ZB in NYC pt. 3

This will be the final post from Zach's visit!! After the Mermaid Parade, we headed back to my room to get ready for the night. We made our way down to Old Fulton Street so I could introduce Zach to Grimaldi's! We ended up waiting in line for something like an hour and 15 minutes, then devoured our pizza in about 5 -- it was soooo good!

The view from the front of the line

This guy is the mannn

After Grimaldi's, we walked down the street to the Brooklyn Promenade for the 3rd night in a row.  We walked around a little bit, sat on a bench for a while, then decided to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge!

Afterwards, we waited in line for 45 minutes to get ice cream from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory before heading home for the night.  The next morning, we went to a diner for breakfast and I escorted Zach back to Penn Station where the New Jersey Transit took him away from me = (

ZB in NYC pt. 2: Mermaid Parade = Indescribable Freak Show

So, I'll pick up where I left off. Saturday, we headed off to Coney Island, and words can not describe what we witnessed there that first Saturday of summer. The day started off being pretty normal. It took about an hour to get there by train, and once we arrived, we walked around a little bit and decided to ride the Cyclone - a super old, wooden, rickety roller coaster. WARNING: do NOT ride this roller coaster unless you like the feeling of whiplash, spine compression, and/or all around agony. Okay... I guess it wasn't that bad, but if given the choice, I would not ride it again.

Only $8 a ride with a complimentary sore neck

After riding the Cyclone, we waited in line to get Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs. They were delicious, but before we had much time to digest, we lined up along the road for the Mermaid Parade. I must say, some of the sights of the parade had the ability to bring those hot dogs right back up.

The line at Nathan's Famous

Just to back it up a little bit, before we went to Coney Island, we knew that the Mermaid Parade was to be held that day. We realized when we got there that the park and surrounding area was absolutely packed with tourists and locals and mermaids and freaks. We saw signs like the one below and tables selling Mermaid Parade t-shirts. We started to get the sense that this thing is kind of a big deal, but we had no idea what we were in for until we saw the actual spectacle, the people that the Mermaid Parade draws to Surf Avenue.


Among many other things, we saw: men in mermaid drag, mer-dogs, topless mermaids (pasties optional), and mermaid families with baby mermaids in tow. It was quite the experience. These pictures do not do the Mermaid Parade justice. My words don't come close to shining a light on what we saw that day. It's something that can only be experienced in person, and believe it or not, I would recommend that you do!

Overall theme of the parade: BP sucks

Zach had a theory, perhaps because of all of the merMEN dressed as merMAIDS (like the one below), that the Mermaid Parade had its roots in gay culture. This was something that I was not convinced of and in fact thought was downright incorrect. So, we made a little bet; whoever was wrong had to buy pizza at Grimaldi's that night. Who won? Well... Zach bought the pizza.

This guy was SO funny

ZB in NYC pt. 1

First off, my apologies for not posting for a whole WEEK! It turns out that my job and my intern project and everything else is keeping me really really BUSY. Let's just accept the fact that I'm going to average 1-2 posts a week (and I don't want to hear any complaints from my loyal fans! haha). Be prepared for longer posts if I have to recap a whole week! You can split up the paragraphs over the days I don't write if you need a fix.

So anyways, this past weekend, Zach came to visit me = ) He drove to New Jersey on Thursday and took a train into the city, I walked and met up with him after work. Of course when I finally saw him, he was across the road and there were a million cars whizzing past in between us. I had no choice but to dart across, weaving in and out of the cars (Frogger, Maria style). Horns were honking at me, I got hit by a taxi, rolled up onto the windshield, and Zach caught me on the other side. (Actually... we waited impatiently for the red light and finally got to each other.)

From there, we walked to Times Square to take the subway back to my place. We waited for a little bit and a 3 train finally came! The train pulled away from the platform and no sooner did I say, "It takes about 20 minutes to get home from here," when the train slowed, eventually came to a stop, and a booming voice from the speakers said that there was a situation and the staff had to go check it out. You've got to be kidding me. Weekend goal: Make Zach love NYC. So far: not looking so good!

We waited for what seemed like an hour (but what was actually probably 15-20 minutes) before the train started to move again, and we finally arrived safely at the EHS Clark Street Residence (my summer home). I had cooked pasta for us the night before, so we heated that up, ate dinner and wandered around the neighborhood for a little while.

Friday (since I skipped work, with permission), we ate some delicious bagels and decided to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It's only 2 subway stops away from my place, and as soon as we got to Battery Park, we bought our tickets for the Ferry. As you'll see in the picture below this paragraph, we got our picture taken with some guy dressed up as the Statue of Liberty. He practically begged us to come get our picture taken, (no signs, no mention of price), and afterwards, he tried to make us give him $5! Hellllll no. We bickered back and forth with him for a minute before just walking away. Go ahead and chase us in your green spray painted robe... jerk.

Creep.

Soon after, we realized that the line extended the whole way from the ferry, practically around the block, back to where we bought our tickets. With only 3 days to spend together, we decided we didn't want to waste 4 hours waiting in line, especially with the sun that day and Zach's condition (aka, red hair!). We sold our tickets to 2 random people and made our way to the FREE Staten Island Ferry, which provided us with decent views of the Statue and also a nice boat ride! Once we made it to Staten Island, we grabbed an exquisite meal of pretzel dogs and awaited the next ferry back to Manhattan.

On the Staten Island Ferry

...pretty self explanatory

Other events of the day included: going to see Toy Story 3 at a movie theater near Penn Station, taking Zach to Ogilvy to see where I work, and eating dinner at a cute little place near there. We also walked down to the Brooklyn Promenade again (soooo pretty at night).

Saturday we went to Coney Island, but in my opinion, mostly due to the Mermaid Parade, I think that day warrants its own post. Stay tuned for Mermaid Parade = Indescribable Freak Show.


Positives: ZACH CAME TO VISIT, Staten Island Ferry is FREE, Toy Story 3, Brooklyn Promenade, EVERYTHING
Negatives: broken first subway ride, creepy statue man, 4 hour line

She works hard for the money

My second week of work is coming to an end, and so far, I really, really like my job and New York in general! I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I'm working on the AVON account, which I think is so cool because it's a worldwide brand that people actually recognize. Sometimes I seriously get home from work, see an ad on TV, and say to my roommate, "Ogilvy made that commercial!" She's probably getting really sick of it, but I can't help but notice that their work is everywhere. I love, love, love Ogilvy.

As a part of this internship program, we have to complete a project with an assigned team. We found out at our Lunch-n-Learn tuesday that this year, the project is to create an advertising campaign for IKEA! At the end, all of the teams will present to a panel of judges from both IKEA and Ogilvy, and they will decide who wins! The assignment is pretty similar to projects I have done for classes before, but with more on the line, so I'm really excited.

The best thing about this week... drumroll please... ba da da da da da da da... Zach is coming to visit me! He's actually coming tomorrow (thursday) night, and I am SO excited to see him = )

Positives: Zach coming to visit, IKEA project, love work
Negatives: none to be seen!

Subway maintenance will be the death of us

Once again, we went out both nights over the weekend. Once again, we tried to take the subway home. Once again, we gave up and called a cab. For some reason, we can't seem to get it right! There is always maintenance going on during the weekends, which completely throws our plans off. Here's the usual sequence of events: we hopstop directions and write them down before leaving, they end up being wrong because a certain train isn't running/a track is being fixed, we ask a stranger where to go, they tell us the wrong directions, we get lost, we take a taxi. Better luck next time?

Anyways... this past weekend was really fun! Friday, we went to Greenwich Village and wandered around. After accidentally stopping at a gay bar where the bouncer told us we probably didn't want to be, we tried 2 more places and eventually ended up at Down the Hatch -- the place we went once last weekend.

Typical subway pic

Saturday during the day, Lauren and I went to get my eyebrows threaded. If you have never heard of this, look it up on YouTube! It's so nuts -- and hurts like crazy! Then we met our neighbor Catherine at Grimaldi's Pizzeria (voted the best pizza in NY by the Zagat guide). We had to wait in line for 30 minutes, but it was so worth it. Great news for us, it's only about a 10 minute walk! Afterwards we walked down to the Brooklyn Ice cream Factory under the Brooklyn Bridge. The ice cream was a little pricy but really good, and the view was amazinggg.

White pizza... so good.

BK Bridge

Saturday night, we went to this place called Butter (apparently so cool that they go there on GossipGirl), for Lauren's friend Julia's birthday! Reasons why it was cool: we didn't have to wait in line, it was really fun, and we didn't have to pay for drinks (Julia had some connection to a promoter. Note to self: meet more promoters).

Positives: bangin pizza, Butter
Negatives: getting lost again

Intern Scavenger Hunt

As you may have caught in my last post, all of the interns will work on a group project this summer. We were split into our group project teams to do a scavenger hunt! My team consists of Erik, Meylin, Callie, Margaret, Gabe, and myself. The scavenger hunt was interesting and I think we all had fun (despite the rain). We had to take pictures for all of the items on the list and compile them into a PowerPoint presentation to be turned in to Morgan and John by no later than 6 p.m.

Rules:

• All photos must be taken outside of the Ogilvy building
• At least 3 team member should be present in each photo
• You may not use Ogilvy employees to help answer the clues
• Entries are due via email by 6 p.m.

Judging will be based upon:

• Creativity (35%)
• Accuracy (30%)
• Time to complete (20%)
• Presentation (15%)

Clue #1: This account/brand was won in 1954 and has kept Ogilvy clean ever since.

Unilever

Clue #2: Ogilvy's BIG idea in Times Square

The Hershey Store

Clue #3: This campaign made us the first ad agency to win an Emmy

American Express

Clue #4: They held David's pants up on most days

Red Suspenders

Clue #5: Name of our Company Intranet Site; "We pursue knowledge the way a pig pursues ________"

Truffles

Clue #6: This client's move to Ogilvy in 1994 made headlines in The New York Times

IBM

Clue #7: In 2005, we won this account, a major Wall Street institution, located in Time Square

Morgan Stanley

Clue #8: Picture that best embodies what you perceive to be the quintessential IKEA consumer

Clue #9: Take a picture of something red... and BE CREATIVE!

We RE(A)D this book by David Ogilvy

Clue #10: Picture that best represents your team

FIRST DAY!

Just as a warning right off the bat, this post is most likely going to be pretty long! I apolozige about the length, but it's mostly about Ogilvy and how awesome it is, so if you're not interested, just don't read it!

I swear, it was impossible to sleep the night before my first day! It was a kind of "it's Christmas and I'm so excited I can't even sleep" feeling, mixed with the paranoia of "Oh shit did I miss my alarm!?" which resulted in waking up every half hour and frantically grabbing my phone. I did in fact get up on time, get ready, and take the correct train! Everyone had to be to work by 8:30 for our day of training. I met a fellow PSU-er, Arielle, in Times Square so we could walk to Ogilvy together, and we ran into Tyler along the way.

We ate breakfast, met all of the other interns, and filled out some paperwork. Spencer Osbourne, who has worked with Ogilvy for 17 years, welcomed us (he was SO hilarious). He gave us some great advice and had the whole room laughing. He also told us that we were chosen from something like 700 applicants, so we should be proud of ourselves!

We spent a lot of time doing tech training for the inter-office communication program called LotusNotes and also learned how to enter our time sheets online. Training was intermixed with a few coffee breaks, chances to mingle with all of our fellow interns and some Ogilvy employees, and lunch!

Rae and Marcus gave us a tour of the building! This place is so full of amazing things:

• A rooftop deck (with SUCH a beautiful view)
• A barber shop (complete with the barber that actually cut David Ogilvy's hair)
• Nurse Penny's office (kind of like a school nurse -- and she has a massage chair)
• A gym for employees (only like $30 a month)
• Eyepatch (their in house production studio)
• An awesome cafeteria and faux Starbucks
• Pieces of art and murals all over the walls
• A bike program (you can just borrow a bike and ride it around for a while!)

The roof!

These pictures don't do it justice.

A cool piece of artwork!

They also told us about different events and networking opportunities:

• Tuesdays@2 - Educational events with speakers from both outside and inside the company
• Professional Networks - groups within the company for different ethnicities and interests
• Wet Wednesdays - Social events sponsored by one of the professional networks, usually 1 every other month which include things like food, alcohol, and entertainment!

We met our business leaders, Morgan and John, who will be our key contacts for anything internship program related, like our scavenger hunt, group projects, and Lunch-n-Learns (every Tuesday we all get together to eat lunch and listen to a guest speaker in preparation for our final projects).

At the end of the day, I finally got to meet my manager, Amanda, who introduced me to other people on the Avon account (my co-workers for the summer!).

Although we had a lot of information thrown at us all at once, and I have over 30 new names to remember (not my strong suit), it was such a great day and I'm so excited about this opportunity!

I probably left out a ton of things we did and people we met, but I just can't remember it all and I'm sure you're sick of reading!

New York City is a Drug

First weekend out in NYC? SUCCESS! With a few minor setbacks. My roommate Lauren's friend Steph stayed with us this weekend because she had some interviews in the city, and it was so much fun to finally go out! The first night we went to a bar called Brother Jimmy's in Union Square. The best way to describe it I guess would be like a college-bar kind of atmosphere, minus the fact that a can of Natty costs $4.50.

Lauren and I before Brother Jimmy's

They were doing maintenance all weekend on the subway right near our dorm, so we got lost and had to ask for directions both nights. Saturday night, we tried to go to this place we found online called Down the Hatch in Greenwich Village. It seemed like it took forEVER to get there, and once we finally got to the door I realized I had forgotten my ID! Epic fail. It was still kind of early (early for NYC anyways) so we went ALL the way back home to get my ID, then made it back and still had a fun night! Shout out to the name of this post, the bartender gave Lauren a single of his band's song, "New York City is a Drug." They are called the Dirty Pearls and that song is delightfully cheesy... hah.

At Down the Hatch

We ended up taking a taxi and getting home around 5:15 a.m., as the sky was getting light. I guess this is how they roll in NYC, but we have already decided we won't survive if we try to do that every weekend!

Brooklyn Heights at 5:15 a.m.

Positives: GREAT first weekend, so fun, met a Bradley Cooper look-a-like
Negatives: Forgot my ID, expensive drinks, got lost again

LOST!

Today started out great. I got up early (well, early considering I don't have work yet) and went to the gym. It's surprisingly really nice! You can tell some of the equipment is kind of old, but the place is huge. Living with EHS for the summer, everyone can get a free membership for their time here, so that makes it even better!

Eastern Athletic Club

After that, I got all ready and embarked on my first solo subway journey. I made it safely to Ogilvy around 1:00 to meet with some of the other interns. Everyone was SO SO nice. We got lunch at a little place down the street and Armaan and Sandy acted as our tour guides for the rest of the afternoon. We went to SoHo, walked around, went to Top Shop (which was super expensive for my taste), then stopped at a little carnival-type game and tried to win some big bucks. The only thing we walked away with was this bit of advice about the number card in the game, "It's like a dress... It's what's underneath that counts!" Then we went to a place called Gatsby's where Armaan so graciously bought a round of drinks (thankss!).

First drink in the city!

At this point, things started to get a little rocky. I decided to head home when we left Gatsby's, so after getting directions from a guy that worked there, I thought I was all set. My fellow interns pointed me in the right direction, and after getting sidetracked in a store (and buying a cute dress) I was on my way. I never found the subway stop near Canal Street that the guy at Gatsby's mentioned, so I ended up asking like 3 random people how to get home, all of whom gave me different, and WRONG, directions. After numerous men asked me if I wanted to buy _______ purses (insert pretty much any designer name), I finally found a guy at some theater who told me to take the A train to Chambers street, then get on the 3 train from there, which finally led me back to my beloved Clark Street.

At least I eventually made it! Some more great news, I can pretty much bypass the walking portion of my commute because Ogilvy has a shuttle from Penn Station! Woo! Also, we're going out tonight, so I'm off to take a nap!

Ogilvy Shuttle

Positives: Nice gym, Met awesome interns, Ogilvy shuttle to work, Cute new dress, Going out tonight!
Negatives: GETTING LOST!

Practice Commute

So my parents arrived at my place around 7:15 this morning to practice my commute. We boarded the subway with no serious problems. My dad nearly caused a domino effect by crashing into some poor girl when we started moving, but other than that, the ride went smoothly. I get off the subway right in Times Square, then have about a 20-25 minute walk to get to Ogilvy. HopStop.com was pretty dead on in that it takes me about 45 minutes to get to work.

First subway ride... SUCCESS

Times Square

I won't get to go into Ogilvy until Monday for orientation, but the building looked so, so nice. I'm super excited to get started but also a little nervous.

Ogilvy!

We got breakfast at the Market Diner right down the street from the office, then headed back to Brooklyn. After a slightly teary-eyed goodbye (on my mom's part), my parents headed home and I bought some groceries at Gristedes. My roommate, Lauren, and I just hung out in our room and took a nap until 8 when we went downstairs for free pizza... only to find that they bought THREE BOXES of pizza for our WHOLE building. Way to go EHS. We walked around Brooklyn Heights a little bit, went to Chipotle for dinner, and settled in for Real Housewives of New York City. We're determined to spot at least one of the housewives while we're here!

Tomorrow I plan to meet up with some of the other Ogilvy interns for lunch, so that should be fun! Then we're going out for the first time for Lauren's friend's birthday, which should be even MORE fun!

Positives: Nice office building, cute diner down the street
Negatives: Long commute, NO FREE PIZZA!

Finally Here!

A wake up from my sister Sarah at 6:30 a.m., 2 trips back to the house for forgotten things, and one pit stop along the way... so begins my summer in New York City. My parents so graciously drove me (and a van full of my stuff) to Brooklyn today to move into my dorm-like room. I risked being laughed in the face as we hauled bin after suitcase after duffel bag into the lobby of the EHS Clark Street Residence. Luckily no one made fun of me (just a few sideways glances), and I actually fit everything into my room (and decided to send a few things home with my parents).

We unpacked all of my stuff, walked around Brooklyn Heights for a while and got some dinner at Monty Q's Brick Oven Pizza. My (and Michael Scott's) favorite New York pizza joint, Sbarro, will have to wait for another day. After getting a public transit ticket and buying a few groceries, I finally met my roommate, Lauren, and got my internet set up.

A park that's right down the road

My dad and I in the park

Taking the risk of sounding like a giant nerd, I will disclose that my parents are accompanying me on a practice commute to Ogilvy tomorrow morning! I hope it's not too terrible since I'll have to make it for the next ten weeks.

So far...
Positives: Liquor store, grocery store, and gym all within 2 minutes! Nice neighborhood.
Negatives: Shared closet, communal kitchen