TriBeCa - the Place to Live in NY

I am probably one of the last people who should be allowed to express an opinion on best New York neighborhoods. I have spent two months of the summer and one month this winter in the city but I can proudly say that I am getting acquainted with it, and we are slowly becoming friends. Thanks to TriBeCa.
TriBeCa is located in lower Manhattan, close to Canal Street and Hudson River. Living there means easy and quick commute to any point of the city.The neighborhood offers plenty of supermarkets, clothing stores and fast food restaurants. All this is essential for living in NY but is not what attracted me to TriBeCa.








The Hudson River Park refreshing ambiance during the day and blissful sight at night impressed me the most. Walking around the park, you encounter green sceneries, old architecture and contemporary projects, and the bluest sky in New York. You look around and see people absorbed in all kinds of sport activities starting with aerobics and running to skateboarding and bicycling. A night there is as calm as the river's blurred darkness from the reflected lights of the skyscrapers in the distance. The apartment buildings are well-equipped with all necessary facilities, including doormen, fitness centers and laundry rooms. I can only encourage you to check out the neighborhood and see how it suits your needs.

Long Vs. Short Hair

Late Thursday evening I got out of the shower and started drying my warmed body with the pink towel I had brought from home. I stared at the mirror for a moment and then, with one quick movement, I cut my hair. It was time for a change.
Late Friday evening I took a trip to a Soho salon where a hairdresser was specializing in women's shortcuts. Although it was time for a change, it was time for a stylish change.

Leaving the "New York City's Salon For Womens Short Haircuts" Crops for Girls, I had never felt that liberated and open for the world. I couldn't stop smiling at the fancy billboards, populated streets and bright traffic lights. I couldn't stop touching my hair - it was really short in the back and a little bit longer in the front. And it is nothing like Victoria Beckham's style! My curls swiftly decided on different paths and the hairdo quickly resulted in a light-hearted chaos. How could I feel so free all of a sudden? Could simply getting your hair cut remove doubts and fear?
I have always loved my long, curly hair that gave me the look of a forest fairy. Now I loved the positive energy and playfulness this short messy hair stimulated in me. If each has its characteristics wouldn't then women with long hair have something in common, and those with short hair share something else? It felt like I had a new pair of eyes - clearer, observant and intoxicated with positiveness. Long Vs. Short - pick your style!

Mhmassage

There is one thing I can never refuse - a nice massage. I always feel the need for experienced strong fingers studying the nerve points of my body and satiating my thirst for relaxation. I believe I am good at giving massages and plan to eventually gain an official certificate in massage therapy. Until then, I will focus on my feet.

According to a website on natural healing we have 7, 200 nerve endings on each foot. They all correspond to different parts of the organism and by exercising pressure on them one influences these organs. That is why you should take care of your feet!

This is also what the foot market says. The foot health network, http://www.foot.com/, "provides information on foot pain, foot conditions, comfort and performance footwear, sports injuries and foot health for diabetes." Of course, this information would be useless without millions of foot products to bring you comfort and energy. In other words, you need to shop.

It is a very interactive website with a Foot Pain Identifier feature that shows feet graphics and allows online guests to "click where it hurts." The solution to the problem is not a surprise - it would be a product called Hammer Toe Splint, or Gel Toe Cap, or Dress Orthotics, or some other smart-sounding name.

Don't get me wrong: I have never tried the products and don't know how efficient they are. Something tells me, however, that hot sea salt water, nice warm socks and tender massage will take away the pain for free.

A Private Park? You must be joking!

My office is located at East 23rd Street in New York so I rarely think of my lunch time as a break. I walk out of the intimidating skyscraper and here I am again, surrounded by 20 even more intimidating skyscrapers. I need to make a fast decision where and what to eat, and calculate how much time I have left. Today, in the middle of that hassle, with a sandwich in my hand, I discovered an oasis.
The quiet park at Lexington Avenue looked like the perfect place for my lunch break. From across the street I saw a dark green fence, wooden benches, and jumping squirrels, enjoying the warm weather. "From now on I am having my lunch here," I thought to myself cheerfully. The strange thing was that I couldn't find its entrance. "Okay, there are people inside, so they must have entered somehow," I tried to unravel the mystery. Two of the doors that I reached were locked, and I continued circling around my quiet oasis. "Excuse me, where is the entrance to the park," I finally decided to ask a middle-aged man with grey hair and sunglasses, who was also looking at the park with a confused expression.
"This is it but it's locked. It is a private park - it belongs to the people who live here," he pointed to the buildings around. "Only they have keys for it. That's how it is today," he laughed.
I couldn't believe my ears. A private park?
"Now where am I going to have my lunch break," I asked myself and joined the other people sitting on the outside part of the dark green fence of the Lexington Avenue oasis.

Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights

I just finished watching Dirty Dancing Havana Nights and my imagination is still wandering around Cuba and coloring the curves of wild dance moves. The movie gave me a small dose of the rhythm that pushes the boundaries of the known world and screams to introduce you to the intoxicating power of pleasures. It definitely pushes the boundaries of my lonely Brooklyn room.

Dirty Dancing Havana Nights is one of the movies that people discouraged me to see. "The first part is classic but this one is just weak," they said. Nevertheless, I wanted to see it. The story line is more than familiar - the impossible attraction between a wealthy white girl and a poor Hispanic boy during the revolution. To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to the action. What I like about the movie are the vivid images of the Cuban life, its music and the spell that dance brings. My eyes always seek the same scene: how the light curtains of a colorfully painted house spread, gently touched by the wind, to show the calm green hues of palms. And under the palms tanned middle-aged people smile widely with their well-ordered teeth and dark olive eyes. Then you slowly step out of the wall-sized window to join the people and absorb their happiness, inspiration and sunlight.

Although you may not like Dirty Dancing Havana Nights' storyline and the way it is served, I still encourage you to see the movie. Because it can trigger hidden scenes in your mind waiting to be released to push the boundaries of your lonely room.

Moving Out, Moving In

My eyes slowly investigated the old two-storey house at 747 Crown Heights, NY. This is where I am going to live for the next two weeks. I don't know the roommates, I don't know the neighborhood, I don't know what I am going to do.
"Think of it as an adventure," I tell myself.
I step in and try to unlock the door. Failure. I think the woman, who is renting me the room and who left for Argentina, lied to me and gave me the wrong key. It makes sense - I already paid her. The door is finally unlocked and I sigh with relief.
"I wonder what's next," I tell myself.
What's next is the absurdity of the room, in which I am going to live. I know I saw it before but somehow it looked different. Or at that time I had convinced myself that the cheap price and the short time period justified the living conditions.
"Well, it doesn't matter any more, does it," I tell myself.
Then, I try to drag my bright red suitcase Grand in the room but there is not enough space.
The room is with the size of a Camel cigarette box just without its soothing beige nuances. I laugh - it is like a funny sit-com scene.
"This could only happen in a movie," I tell myself.
There is a bunk bed, a shelf heavily packed with big Economics textbooks, and more books, and more books - all staring at me threateningly to remind me I know nothing about economics. I don't even need to turn around to see the other part of the room - it is a desk with an ancient Visual Sensations desktop and a closet behind it. The only way you can sit in front of the computer is to push your chair a bit into the closet. When someone enters the room (and the carpet doesn't get stuck at the process) he/she will see your arms, and feet, and maybe your nose. But half of your body will be actually in the closet. So this is how I blog right now.
"Two weeks," I tell myself. "Just two weeks"

America's Next Top Exploitation

Putting my hand on my heart I say that I despise reality shows. Ridiculous is the least I could call them. But they are an excellent combination of strong marketing tools, cheap production and pop culture promotion. You have probably recognized some of that behind the immaculate styles of Tyra Banks, Tyson Beckford, Paula Abdul and whoever else you want. No matter how extensively I would like to talk about all that, I should stick to my theme: travel. America's Next Top Model is definitely corrupting my idea of travel.
This evening I was sitting in front of the TV with my two Chinese friends, who decided to take advantage and catch up on the show while VH1 was running an inexhaustible marathon for a couple of days now. As every girl, I immediately chose a favourite but changed my mind at least three times after the beginning of the episode. I also thought it was interesting and new to see that the models were in Thailand. Needless to say, I changed my mind about that, too.
The judges assigned the catwalkers a challenge to learn a Thai dance in one day, and reinterpret the art in front of audience. You can never have an exact idea of how long this process took but, judging from what I saw, it was not more than 4-5 hours. During this short episode, the emphasis was again on the models - their thoughts, personalities and arguments.
"Hey, you are introducing a new culture here! To thousands of young viewers," I wanted to shout out. They could have as well stayed in New York or Los Angeles and hired a Thai choreographer, couldn't they? Yet, they needed the authenticity of the environment and the exotic images your imagination can bring to life. The fashion icons conquer the elegant moves without knowing much about their history and meaning. So, are you familiarizing audiences with Thai culture, or are you presenting them with a distorted and limited perspective of the country's appeal? I think the answer is clear.

So Began My Obsession with Travel

Travel for me used to mean only and entirely fun. I am glad to say that this word does not any more evoke in me images of luxurious hotels, Malibu cocktails and spa centers, decorated with Japanese symbols. It is more of an abstract term - I think of travel as the storm shaking the foundations of my fragile mindset.
And so I like to embark on travel adventures. I like to get on the cheap Chinese bus lines, take pictures of sleeping strangers in the subway, visit friends in new places and return to the secure feeling of my home. I also like to walk the lonely streets without fear of getting lost, to drag my red suitcase around small airports and stare at the unknown distance challengingly. My obsession with travel has expanded to the online world where I like to spend half a day following links, one after the other, to websites with fresh ideas and original design.
I hope that my young vision for travel will be enjoyable to you with discussions of hundreds of real and cyber spaces.

The Child of Eastern Europe

I like to think of myself as the child of Eastern Europe. This thought would not have occurred to me if I hadn't come to the US. After all, my home country, Bulgaria, is the only place in Eastern Europe where I have been. Since my arrival in Western Massachusetts, however, I have never felt so close to the eastern European culture.
Now stored in my mind are the vivid images of techno music, ancient architecture, charming accents, cheap hostels and sophisticated fashion. Almost everyone who left that part of the world has the same images stored in her mind. Something more - these moments are not just silently existing in our subconscious worlds, but they grow and like to laugh provocatively in the face of every present encounter.

Leaving Eastern Europe's quirky appeal, I entered the serious world. And I developed the pleasant distraction, from time to time, to again escape into this expanding mind storage of mine. Have you noticed how your imagination starts playing tricks on you by creating new details to dear past experiences you like to go back to? That is exactly what happened to me - my fantasy still loves to add reminiscent smells, theme music and new conversations to scenes that have already taken place. It is quite amusing when towards the end of the flashback, I start asking myself if this really happened.