Second Semester in New York

It's been awhile since I've blogged. It was a busy week the week before I left California, and it's been a busy week back in NYC. After I posted I went backpacking along the coast of California, road tons of miles, and had my gluten test done. Here in New York I've been cycling since it's sunny, studying, and eating food.

About a week before I left home I went backpacking at Pt. Reyes, a national park along the coast of California. It was really beautiful, especially since we stayed near the ocean. You can see what I bought myself for my birthday in the second picture. A two person backpacking tent is all I need, and I'm really stoked on it. At night it was freezing, since were in a valley, but it was really nice to get outside and see stars.

After backpacking I worked a ton, went on a 14 mile bike ride in Davis, and found out that I don't have celiac disease. Woohoo for no allergy! I still try to not eat gluten though, since it doesn't agree with me.

The first thing I saw back in New York City after I flew back was this:

I missed the snow falling- but I saw a lot of it on the ground! How cool is that? The middle picture is of Union Square, taken from the cafe of Whole Foods. Very pretty when it's white :)

Yesterday (Saturday) I decided to go on a long bike ride, so I rode around the top of Manhattan. The trip was about 24.5 miles, and was beautiful for parts of it, and very different for other parts. The west side above 50th street is very beautiful; you ride next to parks, under trees, and in a peaceful setting. After crossing over the top of Manhattan, before riding next to the East side river, the bike path goes straight through the heart of Harlem. I've never been up there, and since it was in the middle of day in the broad sunlight, it was actually really interesting to see. Here are the pictures I took of the west side;

The path I took was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in NYC. I heard birds chirping- real birds. A very good place to be, to bad it's about 8 miles away from me. I'm going to try and visit that side often.

This morning I went for a run, then took out our compost to whole foods (yep- I food recycle in New York City!). Since I was there, and felt like I deserved a treat I picked up an almond chai latte. Right along side the cafe were energy bars. There I spotted a new clif builder bar- smores flavored.

My favorite part of the whole thing is the climber on the side of the wrapper. The actual bar wasn't that great, it didn't really taste like marshmallows and chocolate, but it was ok. I'm off to write some essays and maybe try to ride some more miles today. I'll leave you with the oddest looking thing I saw yesterday though... I wonder if anyone can explain that to me. My roomy thinks it's hail, but I've never seen hail look like this...