"I can be your hero, baby."

We got up obscenely early this morning because we wanted to see if we could stand in line for tickets to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. We went all the way over to 11th Ave. to find that his studio had moved and been replaced with the Colbert Report studio. Unfortunately, you had to be 18 to get stand-by tickets (we're both less than two months away...) so we decided to get some hot chocolate at Dunkin' Donuts instead. We then decided to take the cross-town bus to Times Square, and the schedule said that it would arrive at 11:06. We got to the bus stop at 11:02 to wait. And wait and wait and wait. It wasn't until 11:26 that a bus came. We could have walked there faster.

In Times Square we had a picnic lunch and went to the Virgin Megastore and the M&M store, where we got our M&M colors scanned--Cecilia was silver and Louisa was pink. Good to know. We then walked across the street to look for a subway downtown so we could get some gelato, but we ran into a line of teenagers. We stood bewildered for a minute or two before a young woman came over and asked us if we had tickets for TRL. We said no, and she told us to go wait against the wall. So we did.

We were standing in line when suddenly all the people around us went crazy. They started taking out their cameras and running down the sidewalk. "It's him; it's him." We had no idea who "him" was. But soon the line started moving and we found ourselves inside the building where the MTV studio is located. We waited in more long lines and were finally ushered into the studio, after giving up our wallets, cell phones, and cameras. Luckily, Louisa had already called her mother and walked her through the process of taping TRL on the DVR.

Then we found out who the mysterious man was. ENRIQUE IGLESIAS. He was there to premiere his new video, "Do You Know." He stood within about two feet of us to be interviewed by Damien and then to play ping pong with him. (Anyone who missed today's TRL--probably all of you--can come over to Louisa's house to watch it.) It was beautiful. LaKisha Jones, who just was kicked off American Idol, was also there, but we didn't really know anything about her. Enrique, however, we remembered from way back in his "Hero" and "Escape" days. You can be our hero, Enrique.

Then we finally made it downtown to get some gelato. It was a kind of disappointing gelateria, but nothing could really compare to going on TRL and seeing Enrique Iglesias up close.

Post-Modern Minimalism

Today we learned that assaulting an MTA officer is a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison. Good thing we didn't follow through with our plan the first day, we guess. Cecilia had another run-in with one today when her Metrocard would not let her through the turnstile no matter how hard she tried. She went over to talk to the MTA officer in the booth while Louisa watched the train leave the station. He yelled at her for having bent it a little bit, but she finally made it through and we waited for the next train. One day we'll make it through a whole day with no subway problems.

We had gelateria problems again today too, unfortunately. We chose a gelateria to visit and made our way to the location, where we again saw a giant construction site. WE ARE NOT JOKING. We walked around all of the surrounding blocks but there was no gelato in sight. Something must be pushing all of the New York gelaterias out of business. We have high hopes that this blog will start a revival, however.

We went all the way downtown to Little Italy and passed several gelaterias still in business, which we marked down for next time, before we made it to the one on our list. It was delicious, as gelato always is, but not quite as good as yesterday's. The weather was beautiful, however, and we spent some time wandering around Little Italy before we went back to the subway.

While making our way uptown, Cecilia found herself seated directly underneath two bickering passengers, fighting over how much room there was on the train. "I didn't ask for you to come on this train; you chose to come on this train." "There's room for everybody, if everybody would just move down." At which point Cecilia stood up and moved away, leaving them to fight over who would take her seat. ("No, I don't want that seat, you take that seat....")

We got off in midtown Manhattan because we wanted to go to the Museum of Modern Art, which has free Friday nights (We're saving our money for more important things, ok?). Though it had been 80 degrees and sunny downtown, at 51st St. it was dark and raining. Louisa remarked that it was bearable, since it was not raining too hard, at which point it started to rain harder. Luckily, after passing under quite a few awnings, we made it to H&M before we got too wet.

The MoMA was very crowded but we spent quite a bit of time wandering through the exhibits, including one on the Helvetica typeface, at Louisa's mom's suggestion. We also saw many Picassos, Matisses, and Gaugins, but our personal favorite was the exhibit on post-modern minimalism, which is pictured below.

Tomorrow we're planning a picnic.

"Retail Space Available"

Today started off wonderfully. We got up early, had a breakfast of frosted mini wheats, and then set off for the grocery store a couple of blocks away. There we found bananas at a price of 33 cents per pound, so we bought six for a grand total of 74 cents! We also found some tomato sauce for 99 cents, which was a great bargain. So far we have spent about $15 on food, and we have enough to last us for weeks! We returned to the apartment to research and plan for the rest of the day. We prepared a pasta lunch (of course), which we estimated cost us less than a dollar. We then journeyed downtown to find our first gelateria.


The subway ride went smoothly, and before we knew it, we arrived at 14th St. We had chosen the closest gelateria on our list, which was said to be located on 7th Ave. between 17th and 18th streets. As we approached this location, we noticed that the neighborhood was calm and friendly, and we made a mental note to write about that in our review. We turned onto 7th Ave. and started walking up towards 18th St., looking at all of the stores that we passed. None was the gelateria. Up ahead we saw a large construction site. We checked the address once again--where the gelateria was supposed to be, there was now a large hole in the ground. Luckily, a sign advertised the retail space available, so if we ever want to open our own gelateria, we know where there's a spot! One down, literally, we moved on to the next on our list.





As we got closer to the next gelateria, we noticed that there was almost no one on the streets, at least by New York standards. We wandered around a little until we saw the address we were looking for: 75 9th Ave. Almost as soon as we walked in the door, we noticed a table where free cookies were being given away. Not ones to turn down free food, we each took one. A little further down the long hallway was a table with free brownies. We each took one of those as well. We could hear live music from even further down, so without knowing exactly where we were going, we kept walking. It was after we saw the free cake samples and soup samples that we realized something was going on. We walked past the band that we had heard and almost ran into a man on stilts, dressed in a clown suit, who was handing out Mardi Gras beads, which was weird, since it certainly wasn't Mardi Gras.

We still hadn't seen the gelateria we were looking for, so we kept walking. Free food was everywhere! We reached a small Italian grocery store called Buon Italia, which wasn't what we had been looking for, but we looked inside and they sold gelato! Finally we were in luck!

The gelato was delicious. The official review will come at our presentation on June 1st, so we hope to see you there! Despite the setbacks, it was a great start to our project (and we were even able to make all of the free food into our dinner)!

"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger"

After two days of planning and organizing, we finally set off for New York City this morning. It seemed like quite a stressful morning, but compared to everything that has happened since, it was a piece of cake! Cecilia's mother graciously offered to drive us to Boston, so we left from Waynflete at about 11:30. We were on the turnpike when Sally noticed that there was only enough gas left for five miles of driving, and we were still a couple of miles from the nearest service station. Cecilia started freaking out, but we managed to calm her down and Sally smoothly slid beside a gas tank with only droplets of gas left. The rest of the car ride went well until we drove right by the exit that Mapquest had told us to use. Luckily, Sally ingeniously figured out another route and managed to save $4 in tolls.

We finally arrived at South Station at 1:30. We knew that the buses to New York left every hour, so we were hoping to make the 2:00 bus. Unfortunately, neither of us is a light packer, and we each had a backpack and large duffel, as well as a shopping bag with a 5 pound bag of pasta and two pairs off flip-flops that we passed between us (sorry about that misplaced modifier; it's been a long day--we mean the shopping bag) as we walked about half a mile through the train station to find the buses. We bought our tickets ($15 each) with minutes to spare, and we sat down to wait.

The bus was relatively empty, and we both managed to catch up on some sleep. We decided to check out Century Buffet when the bus stopped, and we each invested in $3.77 of Chinese food and fruit. There were some strange characters on the bus, including one man who managed to shake the bus with one sneeze, another who kept changing his clothes and brushing his teeth, and one man who kept cracking up in the seat in front of us. The time passed quickly, though, and we found ourselves in Chinatown at approximately 7:00, again with all our luggage in hand. We managed to find the orange line, and this is where things started going downhill.

Louisa opened her backpack to find that her Fierce Grape Gatorade (an awful shade of blue) had spilled on her lovely pink wallet. She managed to momentarily ignore the pain in the interest of purchasing a metro card. However, the machine gave her back $6 in coins (5 Sacajaweas and a Susan B. Anthony) and she was forced to put them in her pocket. She then followed Cecilia through the turnstile, only instead of putting her body through the gate, she pushed her luggage through, leaving her stuck on the other side, unable to swipe her card again, with a line swiftly forming behind her. A metro card cannot be used at the same station within 18 minutes, and instead of waiting that long (as was our original plan--we wanted to buy one ticket and stay 18 minutes apart), she managed to jump over the gate.

We got on the B line and got off after one stop to transfer to the 6 train, which we thought had arrived at the platform. Cecilia pushed Louisa into the train as the doors were starting to close, then pulled her back out with only milliseconds to spare when she realized that it was actually an F train headed for Queens. Louisa was very grateful for Cecilia's quick thinking, as she would have been very lost in Queens all by herself. We then noticed signs pointing upstairs to the 6 train and decided to follow them. Upstairs, we found that there was only a platform for the 6 train downtown--and we wanted to go uptown. Luckily, we had bought unlimited use metro cards, so we went out the turnstile (Louisa made it that time) and asked the MTA official at the counter where we should go. He said nothing but pointed at a handwritten sign on which were written directions to the uptown train. Unfortunately, they required going upstairs and outside (and keep in mind we still had all our luggage--and the 5 pound bag of pasta). We walked a couple of blocks, following the directions that Cecilia had written on her hand, and found only a stairway labeled "6 Train Downtown." We were bewildered and considered going to ambush the MTA officers below. Then, however, Louisa turned around and notice another stairway across this street-- this one going to the uptown train. We breathed a sigh of relief when we sat down in the train and waited through many stops until we made it uptown.

We arrived at the apartment that we are staying at and met Rick, the brother-in-law of the owners, family friends of the Nardis. He showed us around and we settled into our rooms. We decided to make Annie's macaroni and cheese (we are on the opposite of the Atkin's diet for the next few weeks) for dinner, and Cecilia found a pot to boil water in. The dishwasher was connected to the faucet, but we saw that the dishes were clean and decided to unconnect it. Cecilia unconnected the tube and water started spraying on her and all over the kitchen. She frantically turned the faucet, but the water refused to turn off. She then tried to reconnect the tube, but that only made the water spray even more viciously. Louisa tried to help by pressing buttons on the dishwasher, but that only made things worse. Finally we called Rick, who came to help us turn the water off. The rest of the dinner went smoothly, except for the floaty things that mysteriously ended up in our pasta.

We then sat down to write our blog. And after much trouble connecting to the internet (which we won't go into), we are here. We hope you keep reading as we continue to explore New York and get in even more trouble. Tomorrow will bring us to our first gelateria!

Cecilia and Louisa

Gelateria Locations

I was looking for a way to plot the locations of all the gelaterias we are going to visit when I stumbled across this site: Batch Geocode. What you have to do is make a spreadsheet of all the addresses you want plotted, and then it "geocodes" them, or generates another spreadsheet that includes their exact longitudes and latitudes. Then you can view all the locations on a single map, which you can also view a satellite or hybrid version of, just like with GoogleEarth.

Here's a map of the gelaterias we plan on visiting (though unfortunately we may not get to all of them): Gelateria Locations. Isn't that pretty cool? Now everyone will know exactly where we are at all times!

In other news, if you look at the sidebar to the left you will see that now you can not only subscribe to this blog in a feed (ok, I admit I don't really actually know what that is), you can also enter your email address and all new posts will be sent to your email!

Louisa

The Beginning

Welcome, everyone!

We have started this blog to keep you updated on our "Viaggio del Gelato" (Voyage of Gelato!). We're still in Maine right now, and we're still a couple of months away from senior projects (We can't wait for May!), but our proposal is due in two days and we are furiously working on completing it.

Our plan: We are going to go to New York City for fifteen days in May to explore the city's gelaterias and learn about the history of Little Italy and of the Italian influence in New York. We will visit about ten gelaterias and will write a review of each one. We also hope to meet the owners/gelato makers and learn their secrets! When we get home, we will make some gelato of our own (You'll get to try some if you come to our presentation at Waynflete on June 1st!).

During this project we'll be updating this blog to let you all know what we've done. At our presentation, we will have a book of gelateria reviews and recipes for everyone to look at.

For more information about the difference between gelato and ice cream, we invite you to visit this site: Ice Cream vs. Gelato. To learn about the history of gelato, click here: History of Gelato.

Keep checking back for updates, especially in May when we'll finally get on the road!

Cecilia and Louisa