Clare Coleman- Last day!

Hello and happy Thursday! Although I am in the midst of packing and dreading leaving NYC behind, I can not help but smile when reflecting on Winterim 2020. Today went as followed: I got up, had my coffee, and headed out for my very last work day at MAC Presents. Work today was bittersweet- saying goodbye to all of the MAC team brought tears to my eyes, but looking back at all we had accomplished felt so rewarding. The team even sent us off with sweet handwritten notes and Milk Bar treats! After work everyone met on the third floor of the hotel to have a fun gift exchange so every girl could leave with a piece of the city. After the gift exchange, we all headed to Rockefeller Center to be "On Top of the Rock"! To see the entire New York skyline from thousands of feet in the air was truly breathtaking. I had spent my entire winterim on group level walking the streets, but to see New York from a different point of view felt magical. After a fun adventure to the top, I found myself having a last and 'final hoorah' dinner at the infamous Nobu Downtown. I had the most delicious sushi and dessert- a perfect way to end three week trip of fun and adventure! I am so thankful for my winterim experience and all that I have learned within these past three weeks. NYC, Clare Coleman will be back soon! XOXO   

Maddy Corts- Wednesday

Today was an amazing day! After everyone finished work for the day we all took the subway to Dizzy’s Club near Columbus Circle. At Dizzy’s club we had a really delicious dinner and watched a Jazz show. The music was very enriching and we all enjoyed it so much. The Jazz music reminded us of the movie La La Land, so it was really fun to hear and see the musicians in action. It was also great to all be together for dinner one more time. Our travel group is such a great group of girls and it is always so fun to have dinner with everyone. At dinner we all talked about how crazy it is that the trip is already coming to an end. Our time in New York City has flown by so fast and we are all so sad that it is almost time to head back to Nashville. On this trip we have all grown closer to each other and learned so much about ourselves. I think that everyone has had such an amazing experience getting to know everyone in our group and learning more about what they might be interested in. We are sad that the trip is almost over, but everyone is so thankful for this amazing opportunity. 

Gabrielle- Tuesday

Today was a good day! Taylor and I got up and went to a coffee shop before going to work together. At work, I worked on recording information about products that my company sent out this week into an Excel sheet. It was a little bit monotonous but I love the feeling of being busy and having something to do. Then Taylor and I went to lunch in the Tunnel, an area in the building next to ours with a bunch of cool, up-and-coming restaurants. We sat there and decompressed for a little while, talking about our mornings and our internship as a whole. Then we went back to work until 4, when we had to race back to the hotel in order to have time to get ready for the Harpeth Hall Alumnae event. We left at 5 to go to a little cafeteria-type place where we could all get something different. Then all of us, dressed as nicely as we could be, walked nervously over to the alum event. Of course we had no reason to be nervous, but it was still nerve-wracking, as we would be expected to have small-talk with impressive alums for two hours. I was very anxious about it beforehand! When we got there, I had trouble opening up and making myself talk to people, even people that I knew, because it was such an overwhelming situation. However, after everyone went around and introduced themselves, I had a wonderful time speaking with women that I knew, and even some that I didn’t know. I have had four sisters go through Harpeth Hall, so I had fun finding people that I knew and that my sisters knew. I challenged myself to talk to at least one new person, and I talked to two girls from the class of 2013 whom I had never met before. I had so much fun at this event, and I wanted to keep finding new people to talk to about their experiences after Harpeth Hall. Afterwards, our whole group went to Insomnia Cookies, which is an amazing cookie store that sells warm cookies, milk, and ice cream until 3AM. We all got cookies and went back to the hotel for the night. Overall, today was a great day that I won’t soon forget.

Ellie Frist- Monday

Today, we went on a tour of the High Line! The High Line used to be New York Central Railroad Spur, but is now an elevated greenway of sorts! Along the High Line, there were many different forms of art. One in particular that stuck out was the piece by Simone Leigh called Brick House, which was a 16 ft tall bronze bust of a Black woman with a torso composed of a skirt and clay house. However, that was just one of the many works of the Highline. Richard, our tour guide, also told us about the architecture of the High Line and how it maintained its linear structure even while it was being transformed into the greenway it is today. Then, to escape the cold, we made our way to the biggest Starbucks in New York, where I bought a large hot chocolate!

Next, we made our way to the Tenement Museum. The tour of the museum is extremely interactive, with an actor/ actress playing the role of a real person who lived in the tenement house. My group met Victoria, who lived with ten other people in a three room "apartment". It was shocking that so many people lived in such a small space, I could barely fathom it. However, it was exciting to be able to learn about what life would have been like for someone who was an immigrant during that time. Being able to compare the life of an immigrant over one hundred years ago to the lives that immigrants are living today was fascinating. It shows that over time the overall story hasn't changed much but that the characters of the story do. Hopefully, one day this will change.

After the Tenement Museum, we went to a restaurant in Little Italy called Il Cortile. It was a great end to such a fun (and cold) day. I had a great dinner with many interesting conversations and tons of laughs. I have loved being able to get to know so many different girls on this trip. It reminds me of one of the many beauties of Winterim: The chance to get to know other people better. I wouldn’t have traded all of the laughs we had tonight for anything. I look forward to see what tomorrow brings!

Eads- Sunday

Today was a great Sunday in the city! We started off the morning with a group trip to the MOMA. Which stands for the museum of modern art. We spent an hour in the space exploring what they were displaying. One of my favorite pieces that we saw was starry night by Vincent Van Gogh. Funny story actually, when I was in preschool, my art teacher asked me to try and recreate the painting. Which actually is in my house currently. So it was cool to see the real thing! After the MOMA, we met up with our great tour guide Richard, who then guided us to Central Park. We walked around the park while he explained to us it’s rich history. We saw where residents walk around the park as well as run. We also got to see a castle which was in the middle of the park, and had a great view of the city. Towards the end of our park tour, we walked toward the exit and found this fountain which is known greatly throughout television. As a huge gossip girl fan myself, that is the exact spot where chuck and Blair got married! So I was definitely fangirling big time. After our walk in the park, we made our way to the subway and back to the hotel in time to watch the titans game! Fingers crossed they pull out the win!!! What a great Sunday 

Carter- Saturday

We split up and a big group of us headed to the Museum of Natural History. It was incredible. I saw the space, mammals, dinosaurs, and so many more museums. After a while, we left and headed toward SoHo again. We found this great restaurant and it was snowing so much it was painful to be outside. I got pancakes and mac and cheese and had more trouble with my debit card but fixed it. We walked around and shopped then decided to go to the Whitney. It was composed of such beautiful modern art! I took lots of pictures and even got some inspiration for a lot of my own art pieces! We explored that then left to walk to Chelsea Market. We found another flea market and explored that then explored the market itself! There were so many restaurants and shops it was incredible! We decided to bike to the vessel because Walker hadn’t seen it yet! It was snowing a lot outside but we just hopped on the Citi bikes and biked 2.5 miles along the Hudson River to get to the vessel! Once we passed the vessel and parked the bikes we rode the subway back to the hotel to rest before dinner. I just relaxed then got ready and headed downstairs. The walk to Nirvana, an Indian food restaurant, wasn’t bad at all but it was quite cold outside. I sat next to Cate, Kate, Lily P, and Abby and was so glad to make new friends. I got to learn lots about all of them and became close to Cate. I could tell we were going to be good friends because we have a very similar sense of humor and are both incredibly quirky. I was so happy that I got a chance to really talk to her! We discussed everything from youtube to riddles to jokes and tik tok. The dinner was incredible and I tried lots of new food I’ve never had before. It was a very long dinner and afterward, we tried to get ice cream before we went back to the hotel. But a few of us got lost and couldn’t find out where we were. So we had been aimlessly walking around and found out we were pretty far away from the hotel so we got in a taxi and headed back. I hung out with Gabrielle and Walker which I always look forward to and then came back to my room for bed check. I can’t believe we have less than a week left! I feel like I’m just starting to get to know some of these girls and wish I branched out earlier! I recently became aware of how present I have been over the course of these two weeks. I have not once thought about obligations or things back at home and have truly been living every moment to the fullest. While I’m in New York I really don’t want to and can’t afford to waste any of my precious time on my last Winterim trip!   

Taylor- Friday

Today was quite an eventful day for the bears in Times Square! Per usual, we woke up and headed of to our busy internships. Today, I continued making excel spreadsheets that held the affiliates of different beauty magazines such as: Cosmopolitan, Allure, Refinery and over 200 others! For dinner, we were invited to the Harvard Club by Lily Silvester’s grandparents. It was one of the fanciest meals I have ever eaten and all of us were very grateful to be there! After dinner, we had a short, yet very cold, walk to the theater to catch the showing of To Kill a Mockingbird. Although it was a very different tone and setting than the broadway show, Mean Girls, that we saw Wednesday night, I enjoyed it just as much. Most everyone was required to read the book in middle school, so seeing the broadway interpretation was fascinating and extremely entertaining. Throughout the show, I was taken back by the powerful message the plot and talented acting demonstrated. I was very excited to see the actor from one of my favorite movies, Love Simon, whose name is Nick Robertson. He played the character Jim Finch. I had no idea that he was in a Broadway show, so this was a nice surprise! Although today was much fun, there were some road bumps along the way. Some examples are: Gabrielle accidentally slept through her alarm this morning and woke up when we were supposed to leave, my backpack got stuck in the subway doors as I was trying to get on, and my phone went off during the show. These hiccups just make the trip even more memorable!