Lake George escape and a new Kickstarter song!

Sooooo remember last blog post, when I was freaking out about the fact that it was "snaining" (snow/raining) outside?

Welp. Looks like there should have been an emphasis put on the "snow" part of that. 

That photo right there is the view that I had last Thursday morning at the nice and early time of 8:00a.m... I woke up at 6:00 in the morning, walked about 6 blocks with a rolling suitcase through the snow, and then stood for about 45 minutes right in that very spot, waiting for my very first Megabus experience to begin. 

But it was SO wonderful! I don't know what it was (maybe the sudden downpour of snow the night before), but I met so many lovely, friendly people on the way to the Megabus stop. Everyone was all smiles, I had a cup of warm coffee, and I was about to get whisked away to my grandparents' house in beautiful upstate New York.

Sidenote: I realized later (after boarding the bus) that people may have only been smiling and so nice to me, because I was wearing my boots on the wrong feet.

They probably just thought I was insane.

Okay. Back to the Megabus! It was SO wonderful. Really. If you've ever been on the fence about taking a trip using the company, just go for it. It only cost me $16 round trip to travel 3 and half hours to the Glens Falls/Lake George area. Easiest thing I've ever done.

When I arrived at the bus stop, my grandparents had literally just pulled up. And off we went to Barnes and Noble to get lunch/catch up/look at books, of course.

After quite a long time, we made our way to their house, where we sat and talked some more. (I'm pretty sure I talked more in those two days of visiting my grandparents than I have in the last two months).

And I stumbled upon this little creation in the guest room...

This is what grandpa does in his free time. He claims, "it keeps him off of the streets".

For dinner, we had delicious (and ridiculously cheesy) pizza from Harvest House in Glens Falls!

After a long, eventful day (full of talking), my grandparents were pooped. They claimed that I had worn them out... but honestly, I think they wore me out even more. 

Before heading to bed, though, we all sat and watched my grandma's favorite show-- "Jeopardy". (They are both quite good at answering the questions. Alas, I am not. Sadly, I only knew one answer the whole show, and it had something to do with "Honey Boo Boo". I have no idea what this says about me).

Friday morning, we woke up, downed our multiple cups of Black Magic coffee...

...and grammy and I talked even more. Yes. More talking. :)

There she is mid-sentence. I had to catch her in action, in her natural habitat.

For breakfast, we had some good, old fashioned, diner food at Hometown Diner. 

That is an example of the SHORT stack of blueberry pancakes. I don't even want to know what the regular stack looks like. And check out that entire TUB of butter. Literally. It is a plastic tub filled with butter.

Don't worry, I didn't use all of it. But I did pretty much finish all of the pancakes. They were too good to leave on the plate. 

Afterward, we drove into Bolton Landing, and spent some time admiring the beautiful view of Lake George from the Sagamore.

I mean, just look at that.

LOOK AT IT.

Lake George is beautiful at all times of the year, but there is something entirely different about seeing it in the winter, when no one is on it.. so incredibly peaceful. We sat there for quite awhile, soaking up the beauty and the warmth from the sun. I'm pretty sure grammy would have stayed there all day if she could... grandpa and I practically had to drag her off of the porch.

Then, we walked around the gift shop a bit, grandma bought little things, and we decided to call it a day. We had leftovers for dinner, we sat around, chatted some more, and all went to bed. Such a perfectly peaceful day in one of my favorite places on earth with some of my favorite people on earth.

Saturday morning, we had our usual coffee, our usual morning chats, etc.

And we went to the cutest little restaurant (Celia's Table) in downtown Glens Falls for lunch.

That right there is a delicious salad with the most delicious bowl of chicken pot pie soup. It seriously doesn't get any better than that.

Later in the day, it was time for me to head to the Megabus stop to catch a bus back to the Big Apple. Although it was a short trip, I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful it was. Not only did I get to spend some time away from the city in a beautiful place, but I was able to spend some alone time with my wonderful grandparents (whom I love dearly).

And guess what?? Good news! I am actually going to see them again this week for Thanksgiving. 

Grammy and Grandpappy: I know you both read this blog, so I just want to personally thank you for such a perfect few days. I love you both.

Basically, the rest of the week has consisted of school, internship (the internet is still down, so I only really went in for one day), writing papers, an awesome musical walking tour of the East and West village for class, a Veterans day parade that I stumbled upon...

a trip to the Trader Joes...

Quite a few fruit and yogurt parfaits....

A really strong (and cheap!) margarita...

...and a NEW KICKSTARTER SONG!

Yes. You heard me. A new song for my Kickstarter campaign.

This one is for my wonderful Kickstarter backer, Elizabeth Jensen. She wanted a song, on the ukulele, for her NEW fiance, Kyle.

You can hear the story and watch me play it live (in my awesome NYC dorm room) here:

And you can download the song FOR FREE here: San Antonio Line.

I must be off! I have quite a lot to do in a few, short hours. Because guess what? BOBBY ARRIVES AT 3:00pm. 

:)

And it gets better: His family arrives in the city on Monday, my mom arrives on Wednesday, and my brother arrives (just in time for Thanksgiving) on Thursday.

All is well in the world.

I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving. Eat lots of food. Give lots of thanks.. because we have a lot to be thankful for.

<3 Nat

The High Line, The Bad Plus, and SNL's Weekend Update

Happy Saturday! I have to catch up on a few days worth of blogging material here, so let's go ahead and get started.

SUNDAY

I spent the majority of my day working on piles of homework that had somehow accumulated. But that's okay, because I wrapped up all of the hard work with a fantastic dinner at Siggy's Good Food with my friends Josh and Sam.

Wouldja look at that beautiful salad? You might not be able to see it, but hiding underneath that delicious avocado is some even more delicious salmon. My body always thanks me for taking it to this wonderful eating establishment.

MONDAY

Made a quick (and much-needed) trip to Trader Joes to stock up on the weekly necessities. Then, it was off to the internship! Monday night, I took it easy and worked on some songs in my room.

TUESDAY

It was another beautiful day here in the Big Apple, and I was itching to get out and breathe some of the crystal clear air (haha), so I decided to go on a little adventure! I've been wanting to check out this place called the High Line for quite some time now. It's located on Manhattan's West Side and runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District all the way up to West 34th Street. You might be wondering... what is it?

It's this.

So... you might still be wondering... what is it?

I'm just going to steal this description right from the website. "The High Line is a public park built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan's West Side. The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan's largest industrial district. No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 when the historic structure was under threat of demolition. Friends of the High Line works in partnership with the City of New York to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park."

So there ya go. I walked practically from one end to the other on Tuesday, and it was such an awesome place to spend some time. There were people sitting, reading, sunbathing, playing with their dogs, playing music...

...and pretty much everything you can imagine that goes on in a normal park. Only, this one was elevated 30 feet off the ground, and it used to be a railroad track. So cool.

Another great thing about the High Line is that it has numerous options for food running from one end to the other. There were hot dog carts, sandwich carts, gelato carts, and my personal favorite:

An ice cream sandwich cart. Those are two red velvet cookies with cream cheese ice cream wedged in the middle. It was definitely as delicious as it looks. I snagged it from this little truck called Melt. Please do yourself a favor and get one of their ice cream sandwiches if you're ever on the High Line!

Tuesday night, Allison came back from her long visit to Nashville (it was so sad having the room to myself for so long), so it was wonderful to be reunited! I believe we did nothing but watch "Say Yes To The Dress" on TLC for a couple of hours before going to bed.

WEDNESDAY

Started off with the usual morning routine, and then I made my way to my internship. It was particularly busy in the office for some reason, so I was running around all over the place. I like being busy, so I can't complain, but it was definitely exhausting.

About halfway through the day, someone from the publishing side of our company (House of Hassle) came over to recruit some people for a show that was going on later that night. And when I say he recruited, I mean he begged. He really wanted some people for the audience, and when everyone else shot him down, he turned to me. Based on the reactions of everyone else in the office, I assumed that the band was really terrible or something, but I wanted them to see that I enjoy going to shows (in the hopes that they would offer more to me in the future), so I happily accepted. He put me down for a ticket and added a "plus one" just in case I wanted to bring someone else. 

After internship, I made my way to class... which ended up being extremely interesting! We had two guest speakers visiting from the television side of the industry. One is a senior producer for a lot of VH1 shows (everything from Tila Tequila  to Flavor of Love), and the other is a story producer for a lot of shows on TLC and Bravo (right now, she's working heavily on the Real Housewives of Atlanta). All of us are fairly knowledgeable about the music industry but know very little about television... especially reality television. We had questions galore. In particular, I wanted to know how long they actually film the women for the Real Housewives show... as in, how long do these women have to deal with a film crew following them around, recording every little thing that they say or do?

Believe it or not, she said that they are still recording the Real Housewives of Atlanta... and they started filming them at the beginning of February. That is crazy to me! Think about it: if you had a film crew following you around for that long (even if you're not as insane as those ladies are), there would be enough material to make you look absolutely nuts. I don't know why you would ever want to put yourself through that. 

Anyway, after class I was so exhausted, and all I wanted to do was go to bed... but I decided that I should still go to the show. I offered my "plus one" ticket up to some of my friends, and Josh took the bait. We made our way over to the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, got our free tickets from the box office (which are normally $25 a piece!), and made our way into the show...

...which ended up being absolutely wonderful! We were originally only planning to stay for a little bit (just to make an appearance), but Josh and I both stayed for practically the whole show. That photo up there is of a band called The Bad Plus. This trio (consisting of piano, upright bass, and percussion), played what I've decided is "freak out jazz".. as in, they were so good, it made me freak out a little bit. Apparently, they've been around for quite awhile, but this was the first I've heard of them. Hellooo? Why did none of my friends ever think to introduce me to their music? 

Anyway, it's safe to say that what I thought was going to be a bad night of music ended up being one of the best nights of music. I will definitely take that guy up on any other free ticket offers he has in the future! 

THURSDAY

I spent majority of this day working on a song for a songwriting competition that my mom found for me awhile back. The North Carolina magazine, Our State, is looking for a "North Carolina song" to feature in an upcoming article. I've never written a song about the wonderful state, so it was a fun little experiment to see if I could come up with anything. And I did! I'll start trying it out at some shows here in the future.

Unfortunately, our little cement block room isn't the best place to record anything, so the quality of my recording isn't top notch. When it came time to do my vocals, I didn't have a microphone stand, so I had to improvise.

Thank goodness for Old Fashioned Oats.

Thursday night, I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience.. one of the coolest things I've been able to do yet since living here (and I have done a lot, guys).

Thanks to fellow Belmont Easter, Amber, I got to be an audience member for Saturday Night Live's Thursday dress rehearsal of the Weekend Update! I wasn't able to take photos of the actual SNL set, but it was so awesome... Alex (another lucky Belmont Easter who snagged a ticket) and I were literally on the floor. As in, we were about ten feet from Seth Myers and all of the other actors and actresses the entire time. It. Was. Unreal. Both of us kind of wanted to cry. (I swear I'm not that emotional.. I just get really excited sometimes... and when I feel extremely blessed, I just want to cry).

Anyway, it was great. It was really awesome being there for the dress rehearsal, because we were basically the guinea pigs. They tested all of their material out on us to see what we thought was funny and what really didn't work at all. They kept what we liked and trashed what we didn't for the real show at 8pm that night. AH. This life just gets better and better! I can't stand it.

After that, I went over to the Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn to watch my friend, Finn, play a little show.

It was a long, but incredibly wonderful day.

FRIDAY

It rained. This was only the second time since I've lived here that it's been so gross, so I took advantage of it. And I did absolutely nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean pretty much nothing. I didn't wake up until 11am, I went to the gym for awhile, and then somehow, it was 7pm already. I watched two Lifetime Movies last night, if that tells you anything.

SATURDAY

That's today! All I've done so far is eat breakfast and drink coffee (liquid gold) and type up this blog (which took my quite a long time.. that's what I get for waiting so long to update). In a bit, I'm going to go for a little run and check out the Dumbo Arts Festival that's going on down the street. A little later today, I get to go to this awesome free festival/concert. I will update about that later!