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Elevators are strange places.  I've realized this increasingly during my last few months in the city, as I take an elevator a minimum of five times a day.  I consider myself something of an elevator expert and therefore feel qualified to expound upon the strange behaviors that occur during these awkward rides.

Thursday evening we traveled to Avery Fisher Hall for a New York Philharmonic concert. Third year New York conductor Lorin Maazel led the orchestra through two symphonies, one by Franz Schubert and the second from Anton Bruckner. I enjoyed Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E major which stressed four Wagner Tubas. The piece employed about a dozen brass instruments, which made for a powerful experience. The piece was divided into four segments, where the conductor would pause briefly in transition. The finale was dramatic and intense. The trip to Avery Fisher Hall was a memorable experience and a great welcome back to the city after Spring Break. I strongly recommend the New York Philharmonic.

And so New York City begins to thaw. The days are getting longer and warmer, and even more people are taking to the streets. The ferry that takes the tourists to the Statue of Lberty has been even more packed, the top deck covered entirely. The popular running routes can look like races, as it seems that everyone has come out to finally start getting in shape. You can almost feel a change, as if everyone has a bit of a spring in his or her step.

Prior to living in New York City, I had always been surrounded by open spaces in the form of land or water. At home in Connecticut and at Hamilton I have surrounded by vast skies, and have had a sense of freedom that accompanies these open spaces. Upon arriving in New York City, I instantly felt smothered and contained; yet I had difficulty accounting for these feelings because when I take a moment to look up at the sky or find the horizon at one end of Manhattan, it is the same sky that I see standing in my front yard at home, and the same horizon I see looking off the Hill at Hamilton. However, something is different. The sky in New York City is so much smaller and the horizon so much narrower.

As many of you know, MTV plays a huge role in ROCK THE VOTE, which encourages young people to vote in the presidential election. This week MTV had Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, speak on TRL. Since I intern for the GOP Convention, a bunch of us went up to Times Square to support the President and the party.

I could not have gotten any further away from New York City when I participated in Alernative Spring Break, a program of community service. I traveled from NYC, where I had become accustomed to riding on a crowded subway, indulging in gourmet food products, and seeing the latest trends in fashion and design, to Pipestem, West Virginia (population 40), where the roads were made of dirt and stone, the only heating for our log cabin was a woodstove, and entertainment consisted of “Ray Orange Nutter’s” washboard and spoons

I am back from spring break and already anticipating my next vacation. I guess pampering yourself for a week can be addictive. Since I did not travel to a sunny beach, I decided to find some other source of enjoyment, including helping to paint my friend’s apartment. Aren’t sunny beaches and the smell of paint fumes equally pleasurable? This Saturday, I was the DJ at a party in an uptown loft, where I met Puff Daddy’s personal assistant. His crazy outfits definitely fit his crazy dance routines.

Earlier this week, while talking to one of my friends about the parking situation by our apartment, I described lower Manhattan as a ghost town on weekend nights. My friend laughed and pointed out that “I had become quite the city slicker” if I think any part of New York City qualifies as a ghost town. Having lived near a real ghost town in Colorado, I know Manhattan lacks the overgrown fields, dilapidated cabins, and rotting barns that characterize that tourist attraction, but for some reason lower Manhattan feels more deserted than the shell of that abandoned homestead.

The Village is one of my favorite parts of the city. There are so many different types of restaurants and shops, and I just love to walk around the area and see what I can find. This weekend, my friends and I had a mission: find some “real” New York pizza.

One Wednesday we attended the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Lorin Maazel was the conductor of the two-symphony performance. We heard Schubert’s Symphony in B minor, “Unfinished” and Bruckner’s symphony number 7 in E major. This was my first symphony, and it was very impressive