Central Park Film Festival.

Last night made me feel like a real New Yorker.

I went to the final evening of the 2010 Central Park Film Festival last night with my girlfriends Gillian and Charity. It was such a great event! They set up a giant screen at Mineral Springs (just north of the Sheep's Meadow) on a field that is sort of a natural amphitheater, all downward sloping to create a perfect viewing situation. It's fenced off, and they open the gates at 6:30 for the 8 p.m. movie.

We arrived around 6:15 to find a line already 100 people long at least, and at 6:30 people were practically running to stake out their spots with blankets and picnic baskets. It was wild!

We had our own great little picnic, but part of the fun was checking out what the other movie-goers brought for their dinners - a great range of Chinese takeout, Central Park hot dogs, Whole Foods takeout salads, homemade sandwiches . . . it's funny to see New Yorkers do "picnic" food. Fabulous.

Yesterday was the last night of the 5-day film festival punctuated with a showing of Woody Allen's 1979 Manhattan. I had never seen it, but I'm glad I did! It featured really iconic images of New York, and every time one of these images came across the screen, the entire field of picnicking New Yorkers cheered and clapped.

Walking home from the park last night, I believe, I felt like a young, social, happy, pretty, single New York girl more than any other time in the past 9 months.

Oh, hey, it's almost August.

So the thing about being a young, single, working girl going to grad school... is that by definition, my life is SO busy. Also, because I just moved here in January, all of my friends/family are always coming to visit me, and thus, making me even busier.

My friends from NYU all refer to it as "revolving door syndrome." NYC is just a great place to visit for all of our families & friends, so we're constantly having visitors - which means constantly cleaning our apartments for when our mothers come to town, planning amazing weekends of tourism-filled-fun, going out partying hard-core when our college roommates are staying with us, and eating expensive, decadent restaurant food on culinary tours of the city when our foodie brothers come to visit.

Which is all great in moderation. But there is no such moderation in "revolving door syndrome." One visitor leaves, and the next one is already arriving. Don't get me wrong - these are all people that I love very dearly coming to visit me. But man, it's draining!

Notice, in the last 6 weeks of no-blog-posting, I've crossed about 10 things off my NY to-do list because my wonderful mother and best friend both came to visit recently and played tourist with me!

Up next for me: Looking forward to a relaxing August. I'm done with summer classes next week, and have almost an entire month off to catch my breath and focus on just work, hitting the gym, and sleep.

My NY To-Do List.

I've added a module on the left side of the page which displays my NY to-do list, from attractions and events to museums and restaurants. If you want to do any of these things with me, let me know, and we'll plan it! There's so much I want to see and experience in this city and I want to share these adventures with all my friends & fam.

I'll update and delete things as I do them (maybe move them to a new module of DONE things, not sure yet).