What’s in Poughkeepsie?

Taking advantage of the ILC’s Fly-In Program, Emily Hayashi Groves is visiting New York City and then Washington, D.C. to check out a few of the schools she’s been accepted to.  Here is her first blog:

First off, sorry about this huge block of text, but it's hard to write about New York City without rambling!

I got in to Newark, New Jersey the night before last, and went straight to Grand Central Station to catch a train to Poughkeepsie. "What's in Poughkeepsie" you ask? Honestly, not a whole lot. But that is where my sister goes to school at gorgeous Vassar College. She's currently a junior and is majoring in Japanese and education and loves it there! It's only a couple hours out of the city and is an amazing school for anyone who's looking for a smaller liberal arts college. In any case, I stayed there on Friday night, and went to the city the next morning.

After Olivia, my sister, checked me into the hotel I got to drop off my bag and walk around NYC, which is an experience that, I think, everyone should enjoy. Because NYU doesn't have an official "campus", it's just a collection of buildings near Washington Square Park, I toured around there and Greenwich Village.

The Village is an amazing place; it's really quirky and almost reminds me of Berkeley! There are a lot of cafes and bistros, and a bunch of tiny little parks that are fun to sit and people watch from. I could easily see myself spending four years there. 

After eating at a little cafe, I met up with Olivia and a couple of her friends from Vassar to go to Chinatown and Little Italy.

NYC is both whimsical and systematic in their streets. For the most part, they make a lot of sense, but there are always a few streets that either dead-end or suddenly start and completely disorient you. We managed okay, and I had a chance to eat some legitimate sushi! After a few more wrong turns, we made it to Ferrara's, a pretty well known gelato place that was indescribable in its deliciousness.

Saturday night I went out to dinner with my sister and a few of her friends. We went to an Indian restaurant that had awesome food but really awful service—where we went afterwards totally made up for it though! I went to my first comedy club (tickets were only $5) and it was a lot of fun. There was a lot of stand up and everyone was hilarious. There's always something I do in New York, which is a definite factor in where I choose to go. I made it back to my hotel room pretty late, but had to wake up relatively early to get to NYU's "Weekend on the Square".