Saturday, June 28, 2008
Maui is yet to come because I realized I haven’t received all of the pictures that the rest of my family took. So here’s a post about all of the amazing things there are to do in the summer in New York City.So first of all, almost every band you could ever imagine comes to New York. So a few weeks ago, a couple of friends went to the Death Cab for Cutie concert. It was really good. It was at a fun outdoor arena in Brooklyn. The only downside to that is it is subject to the forces of nature. About an hour and a half into the concert the wind really starting picking up and you could see lightning in the background. Pretty soon, the lights hanging over the stage were swinging pretty hard. So, the stage manager came out and said they had to cancel the rest of the concert. We were disappointed, but at least we saw them for most of the songs (and that meant we didn’t get home too, too late). Then as we were walking back to the car (luckily, we had a friend with a car), it started pouring rain. There’s nothing like an East coast torrential downpour.
Then this last week, the New York Philharmonic hosts the summer concert series in the parks around New York. The best thing about it is they are all free. A couple of friends went to the concert in Central Park (as seen in the movie “August Rush”). It was a lot of fun because everyone brings blankets and sits out on the lawn. A lot of people, including us, brought dinner to eat while listening. The Philharmonic plays songs most people would recognize and then they finish the night off with a fireworks show. It is a definite must do in the city.
Then yesterday, we took advantage of another free event that the city and generous donors provide called “Shakespeare in the Park.” You get tickets the day of for a relatively small theater in Central Park. Right now they are doing Hamlet, so we were able to enjoy a great, slightly contemporary, performance of this Shakespeare classic. It was really well done, just as good as any Broadway play. Definitely a fun thing to do if you ever have the opportunity to go see while you are in New York.
Others would tell me that Duck was a blast with a chance to make new friends and just have a great time at the beach. After going, I would totally agree with the second. Although the first stereotype does occur, it’s not always the case. I had a great time.
For those of you back west, Duck Beach is in the outer banks of North Carolina, close to Nags Head and Kitty Hawk (where the Wright Brothers) took their first flight. It is a beautiful beach with some beautiful beach houses for rent. There were about 60 people from New York that went down, so we rent two houses. Sixty people still might sound like a lot, but just look at the picture of the house I was in. It had 11 bedrooms, a giant kitchen with two ovens, two stoves, and dishwashers (which I fell in love with as I helped with the food).
One of the best moments of the trip was when the first group of my friends (who all arrived together) went to Costco to buy all of the food for the weekend. We ended up having 11 carts and spent $2,500 (and that didn’t include perishables which we bought at the grocery store in Duck). Needless to say, we didn’t go hungry in Duck. Thanks to Adrienne Martin for all of her planning efforts in our behalf. 
Once we got there, I realized that there is a huge party every night. The party would rotate around different houses every night. I think there was over 1,000 young single adults in Duck. The town has a stupid rule that you can’t park on the street, so pretty much the cops came to every party we went to.
Even after the parties get broken up, everyone goes back to their own houses and stays up all night. I didn’t get much sleep that weekend, but luckily I had a week in Maui to recover (see soon to be post above). 
All in all, Duck Beach was something you have to do at least once. If anything, it’s a nice weekend at the beach with all of your friends.
