Day trip to Governor's Island

Yesterday, I was able to cross something off of my Summer Bucket List - taking a trip to Governor's Island! My friend Lizzy had texted me on Friday asking if I wanted to go to this French festival or something like that that was taking place there. Honestly, I didn't completely want to go all the way there, but I felt like actually going to Governor's Island wasn't going to happen unless I decided to commit to it, so I decided I should go. (Sidenote: get prepared for a picture FRENZY on this post. I took so many because it was so neat there!)

Festival from afar

It was incredibly fun! Not only is it nice that the ferry ride there is free, the island itself is so beautiful. The festival was primarily for children, but there were a lot of people our age there, as well.  There were vintage-looking rides, live music, food, and a ton of random things to see and experience!

Live music!

We ended up going on this swing ride. The line was kind of longer than was necessary, but we figured that we should go out on the limb and wait for it. Since it was so hot outside it actually felt so nice to be swinging in the wind! Definitely was funny to see how old the ride was though - I spent a lot of the ride hoping that it wasn't going to break and that my swing wasn't going to go flying on its own at any point. Yes, we did have to pay $3 to go on it, but it was definitely worth every penny spent.

Swing ride!

Pocket wall

One of the coolest things that we saw was this giant sheet with a bunch of pockets on it. You could take a piece of paper and write ANYTHING you wanted and put it in a pocket for someone else to discover and read. Now, if this had been something in an adult environment, things would have gotten OUT OF CONTROL. But all the written things we found in the pockets were so cute. I remember one was something like "Help Africa". Absolutely adorable to think of the little kid that wrote that for others to read.

One thing they don't ever mention about Governor's Island (or at least I never heard it before) was how pretty the view of the Financial District is. I was in complete awe seeing it from that angle - I took so many pictures it was unreal. (OBVI I needed to upload one to Instagram!)

Yup, this is on my Instagram :) Absolutely b-e-a-utiful!

We weren't even there for that long, but by the time we had walked around the entire island, I was EXHAUSTED. An incredibly fun day, and I'm so glad I got off my lazy behind and did it! I will definitely be going back sometime in the future. (And now I have something to add to my NYC Checklist! Still don't know how much I like that title btw)

<3, Charlotte

No longer a hobo!

I HAVE OFFICIALLY FOUND AN APARTMENT! I am proud to announce that I will be living in Murray Hill for 3 months this summer. It is the biggest relief ever. And I have never had my own set of walls in NYC before, so I'm totally excited.

Some things I learned from my Craigslist search:

1. There are actually a lot of normal people that use Craigslist. You have to correspond a few times and see how they talk via email, but it is pretty easy to tell who is going to be normal and who is going to be a weirdo!


2. Time frame is EVERYTHING. A few times, I went to apartments that wanted a year lease, and I told them I only wanted to commit to 3 months at the moment, but I would be more than happy to extend it if everything works out. NEWSFLASH: no one wants to do this process more than they have to! If you don't match with their time frame, don't even bother.


3. It is impossible to hit everything on your list of apartment criteria. Though I did get a lot of the things I wanted (neighborhood, safety, time frame, building perks, [kind of] price range), I do with my roommates were cooler. I was debating between this apartment and one with an AWESOME roommate, and the apartment itself was nicer than the one I decided to take. However, this building is much nicer in general with a doorman and laundry in the basement. And it happens to be closer to my job which is good.


4. Your introductory email is incredibly important and needs to be amazeballs. This is the first impression people get of you. If you come off like a boring stiff or essentially say nothing, you’re going to get no traction. Once I fixed my introduction email and included my a link to my Instagram account, I got so many more responses, and people already had me on high priority without even meeting me!

So, yea, I learned a lot from this experience. Hopefully when me and my friend look for apartments in a few months we can use some of this knowledge and get a KICK ASS place!

<3, Charlotte