Phone Diary: Fall Semester

The fall semester of my junior year has finally come to a close. It was definitely a difficult, busy, and stressful semester, and I'm honestly glad that it's over. There were still some good parts though: fall in the city (my favorite season), lots of good theater, seeing one of my favorite bands (the Head and the Heart) on my birthday, a couple of nice trips home, and a trip to London (coming soon to the blog).

West Village

Portraits of Claire and Matti, from a very hot summer day in the West Village.

Phone Diary: Traveling in Europe

While studying abroad in London for the spring semester, I traveled quite a bit. Prior to my semester abroad, I had never left the United States, so getting to visit several European cities was extremely exciting for me. I had a huge list of places to visit and managed to get to seven cities. My travel list is still really long, but I did get to visit some really beautiful and fun places over those four months. Along with the thousands of photos taken on my camera, I took so, so many photos on my phone. I could only post a fraction of them on instagram, of course, so here is my phone diary of my travels around Europe!

Meena + Whitney Museum

I moved out of my dorm and went home to Virginia last December, because I was going to London for the spring semester and leaving in January. Still, I couldn't stay away from New York for long. Meena and I went up to New York for a few days in mid-January. It was absolutely freezing, but we still ran around the city going to Soho and Little Italy, two plays (Noises Off and King Charles III), and the Whitney Museum, which is one of my favorite museums.

Fall in Central Park

Last Friday I took a much needed break from nonstop essays and school and work, and texted my friend Kelsey last minute to see if she wanted to go take some pictures. We went up to Central Park before the leaves were gone and caught some golden hour light as well.

Phone Diary: London

If you've talked to me any time in the last six months, you definitely know that I miss London. I really miss London. As much as I love New York, I keep thinking (and talking) about London, remembering days there, going through my many photos, and wishing I had been there for more time. So I'm making another blog post (maybe these blog posts will end one day) out of the many photos I took during my semester there, as I took a ridiculous number of photos on my phone. While I did not always have my camera with me, I had my phone when I went to museums and tourist spots, walked to class and shows and shops, and explored cute little streets and the many parks as the weather warmed up.

Summer in Review

As I'm in the middle of the painful weeks of midterms, I've been thinking about how this summer was pretty great. I spent the summer in New York for the first time, so this was the first time I lived here without the schedules and pressures of college. I interned at a public relations firm, which included working at this year's Drama Desk Awards, 54 Below, and Broadway in Bryant Park. In my free time, I went to museums, bookstores, parks, baseball games, and lots and lots of shows. I baked lots of desserts and read a bunch of books and watched a probably embarrassing amount of TV... and took many, many photos on my phone while running around the city. So this is a phone diary of my summer: parks and theatre and museums, streets and desserts and the views from my dorm, plus a few glimpses of home and DC. More photos on my instagram!

Rome

The last main leg of our trip was Rome! The big, busy, and crowded city was a shift from Florence and Venice, but we still loved it. Plus, the weather was amazing - so sunny and very warm. We also walked so many miles each day, so I suppose it made all that pasta, pizza, and gelato okay. Our long weekend in Rome was spent exploring the ancient Roman sites, Vatican City, and beautiful old churches, as well as walking around the squares and twisting streets.

Florence

The second stop of my spring break in Italy was Florence. After taking an early morning train from Venice to Florence, we figured out how to buy bus tickets and get to our airbnb on a nice quiet street... with some difficulty. But then we headed back out to check out the city (and eat pasta and my daily gelato).

Venice

My roommate Kristen and I decided to go to Italy during our spring break, escaping the London winter that was stubbornly hanging on as we approached April and heading to a country with weather that was increasingly warm and sunny with each city we went to. We spent the whole break - 10 days - in Italy so we had plenty of time to explore and enjoy our time there. The first part of our trip was three days in Venice, a place I had been dying to visit for years. After a 3:30 am cab ride to the train station and a 6 am flight from Stansted, we took the bus from the airport to our Airbnb, and then, finally, got on a bus to cross the water. When we got off the bus, we stood beside a canal with Venice's narrow and twisting streets ahead of us, water taxis and gondolas cruising down the canals, and crowds of people crossing the bridges and pushing down the sidewalks.

Emma

Near the end of our semester in London, I took some photos of Emma, a friend from my art history class, on a beautiful spring day. We swapped our usual museums for some of the streets and parks of central London, meeting in Piccadilly Circus, walking up Regent Street, wandering through St James's Park, and ending up at Buckingham Palace and Green Park.

Dumbo

A summer day in Brooklyn with wonderful friends from high school. After a flea market and smorgasburg in Williamsburg, we walked all the way to Dumbo.

Snapshots

Slowly but surely finishing up my posts from my semester abroad... I took so many photos that I have a bunch of miscellaneous snapshots from day trips in England and some time out in London.

Last Day in London

I kind of can't believe that it has been almost two months since this last day in London. After my last final exam, I decided to go walk around and take pictures for the last time, starting with St. Pauls and ending with the Sky Garden (again).

Prague

My last trip while in London was a weekend trip to Prague with two of my roommates. We didn't really plan very much and had a lot of free time, so we spent most of the weekend wandering around, taking photos, and enjoying all of the sun and flowers after weeks of London stubbornly refusing springtime. I loved Prague - it was so beautiful, I immediately loved the architecture, the weather was perfect, and it was a good place to have a more relaxing, less busy trip for the end of our semester. Plus, because this was our last trip, big thank you to Claire and Matti (and Kristen) for letting me take a million pictures of you and dealing with my need to photograph everything over the course of the semester.

Last Saturday in London

On my last Saturday in London, with less than a week left in England (already a month ago!), I couldn't help but set aside the afternoon to do something fun, despite the final essays I needed to write and the final exams I needed to study for. I spent the afternoon walking around the city by myself, going to a museum, and taking photos of the city in spring. I love the pretty and cute little streets of London, with houses covered in wisteria and painted a bright color, and I took a million photos of those charming streets and buildings over the course of the semester. Can I go back and live on one of those streets?

Harry Potter Studio Tour

I love, love, love Harry Potter, so of course I had to go to the Harry Potter Studio Tour. One of my roommates and I took the train out of London to the studio tour, which is housed in part of Leavesden Studios. Once you get inside and past the introduction video from the cast and crew, you can see the sets and props used in the filming of the Harry Potter movies. Very exciting for this big Harry Potter fan.

Edinburgh

One weekend in April, I walked to Kings Cross Station and took a train up to Edinburgh for a weekend trip on my own. After four and a half hours of the English countryside flying by, the Scottish coast came into sight and I arrived in Edinburgh. I spent the next day and a half walking around the city and taking several hundred photos of the old buildings and streets. It was a nice weekend to be in Edinburgh, and I loved the city.

London + Meena

After leaving Berlin, we came back to London for the rest of Meena's visit. Lots of museums, theater, food, and photos followed.

Berlin

Meena came to visit me in London for her spring break... and we actually decided to spend the first few days of that time in Germany! I met her at Heathrow and we headed to Berlin for three days.

Paris

My first trip out of the UK was a weekend in Paris last month. We spent the weekend going to the Eiffel Tower, exploring museums, visiting churches, and eating lots of bread and cheese. It was a really fun trip, and I liked Paris a lot, despite being really awkward about my terrible French, not much of which came back to me. I'll actually be back for another weekend in April, because I have many more things I wanted to do (like visiting Versailles), and I hope to have better weather then so I can go to the gardens and enjoy a sunnier, warmer Paris as well.

White Cliffs of Dover

Last week we spent the day in Dover! We toured Dover Castle first, and then went over to the white cliffs. My friends and I spent an hour walking around, trying to get to the best vantage points. The cliffs were beautiful, and luckily we had pretty good weather to be out there. At one point during the day it was also clear enough to just make out France across the channel.

I wish we could have spent more time there!

Oxford

A few weeks ago, I went on a day trip to Oxford. The university is beautiful and the town was lovely. I can't imagine going to school every day on a campus like Oxford's. I love the small streets between colleges and the old college buildings that are far older than any of our academic buildings at NYU. It was fun to wander around Oxford for the day with some friends.

Our tour guide first took us on a tour of Balliol College, giving us a bit of history of the college and Oxford in general. The annoying and distracting part was that our tour guide kept comparing everything to Harry Potter... We have dining halls too (though they certainly aren't as old and pretty).