From ASE to NYC

And to conclude these two weeks away from Williamsburg, I had a mini-Bath reunion in New York City. My friend Brooke lives just outside the city, so I-- and Shea and Alli-- trained up to New York to see each other. I literally hadn't seen Brooke for over two years, since I said good-bye to Bath for the last time. I hadn't seen Shea and Alli since June. I arrived on Saturday morning, they picked me up at the White Plains station, and then we went shopping at Westchester Mall. This place was ridiculously huge. We actually ran out of time to shop. I only bought a pair of tights, a nice work-type jacket and an on-sale dress, but I tried on probably over fifty items. It was glorious.

After our shopping excursion, we went back to Brooke's house to pick out our outfits for dancing that night. I felt like Meg in Little Women when she shows Belle her dress and Belle basically says, "No, no, I have something else that you should wear." In Meg's words, "The girls dressed me up for fun, and I rather like it." I wore a very short, very tight-fitting black dress of Brooke's with a pair of lovely little red heels, not too high. It was something I probably would never have bought or paired on my own, but I 'rather liked it.'

Brooke's mother made a wonderful homemade chicken pot pie for dinner, and we had a homemade apple tart for dessert, plus champagne and Riesling, and then it was off to the city for dancing at a bar called Mad River. As far as bar's go, it was pretty fun. I'm not much for nightlife-- clubs kind of sketch me out and I'm a terrible dancer-- but no one came up behind me trying to dirty dance or anything, and they played songs I knew, so I actually enjoyed my time. Still, I was glad we were only there for two and half hours or so.

The next day, I trained into the city for lunch with another ASE friend, Kiki. I hadn't seen her since-- goodness, I guess the final tea in Bath, but I don't remember when I last talked to her in person. We had an amazing lunch at a Thai place near Times Square, then she walked with me over to Penn Station and we got a drink in Starbuck's while waiting for my train. It was such a fun afternoon-- we discussed theater, England, boyfriends, roommates, and life in general. We weren't super close when I studied abroad, but in the time since then we've gotten to know each other better via Facebook messages and such, and I'm really glad for that.

ASE introduced me to some really incredible people, and I'm so grateful that those bonds are only strengthening since I studied abroad. I'm realizing more and more that our ASE '08 group of fifty-five share such unique and wonderful memories, and we keep making more together as the years go by. I didn't really appreciate it at the time, but now I know that these are friends that I will keep for life.