Brooklyn revisted

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Ah...it was great to be back where a girl can get herself a cupcake and go line dancing even if it isn't the popular thing to do. Many thanks to the good people at Camp Erin & Amelia for their endless hospitality.

When my flight landed at JFK, I decided to embrace the Brooklynite guts in me and get loud. So I headed to the taxi station and announced, "I'm going to Park Slope. Does anyone want to share a cab?" Now this might not sound like much of an effort, but in the 3 years I lived in Brooklyn I never once asked anyone to share a cab. The Kansan in me always emerged as super-shy Amber who doesn't like to butt into other people's business and prevented me from saving the big bucks. Luckily, ultra-brave, post-Brooklyn Amber spoke up and instead of $40, only paid $20 to get where she wanted to go!

Feeling proud and savvy, I arrived to an incredible sight: 7 of my best friends assembled around the same table (no easy task when we are scattered about the globe), which was loaded with homemade sushi!! The Cheer's theme song should have been playing in the background as I took my chair and dug into the food. ("Where everybody knows your name...") After months of eating almost exclusively with Sage, it was a welcomed change to have so much to say that you can barely manage to chew your food.

And the night continued to get better. After stuffing ourselves with sushi and Japanese desserts, we rolled ourselves over to Jess & Tim's apartment for a fabulous New Year's party, complete with all the balloons, games and Polaroid-taking fun you could ever want. We finished our celebrations with a rooftop champagne toast and watched the fireworks explode over the water.

With the rest of the working world off at their desks, Saje and I had the Big Apple practically all to ourselves. We revisited our favorite stomping grounds...you know, a whole bunch of restaurants. 😊 We ate as much spicy food as we could find and resampled the cupcakes both at Magnolia and Little Cupcake Bakery (someone has to be in charge of quality control!).For the first time ever, I went running in Prospect Park and didn't think I was going to die (all this running on the boardwalk must be doing something for me). Let's see...there was ice skating, dancing, Pictionary playing, Sex & the City watching and general merriment. And to top it all off, Margaret and Chiemi threw us a fabulous going-away brunch. We left Brooklyn full, happy and excited for our next visit.

I must share one particularly important NYC moment with you all. One evening we were out in the East Village eating sushi at our longtime favorite establishment, Jeollado. So…we’re sitting there reminiscing about good times when Jessi, always an astute advisor, asks me, “Have you been doing any writing?” Ah…gotta love that feeling in your stomach when you are disappointed in yourself. I don’t remember precisely what I told her, but I’m sure it was some lame excuse for why I’ve been so lazy lately. I mean, come on, with a full 20 hours of work a week (yeah, that includes my private lessons), I’m not exactly short on time for pursuing my dreams.

So, Jessi, this travel blog is dedicated to you. Thanks for inspiring me to make this whole being-a-writer thing happen. And to my friends and family, thanks for encouraging me to continue writing you these updates. I hope you will enjoy them in their new form and pass them on to interested parties (or to people who need freelance writers!). I've uploaded all the old group e-mails that I've sent out since we arrived, so you don't have to bother reading them if you already have. Then if you want to be updated, all you have to do is subscribe to my blog and you will receive an e-mail when I put something new up.

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Comments

[Tim Weis]

I have checked in
Amber, I have checked in and enjoyed reading your blog. Tim