New York City in Photographs: My first days

Hey, so I had this really weird thing happen to m... -- I can't blog like this. I'm hungry. You know, what? Let's go to lunch. Anyone want to come with?

Mom did -  Awesome!

 Let's go along East 49th Street and see, what we can find.

Oh, this is a nice pizza place, let's step in. (New York pizza is the greatest :) )

 Let's stop and smell the beautiful flowers. I got some food to go anyway.

Oh wait, I think we got lost. Might as well see Times Square, while we're here.

 You know, what I'm still hungry. Mcdonald's anyone?

I've had such a wonderful day.

 It's surreal, that I have a view like this to come home to.

Well I'm too tired to blog now anyway...;)

Glamorous NYC Life - Ants, Friendly people and A Possible Drug Bust

   Last weekend consisted of two things - cleaning and shopping. There might have been some eating, sleeping, digestion and going to the bathroom etc in between, but you get the picture. The apartment as we got it, was covered in dust. Nothing unsanitary, they took care of those problems before we got there,(The now completely white walls were verging-on gray and apparently there was a big hole in the bathroom ceiling...New hair-curling technique gone terribly wrong? I think so.) but we do have ants walking around in our cupboards. Not the best thing to wake up to on a Saturday morning, I'll tell you that much. But as much as I've asked around, ants seem to be a pretty standard thing in an NYC kitchen.
To our surprise, the kitchen cupboards had other non-living things in it as well. It was generally just expired Asian-looking sauces and about 8 packets of Ramon Noodles and Cup-A-Soups, but there was a substance, which neither me nor my mom could find a name for. It was generally in old coffee pots and had a sort of grain-type powder quality. The color wasn't quite white nor yellow. The only thing that was missing were the gangsters in suits and gold necklaces saying: "Girl, why you messin' with our stash?" (Imagine if there actually were full-grown men cramped together in my kitchen cupboards...)

    The shopping part of the weekend was fun. The clothing prices here are ridiculously cheap compared to Estonia and the choices are immense. Don't get too excited though, because the food on the other hand is very expensive. I mean, if you want to live a life, where you spend your free time shopping and only if you're about to faint, eat a cube of cheese, then NYC is the place for you. (Is that why so many high-fashion models live in New York? Whoa! Apply water to the not-really-the-greatest-burn-I-can't-be-mean-to-save-my-life area.)

    On Monday and Tuesday, I had my United Nations International School orientation. The only thing that stuck with me most was that the people were SUPER FRIENDLY. I have never seen so many kind and talkative people in one place, which is awesome. It seems like the school is very oriented towards making sure that they treat their students as people not grades or test results, without giving us so little to do that we slack around. Seriously, we have a guidance counselor on-call every day to make sure we don't lose it with the workload. The International Baccalaureate Diploma program, which I am doing is quite challenging and rigorous.
I will write about living in the city and the IB program in the next post, so stay tuned! And definitely going to have some photos too. Totally not going to forget my camera or the USB cord or both at home, so I can't put any up next time...We'll see how it goes. As always, my thank you to you for reading - Bye :)

Breif Notes to Self and Others Regarding First Impressions of NYC

1) Everything is so loud. And big. That includes but is not limited to buildings, cars, advertisements, doors, apples etc. (Note to self: Haha, Big Apple. They get the joke. You are a freaking comedic genius.)

2) We need to buy towels. Like. Right now.

I wanted to take a shower this morning - I felt a generally icky feeling regarding my hair and armpits. Only problem was that we didn't take any towels with us. When did I realise this? After I'd already taken my shower? You bet ya! So there I was, left with three choices: 1)Dry off with the relatively clean Olympic Casino towel the previous owner had left us, 2)Use about 2000 Kleenex or 3)Run naked across the busy streets of NYC to dry off. 

I opted for the first option. Now I think I might have AIDS. (I told my mother, who pushed me towards the first option also: "If I get AIDS from this towel, it's your problem." She answered with a very reassuring: "You won't get AIDS from the towel...And if you do it definitely won't be my problem.")

(Disclaimer: You probably can't actually get AIDS from towels.)

3)Everything is sweeter. 

I have no idea, if this is my mind playing tricks on me or if it actually is so, but everything tastes...sweeter, fattier than back home. And also the serving sizes seem to be bigger. I did a quick Google search and as it turns out Coca-cola per example does use different ingredients in different countries. The formula as it is seems to stay the same, but  (as wiseGeek explains it) ''Each bottling company adds water and whatever sweeteners are used for that specific type of coke.'' 

There was a really interesting article on this phenomenon, here's the link: http://www.wisegeek.org/is-the-formula-for-coca-cola-the-same-in-all-countries.htm

(Holy crap. I just started singing "Ticket to the moon" by the Electric Light Orchestra to myself in my mom's office and then realised that there are other people in the office working that could have heard me. I turned completely red and am currently wishing for the ground could swallow me up.)

4)All the shop attendants ask you ''How are you?'' without actually expecting an answer. 

The first time someone said that to me, I was completely shocked. When people ask you ''How are you?'' in Estonia, they are most probably your friends/family and expect a short overview of everything going on in your life. If you answer with ''I'm fine'', they might think you're hiding something. 

To top it all off: No shop attendant in Estonia has ever asked me ''Kuidas läheb?'' in my entire life. (If you don't know what ''Kuidas läheb?'' means, go to google translate. Ain't no shame in it. I used it all the time for my Russian homework... Oh so that's why I got C-s on my Russian homework. Let me just tell you then; ''Kuidas läheb? '' means ''How are you?'' in Estonian.)

It just seems unnatural to me. In the world I know: If a shop attendant asks you ''How are you?'', they want to know about your life, feelings and well-being. What? Why? I'm Estonian, I ain't trusting no strangers with no knowledge of no state of no life...I can't pull of thug, can I? Damn it!

Thank you for reading :) (I'll try to have some photos for the next post in a few days)

An Adventurous Journey from One City to Another + Snack time

I am currently sitting at my dining table in my 31st-floor apartment. I have a coca-cola bottle, reese’s peanut butter cups, a mild slim jim (beef jerky in a stick form, looks delicious) and some pistachios sitting beside my laptop. No-one can judge me on my dietary choices this evening...After the day I’ve had. Best way I can think of explaining it is through breaking it down into a schedule.

9AM (Estonian time) Woke up feeling like I had no sleep last night. No wonder, I was tossing,turning and sweating all night long. And not for the good reasons.

10AM Have my luggage all packed. The end result is 21kg. Am quite proud of self and father, who managed to fit an entire teenager’s life in a suitcase.

10:15-10:25AM My darling friend arrives at my doorstep to say goodbye and good luck. We hug. Then my brother comes to drive us to the airport. He tells me in the car not to worry too much, because things usually have a way of working themselves out and I should have no problem being chill about the situation. He obviously has never met me.

11:00AM Me and my mom check in and bit-by-bit my friends arrive to say their final goodbyes. I’m not going to lie, there were some abduction attempts (on their part), some inappropriate hugging situations, but all-in-all I could not feel more cherished. I am so lucky to have all of you. I was strong though. Didn't cry. (Now having thoughts about maybe being an emotionally-dead robot.) I say good-bye to everybody including my dad and brother.

12:00-12:50PM Ok, fine maybe I weeped a little bit. I’m not made of stone, ok? The plane takes off and lands in Helsinki, where I will have a connecting flight to  JFC.

14:50PM At the Starbuck’s in Helsinki Vantaa airport. Thought we’d get the American food and drink in out systems early on. (A tall caramel macchiato was a solid 5 euros. In NYC you can get it for 2.82 dollars, I checked.)

16:00PM Flight takes off to NYC.

17:00PM This flight has movies, not so bored.

18:00PM Well, I can just listen to some music then.

19:00PM Read?

20:00-00:00PM WHY HAS TELEPORTATION NOT BEEN INVENTED YET?

00:10AM Land at JFK. Mild headache. Pretty much ok.

02:00AM At tjMaxx with our consulate’s driver, picking out pillows, blankets, pillowcases etc. Our apartment did not come with any of what was mentioned above.

(Btw: Just got to the slim jim. Not as good as I thought it would be. Am disappointed. Reese’s buttercups are heaven though.)

04:00AM Get to the apartment. What it lacks in furniture (bought ca 2000), it makes up for in the views. I feel overcome with emotion. This is where I’m going to live? What? Who the hell was I in another life to deserve this? (Or maybe it could be just about a day’s worth of not sleeping.)

05:13AM/22:13PM (Estonian time/New York time) Right now J This post is going up whenever I can find a wifi hotspot – probably tomorrow. Thank you for making it this far – pat yourself on the back!

But seriously thank you to anyone who bothers to read. I received a lot of positive feedback on my last post and I hope not to disappoint you with the next ones.

I’m going to bed now. Have a good night! (What am I saying, this post is going up tomorrow during daytime. Wait, daytime for me. Aww, crap. Just...You know. Best wishes for anytime of day you happen to be reading this!)

Introduction to Vivian Breathes NYC

A friend of mine once told me that the air quality in New York City, U.S.A. is so bad that the damage to your lungs would be the same as if you smoked a pack a day in Tallinn, Estonia. I have no idea if that is true and have no intention of testing it out either.

Sorry. Probably should have started with "hello". 

My name is Vivian, I'm a sixteen-year-old young person currently (yeah, that's going to change in 3 days) living in Tallinn, which is the capital city of Estonia. We are situated in the Baltic region, in the North-Eastern part of Europe, neatly tucked in between Sweden, Finland, Russia and Latvia. We speak Estonian and in my not-at-all-biased opinion it is a beautiful language. (Eestlane olen ja eestlaseks jään, kui mind eestlaseks loodi! Sõida tasa üle silla ja veel ilusaid eesti keelseid lauseid...) As you can probably guess by now, we generally can be quite the sarcastic bunch. Or maybe that's just me. 

Anyway, where does New York come into play? Well, it just so happens, that I'm going to be moving there for 2 years in 3 days. My mother is a diplomat and she got assigned the NYC post. I am going to be finishing up my two years of high school. 

My feelings about the move variate day-by-day and because I can be quite a dramatic person, I will most probably be feeling one of 2 things: excited enough to pee or scared shitless. (I am a poetic soul, I know.)

Don’t get me wrong this is a wonderful opportunity and I am so very grateful and excited...But moving from a city with an estimated population of 399,816 to one with 8,405,837, to a country I’ve never set foot in, is a pretty drastic change. Even better that out of those 8,4 million I personally know 0. 

The reason I'm writing this blog is that I want to make a time capsule of New York. I want to read this blog 20 years from now and start to reminisce. I want to remember what it felt like to be, live and breathe NYC. (Now do you get the blog title? :) Also it would be nice if the people that I'm leaving behind here in Estonia would have some kind of proof that I still actually exist somewhere. And lastly if you don't personally know me yet, it is still nice to know that there might be people out there somewhere reading me. I’m probably going to face some unfamiliar things and probably make some major mistakes and some horrible faux pas, but it would feel awesome to have some people in my computer along for the ride. It will probably be a bumpy one.

Eeh, or you could just laugh at the "peculiar-ness" and awkwardness that is my life, either way is cool with me.