Zoooooommm!

Our adventure started off sans-zoom, with a visit to an old favorite: Baby Cakes, a vegan/gluten free bakery in Soho. (Please note that neither of us is gluten free or vegan).  After taking some super awkward pictures of ourselves sitting in the window of the shop and getting dirty looks from the other customers, we mustered the courage to ask another customer to provide this photographic proof of our visit:

Thing 1

Thing 2

Happiness with baked goods (and ineptness with self timer)

After finishing our animal free carrot cupcake, and wrapping up our banana chocolate chip bread in an obnoxious NYC tourist grocery bag, we proceeded to explore the über trendy über expensive (yes, we are umlaut happy) stores in the neighborhood.  Since our bank accounts are already angry with us for the coming month, we decided not to blow $80 on that cotton tank top, and instead invested $2 in the best, strongest, and most creatively made cup of coffee ever.

Between our exploration of said expensive clothing stores, a strangely labeled "designer lingerie" store with strange polyester creations in the window, and finding the subway again, we stumbled upon The Roasting Plant. It was, in a word, zoom-y. It was full of John-Jay style cereal dispensers, except, instead of being filled with sugary cereals (or, depending on the time of day, neglected bran flakes), they were filled with an impressive variety of coffee beans.

While we find coffee beans to be impressive in themselves, the most impressive feature of this coffee shop was the fact that upon ordering a simple cup of coffee, the store would fill with the sound of a vacuum followed by beans flying upwards (zoommming, if you will) before being deposited in one of the grinders at the front of the store.  Zooming, grinding, brewing, and voila! A cup of "microbrew" coffee, so strong it could have been espresso, created within 45 seconds. Happiness ensued.

ZZooooooommmmm! (goes nicely with Zoe, don't you think?) 

Mmmmm, Coffee! (Also, finally a candid picture!)

So basically, we love vegans, baked goods, coffee, expensive clothing, and smashing them all together in a downtown adventure. What makes it even better is that this all occurred on a Monday afternoon (when Zoe, theoretically, should have been learning differential equations...).

Stay tuned...

All our love,

Zo + Bex

p.s. We forgot to mention that if any of you have the burning desire to escape "the bubble" yourselves, hit us up!  We won't post our personal information here, but if we actually want you to contact us, you probably already know how to! We'll even let you guest blog!

April Fool's!

And we're back....

And we hate to tell you but our entire plan was just one giant April Fool's Day joke....April Fool's!! (also, it's opposite day.)

In all seriousness, for our first adventure, we thought it was necessary to consume large amounts of food. Brunch deserves seriousness.  We've made several sort of rushed trips to the Highline in Chelsea, and in our scurry to join the hordes of people walking on an abandoned railroad track and admiring the Hudson River and all its industrial-residue-filled glory, we've become increasingly jealous of all the "cute" brunch places along the way.  Although nothing can really beat Cafe Grumpy's sign, our first adventure was truly spontaneous and inspired by a really great sign. Fact: we are addicted to book stores. So when we passed a cute bookstore-looking place with a sign that involved the word "tipsy," we couldn't resist looking. When we saw people inside eating delicious things, we couldn't resist going in.

(These men thought Zoe was a real creeper...)

(They were right. -Rebecca)

Being the early birds that we are, we managed to score a spot at a communal table as long as we were out within an hour.  An hour was plenty of time to try to overhear the conversation of the perky blonde girl dressed in all white--complete with a popped collar and massive rock on her finger--sitting next to us, so we agreed and took our places.  As to be expected from semi-drunk religious figures, the food was delicious.

Z+R

Z+R 

(trading plates like a married couple)

(Although we know you'd like to think we ate this too, this plate belonged to our illustrious photographer who goes by Jeff)

Also, proof. We really were here!

(Thanks, Jeff!)

That's it for April 1st! Tomorrow's adventure: go for a run. Ha! Happy April Fool's! Check back to see what we really did...

Love,

1+2

The Rules of the Game

Hi friends (and creepy stalkers),

Zoe (Thing 2) and Rebecca (Thing 1) here. We've come to realize that our days here in New York are winding down and we've lost most of this year to grad school and thesis stress. Now that Zoe has her pick and Rebecca has taken 150+ pages off her life, it's time for adventures. Back in December, we made a list--a list of things to do before leaving this beautiful city (most of them involve food).  We decided that, since April was the magical month of free time post grad school/thesis stress and pre-graduation festivities, we would make it a point to go off campus every single day. We also decided to document our adventures  for all of you in the form of this blog--our very own study abroad blog. (We're still bitter we didn't get to study abroad. We, too, can avoid our academic responsibilities and eat jealousy-inducing food in beautiful and exotic places with beautiful and exotic people).

So you might be wondering: what exactly is off campus?  Good question.  "Campus" is not simply the right-angle, brick and green roof filled square that is Columbia.

We've defined "the bubble" is the area between 125th and 96th streets (although, really, it's more like 110th-120th streets, but we'll be generous), bounded by the river to the west and Columbus/Morningside/Morningside Park to the east. This is home and every day we will leave it.

We've made an epic calendar out of Post-It notes to help us keep track of the days and adventures and we'll try to keep this blog as up to date with pictures, our recommendations, and our ever amusing anecdotes (although we're already behind, so don't expect too much).

(see! it's super spiffy!)

(also, for this particular study abroad blog, please ignore the world map)

That's it for now, and keep checking to follow our adventures around the city!

Signing off (ever so officially),
Z+R