Nicole's Wedding, NYC adventures, and the Jersey Shore!

Current Location: Long Branch, NJ

What a week! I've had two exciting mini trips that I have gotten to take. First, I went out to Long Island for my friend Nicole's wedding. Second, and where I currently am, I came out to the Jersey Shore for Memorial Day weekend!

So on Thursday, my wonderful roommate for two years, Nicole Rahmanan, got married and is officially now Nicole Hakimi! Myself and Brooke represented Columbia at her wedding as 2 of the about 10 people who were not from her community. It was so much fun!!! We headed out there by train around 6:30, but it was quite frustrating, the train took FOREVER! We made it for the ceremony, which is the important part. I had never been to a Jewish wedding before, let alone a persian Jewish ceremony, so it was fairly different than most weddings I had been to. I can say the Persians know how to throw a party!! Nicole was an absolutely stunning bride, and I had never seem Evan look happier! They are an adorable couple, and I know they will be so happy together.

Friday and Saturday, I went out to enjoy the city! Friday night, I went down to the east side to see Laura's new apartment and the lovely Laura herself (who I had not seen in 2 weeks - completely unacceptable)! We got sushi and wandered around the area some. It was really fun to explore a neighborhood that I wasn't familiar with. We tried and failed to got see Sex and the City 2. We were so excited, but it was sold out for the next 4 showings - ridiculous! Saturday I went down to Times Square, which I hate to do - too many tourists and people crammed in there - to get tickets for my family to see Memphis when they are here at the end of June. After that, I walked over to Bryant Park to relax and enjoy the quiet. it was fun, but after about 20 minutes, a guy decided to come over to talk to me. He was nice enough, but I missed the peace and quiet that I was enjoying! After that, I walked uptown and did some fun window shopping. It was really nice to just get in some me time and to relax. I think I need to do it more often!

Today, I woke up early, and I trained out to New Brunswick to meet up with Brooke again before heading out to the Jersey Shore for the weekend. Her

grandmother was kind enough to invite us to stay at her apartment for the night, so we couldn't pass it up, especially with this gorgeous weather (it is in the 80s!). I had never been to the shore before (and only seen an unfortunate 5 minutes of the TV show), so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Luckily, we are in the nice area of the Jersey Shore, and it is so beautiful and relaxing! It is really nice to just get away form the city and relax - and I certainly enjoy the tan I am going to get! We got out here in the afternoon, and we still had a few hours of sun to start on our tans before going to a really cute greek restaurant for some food, and now we are just relaxing and having fun. Tomorrow will be another beach day, so I am excited for that.

Well rather than spend all my relaxing time blogging, I am going to go enjoy the company and RELAX! More later!

My First Post!

Current Location: New York, NY


Hello all! Recently, I realized that I have been traveling more than usual - and this summer coming up will involve me traveling even more. So I figured rather than leaving everyone wondering, where is Jenni today, I would start keeping a blog with my varied experiences everywhere I go.

The past year has had me going all over the place - London, Paris, New York, Florida, North Carolina, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. As is evident by the diverse list of countries, I have had some of the most exciting and different experiences over the past year, and I have gained a different perspective from each of them. This summer, I have a three-fold sort of adventure. First, I will be spending the first month in NYC, working and attempting to have some fun (though it must be cheap fun!). I've got the wedding of my roommate for the first two years of college, Nicole, this week, and then I think memorial day might be spend on the Jersey Shore! Mainly, I will just be enjoying the city. I plan on running outside a lot, and helping my sister and her boyfriend Nate get settled when they move up in June!

Next, for the month of July, I will be in Paris! I have visited once, and spent 3 days in Paris (which is far too few in my opinion). However, this summer I will be staying there for a month with a program to learn French. Why might you ask? Because I think it is important to understand multiple languages and cultures. Americans are fooling themselves if they think that English is the most important language! I hope to have a working knowledge of French after this summer (I'm already working on it with my Rosetta Stone). On this trip I will hopefully make a few trips - it is looking like Brussels and maybe Nice will be the two I take.

Finally, the last third of my summer is a bit in the air. if everything works out according to plan, I will end up in Ghana for the month of August with this amazing program called Piece it Together. PiT focuses on teaching students in Ghana engineering and science, focusing on experiments and projects. It would give me another opportunity to see a third world country and the issues that they face (much like I did in Haiti this spring), as well as the ability to really help the people there. It's something that I am passionate about, creating in country solutions that can be sustained by the local people, rather than relying on outside aid constantly. If this doesn't work out, I will instead head back to Florida for a few weeks before returning to NYC for some work and school.

Well that is my first entry! After this, I will probably post more day to day information about my oh os exciting life! I will do my best not to bore you :)