Iowarish Girl: Adventures in New York

First, I want to say that I had no desire on earth to ever go to NYC. If you know me at all, I'm about as Iowa as they come. Small town, born and raised, summers spent picking corn, even this summer I raised money for a trip by taking seven layers of shingles off a roof with nothing but a pitchfork and a crow-bar. I enjoy quiet walks with my dog in nature, going to bed early, grilling out on my deck, doing yoga in my back yard, watching college football, driving around and listening to old country music, cooking my meals, and wearing sweatpants all day if I feel like it...

But after I got to the city and got over the mortifying shock of paying $7 for a bottle of bud light (that literally had me contemplating getting right back on a plane and heading back to Iowa), I somehow, fell right into place (well, it was more hitting the ground running, than falling into place). I found the people were nice, not rude like they're stereotyped. My theory about the city, and well anywhere you go, is that it is what you make it, and I made New York my home and loved it.

There's something about the city's electric atmosphere that makes you compelled to GO GO GO! You don't want to miss anything and are inspired to give every opportunity your all with a fabulous sense of confidence and energy that screams "I can be myself and I can do anything!" And needless to say, while being single and 30, New York is a pretty awesome place to be yourself!

Of course, the devastation that hurricane Sandy caused, made things hard. With the transportation system shut down and most of the city out of power, the thriving metropolis turned into an eerie ghost town over night. Something about the city's atmosphere was sadly different, so I took it upon myself to assemble a team of some of the greatest scientific minds available to me, to investigate exactly what was wrong and what we needed to do to get the real New York up and running again quickly!! So we went deep into the subway system to investigate rumors of a river of radioactive pink slime that had leaked into the city...

After traveling deep into the subway and then the sewer systems to find the source of this radioactive slime... we realized that something strange was happening to us. We had been immersed in the slime for too long, and well, that's when things got really radical...

Luckily we met a giant rat sensei who taught us ninja and we were able to fight off the evil Shredder and help restore New York back to normal.

Here are a few other things I did:

Ate frozen sweetcorn in Queens

Helped some friends make a sketch comedy

Found Iowa City in the middle of Manhattan, at the Irish Exit - Iowa Hawkeye Bar

Heard a security guard at the Jets game in Jersey say "fugetaboutit" 38 times

Was nearly kicked out of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx

Danced a jig on The Mall in DC

Posed for pictures with bus loads of Chinese tourists in front of the White House... seriously, there was a single file line of tourists waiting to get pictures with us...

Took on Brooklyn, and Brooklyn won... Luckily there is no actual photo of me, but I can bet it looked something close to this... Late night + Heels + Brooklyn =

Ate the entire cheese platter at a fancy election night party at the Waldorf Astoria, and told a some highbrow political guy wearing a pin-striped suit that he made a great Dick Tracy, but needed a tommy gun to really pull it off