Street Games Make You Ill

What a weekend! It was long, exciting, ultimately tiring, and so much fun! The big day was Saturday. My friend from Florida, Zack, was in town, so I wanted to make sure we had a good time.

But first, I had to of course attend Mississippi Day in Central Park. Basically, vendor and other cheerful Mississippi people come up to the Big Apple to celebrate with those of us have been transplanted up here. It was so much fun. There was a live blues band, fried catfish, art, McAllister's tea, and Ole Miss, MSU, and Southern Miss reps! I got to enjoy a little bit of the South for a little while.

However, I think that the Mississippi folk must have brought the Southern heat up with them. The next thing we did was to participate in a street games festival called Come Out and Play that my friend Chris arranged for us. It was sooo hot! NYC temps soared to the 90s, almost breaking a record that was set sometime in the 1930s. And here we were literally running around New York from about 2pm till midnight. Crazy.

It was a lot of fun, but the next day, I paid for it. I woke up with a slight fever and a sore throat. I immediately took some Aleve and felt fine... That is until 12-hours when I was sitting in the Sex and the City movie. I started to feel hot again, sore throat was back, and my skin got really sensitive to the AC. Uh oh...

When I got home that evening/early morning, I immediately took some more medicine and did the same waking up this morning. Now here I am at work, flighting off some sort of exhaustion illness, eating dry grilled chicken, and blogging. Is this my life?

Weekend Vacations

So living in New York has many advantages. Everything can be delivered to your door. Hot dogs are always an arms-length away. Public transportation saves you money (and it's eco-friendly!). All the latest fashion and music trends start here. There's a great night life. There is never a shortage of fun and interesting people. Little Chinese women do your laundry for $1/pound.

But I think one of my favorite things about New York is that you get to enjoy all the things tourists do, but full-time. Granted, when you live in the city, you have to work hard to stay there, but when you're not working, you can basically consider yourself on vacation. One can always visit museums, see a Broadway show, show up and yell at the Today Show, accost B-List celebrities on the street, or just take a walk through Central Park.

This is especially true now that summer is upon us. While Midwest housewives dream of the 5 days they will get to spend in the Big Apple this summer, New Yorkers are dreaming of the weekends. These are times when New Yorkers get to be on vacation. From the other places I've lived, the weekend was just a time where you didn't have to work or maybe even planned a short road trip elsewhere. But if you in New York, where else would you want to go? You have everything you could want right here. What a great thing!

However, I recently found out that there are other places to go. I did a little weekend tripping of my own. I got the chance to go to a beach island that New Yorkers frequent during the summer. It was kind of strange vacationing with other people from New York. It was sort of like never leaving the city. But it was still so much fun. There were no cars on the island, and everyone was so friendly. The weather on Sunday was perfect. And I got to spend it with some of my best friends (Jack, Emerson, Bradley, Drexel and Brendan). That's Jack for letting us stay this weekend!

Anyways, it's back to the real world now. *sigh*