire so that she can travel the world and have luxurious vacation houses in various places around the globe, including New York City, San Francisco, Spain, and Greece, to name a few. Although these may seem like lofty aspirations, I’m pretty confident that this will actually happen. When it does, I will “house sit” all of her various homes on my vacations.

After Lindsay is bored traveling the globe or when her money runs out, she plans on settling down and becoming an old woman actress, similar to that creepy old lady at the beginning of Shutter Island.

In summation, Lindsay is a pretty epic person. Although she will probably not cook for you and should never ever be put in charge of making instant mashed potatoes, she is an amazing friend and definitely a person whom you should get to know if you don’t already.

Hey girl, hey!

So, since its not time for us to go to Prague yet, we thought that we would introduce ourselves and post a little bit about our times in NYC. Well, I did, but Colleen is a failure who is too lazy to write her own little intro post. The only condition was I wasn't supposed to be mean. Whoops. Fail. Awkward.
Anyway, without further ado, intros (even though everyone knows us).

TED
I thought that I would save the best for last, so that means we are starting with Colleen aka Ted, even though no one ever calls her that, unless they're talking about us as a duo. Tsk, tsk Pescey.

Colleen is from the fake Orange County in New York. LAME. If you're sitting there wondering to yourself, where the hell is that? I wondered the same thing. She would like to classify it as the place where Snooki is from. Also, Orange County Choppers is in Orange County, New York. Go figure.

Anyway, good things about Teddy. She is a big fan of studying, but she breaks it up with study raves and Irish car bombs. She is a tank when it comes to power hours, but she has never tried a lumber jack challenge, which she should probably do at some point. She's in PAD (the law frat) and is taking the LSAT in June. Her favorite line in Diddy Dirty Money's Coming Home is "its easy being puff, but its harder being Sean." She is also a big fan of not being fancy and just getting dancy.

I know what you're thinking. Colleen sounds like a great girl, but she does have a flaw. Movie taste. First off, who's favorite movie is Cheaper by the Dozen? I mean, sure the little girl plays lacrosse, but that doesn't mean its favorite movie material. One of her other favorite movies is Miracle (minus the Patty parts), and she constantly wants to watch it, even if its not to play a drinking game. This I don't get. She watches Apollo 13 every New Years Eve and assigns characters to each of her family members. Nana does not get a character. I find this ageist.

This seems like a grand spot to leave off. I think I might let her write my bio, because I think this falls under the super mean category.  But her and her brother don't understand Inception. Problem. But seriously, she's awesome.