first week of adventure..

Well, its been a crazy few days. It started with a long and stressful day at the airport on tuesday. Despite my efforts we had to pay $75 extra on top of the $20 bucks for checking in our overweight bags. I knew one was overweight but the other was 5 pounds over and unfortunately we were unable to redistribute items to get around the charge. after checking our bags, we struggled through the airport with our super heavy carry on bags. The biggest challenge for me was traveling with my large bubble umbrella and trying not to peg anyone in the face with it walking down the aisle. After a long day of travel and waiting at the airport for our driver, we finally arrived at our hotel. Our driver flat our lied to me after I told him I paid the tip online, telling me that the tip goes to the company and that he doesn't get it (I found out he was lying after calling his supervisor who in turn told me he does get the tip we paid). Upon arrival at the hotel, I struggled getting the bags into the lobby since the doorman was too busy talking to the desk people to help me. After freshening up my mom and I decided to walk to Shake Shack and get burgers. This was my mothers first trip to NYC and it was a culture shock for her. It was hot and muggy even at night, and we walked down 42nd into Times Square. I think that the amount of people and craziness was too much for her....we argued the whole way. We got to Shake Shack and the line wasn't too bad only about 10 mins, but there was no where to sit. We didn't want to stand around in the aisle eating our food or take it home so we left. We then found ourselves at Dallas BBQ, which was cheap and pretty good with a direct view of Times Square. We got a cupcake from Crumbs which was ok, I've had them in Beverly Hills. The next day was another long day. Top of the Rock, then walking through Central Park lunch at the Boathouse more walking through the park, walking up 5th ave, going into Tiffany, going into FAO, window shopping. Then we ended up at Serendipity III shared a so so super overpriced dinner, and shared a frozen hot chocolate which was super delicious, after waiting an hour to get into the place. The next day we went to Macys and walked around, my feet were killing me because of walking the previous day and a huge blister on my toe. Macys was madness we browsed for about an hour or two and then walked from the front of my living residence to my school 20 blocks south. The walk isn't so bad and takes me down through Chelsea which by far is my favorite neighborhood in Manhattan. It totally reminded me of West Hollywood and felt very homey. We went over to the Chelsea Market, got a Peoples Pop..well I did, it was Cantaloupe Tarragon, super good! and then walked up to High Line, which is this cool park that they made where train tracks used to be..it overlooks the water and parts of the city, it was just cool and green and really reminded me of Venice or Santa Monica. Of course my favorite part was the Alexander McQueen store. We had lunch at the Lobster place which was ok, and then headed over to my school. It was a little strange having my mom with me but there was no where for her to go. I was even made fun of by the security guard, but whatever.I entered the upstairs area to check in and get my id. There were about 20 people in line already even though we were early. I checked in got my tote bag filled with goodies and headed up to financial aide. After that meeting, I got back into line and waited to get my id. I met one girl from Louisiana who went to school in Maryland. I noticed that most everyone was younger than I which is a little discouraging.I got my id went into the main room where the presentations were going on and noticed a huge amount of people in the room and realized that there are about 120 people in the program. We listened to info about all the services and about our program, and our instructors spoke a bit. One of my instructors is a former student/graduate who is the youngest person hired to teach there, and she is younger than me. I am a bit nervous about everything, especially since the decided this year to start a new thing where every graduate has to present a digital portfolio at the end of the year. After the orientation, and signing up for the SLA my mom and I walked to the subway for the first time, and we were super confused once we got down in the tunnel. There were 57 signs saying 27 different things, and we had to ask this lady for advice and she was nice and helped us out and we ended up in Times Square. We stopped to grab some food at the local weigh in market and my mom got mad because it was so expensive which caused a huge fight. The next day she apologized and we went to the 9/11 museum.It was a productive morning with some questioning we managed to make it on the subway and back I hope I get the hang of that before Tuesday. We came back took a nap, went to the Diner across the street and then packed up my bags. Before going to bed I asked the Doorman a different guy (who was super hot and looked just like Timothy Olyphant) about getting the driver for Saturday. He was super nice and said he would help us out. This morning we checked out and the super hot doorman helped us load our bags and was really cool, and the driver took us to my residence. $40 bucks later we were here. I checked in amongst chaos and got into my room. My mom and I went to Kmart down the street and bought most of what I need. My mom then left for her flight, which was sad but she will be back in a couple months, and I spent the afternoon setting things up. Now I am more settled trying to figure out what else I need, (blackout curtains) and buying more books online..7 books so far..and trying to read all the info about everything that I need to read and then read my homework before Tuesday. And I didn't mention that I have gotten sick and I am in the runny nose stage. Trying to take a ton of Vitamin C and Echinecea and rest and drink a ton of water to flush it our before I start class Tuesday since its my first day and its going to possibly rain..great I hope I can get used to things pretty quickly...thats it for now..more to come..