Tag Archives: Yankee Stadium

Labor Day Weekend in Rochester

I like to travel. I also like to do things at the spur of the moment, which is why at 9PM on Friday night, a mere 36 hours after moving into my new apartment in Hoboken, I booked a flight to Rochester to spend Labor Day Weekend with Dave.

I barely slept that night, in part due to my sheer excitement, and partly because I had to be up at 3AM to catch the 6AM flight up to Western New York. I got to Rochester, a little after 8AM and was beyond excited to see Dave. After a short ride to his house, I took a quick cat nap before we decided to go hiking up by the Finger Lakes. I am not as familiar with this part of New York, so I was absolutely stunned by the beautiful scenery as we made our way to Watkins Glen. These lakes were all so beautiful, and there was so much GREEN everywhere. It was quite a stark contrast to summers in San Diego and the city!  After an hour or so in the car, we made it to Watkins Glen State Park, where we hiked and walked around. I had never been to a gorge before, and it was like anything else I had ever seen. The rock was so intricately carved by the water over time, it was beautiful – I don’t know else how to describe it.

Following our beautiful hike through Watkins Glen, we went wine tasting at one of Dave’s mom’s favorite wineries, Fox Run. We tried a few wines, and came back with a box of bottles, some cheese curds, and smiles plastered across our faces. That was my first time officially wine tasting and I had so much fun learning about what I did and didn’t like. Turns out, my taste buds liked the cheapest and one of the sweeter wines available, which I was a big fan of.

On Sunday, we had a relaxing morning and then ended up going out boating on Dave’s friend, Q’s boat. It was the first time I had ever been on one of the Great Lakes and the water was so crystal clear. Our first stop in the boat was Irondequoit Bay (I still cannot pronounce it) and we climbed to the top of these sand dunes that overlooked the whole bay – it was absolutely stunning. That night,  I had my first real “Buffalo Wing” experience with the Evan’s family. Two things I learned, 1) There are lots of different wings flavors (I liked the sweeter wings) and 2) I still need to practice “Eating” them to the bone, as I leave too much meat on them.  The wings were so good and definitely reminded me of the impending football season – can’t wait to have real Buffalo wings again.

On Monday, Q, Dave, Caden and I hopped in a car and headed back to the city. I was able to score some pretty sweet Yankees tickets through work to surprise Q’s son, Caden. He was lucky enough to not only score a baseball after the third inning, but also A-Rod’s batting glove. All in all, it was easily my favorite labor day with some of my favorite people.

A huge thank you goes out to the Evan’s family for letting me stay with them on such short notice. I had a fantastic weekend up in Rochester and am so glad I was able to spend some quality time up in Dave’s hometown.

Summer Daze

I always dreamed of having a perfect summer in New York. What I forgot to factor in, was the fact that I work 40+ hours a week and didn’t make enough money to do the things I truly want: travel and eat lots of food. Fortunately for me, I’m surrounded by some pretty amazing people who helped make my first summer in New York pretty great.

After looking through most of my photos, I can tell you I spent a significant amount of time at sporting events, running around Manhattan, apartment searching, and trying new restaurants.

Here’s some photos that perfectly capture my first summer in the Big Apple.

Graduation (Round 2)

If you’re reading this and a bit confused as to why you’re reading yet another graduation post, let me explain. While, yes, I did technically graduate and finish all my classes in December, there was NO way I was going to pass up the opportunity to graduate from YANKEE STADIUM in May (yes you read that correctly, THE Yankee Stadium). But I digress…

In between my last trip to NYC for Dave’s NCAA Championship and graduation I secured a job at my dream company, FOX Networks, as Distribution Assistant. Luckily for me, I already had a flight booked to NYC for Graduation, so I just canceled my return flight to San Diego and began securing my apartment, and finalizing my graduation plans.

The weeks leading up to graduation were a complete whirlwind. I began my first day back in NY by saying goodbye to a close friend, Etan, at the airport as soon as I landed. The following night was an award ceremony, followed by Dave’s first summer volleyball tournament, and before I knew it, my parents were in town to celebrate graduation 2.0.

NYU is pretty big (about 50,000 students), so each school breaks up and does their own graduation ceremony prior to the big Yankee Stadium Commencement. Luckily for me (and my parents), I went to a somewhat small school and program ( less than 100 graduates and less than 8 girls in my program) which meant a pretty quick ceremony. Unfortunately my graduation fell on the same night as the Ranger’s playoffs game but we couldn’t score tickets to go. Some might find it ironic that a few of my sports management friends ditched the end of graduation and headed to the Garden – talk about truly studying what you love!

We had a day between graduating as a school and NYU’s commencement in the Bronx so I took my mom to Hoboken for the day and then later grad alley on campus. I love being able to show her a new part of the city every time she comes – that’s one of the best parts of New York – it’s somewhat limitless.

It was the perfect day for a baseball game graduation – the sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, and excitement in the air. A sea of students in purple robes flooded the gates into Yankee Stadium.  Truth be told, I have never seen Yankee stadium filled with so many non-sports fans in my life. No joke.  After venturing around the 100’s section, I found some sports management friends, then later my teammates and made my way to the 3rd baseline, where I would sit the rest of the ceremony. Though the ceremony was a bit longer than I wished, it was a pretty cool experience to graduate from my favorite ballpark. How many sports fans can say that they graduated from Yankee Stadium? Not many.

After commencement, we made it back to midtown for a lunch at an Irish Pub and a celebratory beer (Hey, I’m Irish!). I then showed my parents my new work HQ (News Corp), where we ran into my former intern boss, Chris Bellitti. He was a huge part of my post-graduation job success and it seemed only fitting to run into him just hours after officially “graduating”.

Graduation 2.0 was a huge success but I couldn’t have done it without the help of a few friends. A huge thank you goes out to my incredibly supportive parents and sister – thanks for putting up with me all these years. Thank you to all my friends, my teammates, and roommates for putting up with me the past four years – I could not have done it without you all!