#summer in the city

Not everyone can afford an all-inclusive, luxurious escape this summer, especially a New Yorker. Between coffees costing you $5, lunches averaging $15, the climbing metrocard prices and having to choose between rent or your next meal, any money you’ve saved is literally for a torrential downpour. Any money you’ve earned is your survival fund. But with that in mind, being a New Yorker also means hustle and bustle, anxiety, little to no sleep and high levels of stress! If anyone deserves a vacation, it’s us! We’re in a tight spot here! So what can we do? I’ve comprised a helpful list that we can both use to find peace and tranquility this summer before its back to the harsh winter grind hits. 

It should be obvious, but one of the quickest and easiest ways to get away without going too far is: Massage! Flights to relaxation land are always boarding 7 days a week at Eastside Massage Therapy and the fare isn’t bad at all! Eastside Massage has a midday special on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when you book with them online! For $90 you can receive an hour of a wide range of services that will balance, heal and release all tension from your mind and body!  www.eastsidemassage.com/book    

1. It starts at home! 

Turn your home or a favorite room (or corner if you’re shoulder to shoulder with roommates) into a tranquil oasis! Mine is the bathroom. It’s easy to be undisturbed; I love to soak away my troubles in regular table salt when Epsom salt isn’t an option and an oil of my choice.If you can get the Dead Sea Salt from the health food store-splurge… its from Israel’s Dead sea! 2 cups and 15 minutes = relaxation and peace. You’ll feel better so just create the time. An hour in a Zen space can make a world of difference.

Decorate your preferred area with scented candles to enhance the experience, or if you’re really artsy and creative, holiday lights or lanterns! Soothing soft glowing lights in the dark can really affect your mood.  

While you’re at it, you can whip up a facial scrub or mask that will give you the “just got back from vacay” glow. Using your favorite cream with 2 teaspoons of sugar can be a delightful exfoliating experience. Coconut oil combined with sugar and lemon mixed into a paste can also make for a great mask.  For a coarser scrub, almond meal or oatmeal really gets down in there! These combinations can be stored in a jar in a cool dry place for weeks of repeated use. Even water and coffee grounds can perk you right up!  You can also enjoy a mini sauna by boiling your favorite flavor of tea (herbal works best, I love mint!), and pouring it into a deep bowl. Once you’re comfortably seated, drape a towel over your head and let the aroma and steam soothe you and cleanse your skin!  

Incense is also a big help and there’s a wide (and cheap, check amazon or your local street vendor) range of delightful scents that create the experience you want.  If you don’t want to spend any money, get creative! We wouldn’t recommend draping any fabric over lights for fire safety reasons, but you can always paint your light bulbs a nice color or simply take one or two out of the fixture to reduce the brightness. Play some music! Lay a blanket and a pillow or two out and just relax! 

2. GET OUTSIDE!

I can’t express how therapeutic and grounding it is to walk aimlessly for an hour (or even longer) and listen to music. It helps with any negative emotions I want to release.  Walking through your local park or even getting off a few stops earlier to walk home is not only healthy for your heart, it can ease tension in your mind, putting you in a mindset to take your time and enjoy the feeling of being free and  in control while taking in things you may have not noticed before! 

There’s always something fun to do in NYC over the summer. Check out these affordable/free events happening in the Upper Eastside! Carl Schurz Park has free concerts. Check out the free events at the local library and Bryant Park as well! Remember as a NY resident when you show your ID the museum donation is up to you!

FLY SOLO

Have a healthy selfish day! Leave the family home for a while! Get reacquainted with yourself and maybe meet new people!  Whole Foods Market and the Manhattan School of Music have drummed up a wonderful event: Music Night! Walk through your local Whole Foods (5 locations in NYC available) cafés and listen to gifted student musicians play a wide range of genres!  Witness talent and energy of the next generation! It’s Free!https://www.eventbrite.com/e/music-night-with-manhattan-school-of-music-in-midtown-east-tickets-54366088434

For $30-40 you can enjoy an outdoor painting class by the water! In Carl Schurz Park, you’ll receive all of the supplies you need to create anything you envision. Feel free to bring any snacks or even a nice bottle of wine to enhance your experience!https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sip-n-paint-the-eiffle-tower-in-carl-schurz-park-sun-aft-aug-25th-tickets-65438354881

FAMILY VACATION

Have fun as a family! Check out these cool events that can be fun for everyone!

Woops! Bakeshop is offering Macaroon baking classes for your aspiring chef! Even if the child in your life isn’t culinary inclined, they can still have a blast with this unique hands on experience learning how to color and decorate macarons. The kids get to enjoy a snack classic: milk and cookies, while you sit back and indulge in a bakeshop beverage watching them mix ganache to their heart’s content! https://kidpass.com/activities/2370/8762/woops-macaron-class/woops-bakeshop-new-york-manhattan/?city=1

The Craft Studio has an awesome mini party complete with crafts, games, pizza…need I say more? You can drop the child in your life off here and let them run wild for a few hours while you venture over to the Guggenheim a few blocks over! Everyone wins. https://kidpass.com/activities/125/13729/drop-off-mini-camp-4-hour-session/the-craft-studio-upper-east-side-new-york-manhattan/?city=1

Your summer doesn’t have to be anything less than what you want it to be just because you don’t have thousands of dollars to sink into traveling abroad this year. Make the most of all the resources around you, from your kitchen cabinet, to your neighborhood roof top or tailgate party. No matter what you decide, the worst you can do is nothing. So: DO IT YOURSELF! And hurry because before you know it, summer will be over! Eastside Massage wishes you a fun, safe and happy summer!

Some photos from April and May ☀️

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG_1hi6o8Vo

^ Ray AKA ir0nisland shows us around this years SiTC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxiVFX5GMeM

^ If any of you whipper snappers are off to uni this year and have had problems this is essential viewing. For everyone else it’s just good advice that can applied to a lot of things in life so spark up yer earholes anyway

Oh and its by Lex Croucher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlnKifFcrOk

^ Hannah AKA HummusWeHaveaProblem (AKA best freakin’ username ever) talks about her experience of living in a womans refuge and the stigma that comes along with it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNazr5VJnOY

^Kristina Horner muses on the phenomenon of road trips

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC9lM0SdVq4

^Natalie Tran finally makes that Lamingtons video we’ve all been waiting for………*sigh* no that’s a lie, I think I just wanted to pretend for a little while

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvB-SWmXrRU

^ In the “Call Me Maybe” parody we’ve all been waiting for Yukeh is a lonely companion just waiting for her Docter to show up and answer that most important of questions “time travel maybe?”

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4368A52E0E847BDF

^ A playlist of Kassie King’s recent adventures in the U.K. Well worth a watch, especially the castle video.

Crowds of youtubers and fans alike poured into London this weekend for the annual Summer in the City gathering.

The event has expanded massively since it’s beginning way back in 2009 and is only beaten out by events like VidCon and Playlist Live.

Venue

This year two days of the gathering (friday and saturday) were held at a venue called The Brewery, apparently because the increasing number of attendees forced them out of their traditional open air Jubilee Gardens / Hyde Park location.

The attendance has become so big in fact that even the specially selected venue was incapable of accommodating it at times

“When we settled on The Brewery, the event page had just hit 1,000 people attending! We had no way of knowing that number would skyrocket over the following months. So of course it was extremely disheartening for us when we realised we would have to turn people away”

The waiting time in queues at times stretched to 4 to 5 hours and in combination with the sweltering temperatures reached in London this weekend it led to an outpouring of frustration on sites like twitter and tumblr.

Fangirls

A problem certainly not unique to this year or even Summer in the City (though it does seem to be more pronounced in the UK than in the U.S) were large groups of  fans following the more popular YouTubers around

“One image sticks in my head: a pair of doors in the main hall upstairs, surrounded by fan girls, a mob of crazies who don’t seem to understand that the fabled VIP room behind the doors isn’t some sort of Hollywood A-listers party, but more of a blank room with scared YouTubers drinking bottles of water”

Describing escorting someone being mobbed to the aforementioned “VIP room” musician and vlogger Lex Croucher said that

“This wasn’t a case of people not wanting to interact with their subscribers, or not being able to handle standing and talking to people; it was a zoo out there, Kayley and I were still shaking five minutes later and we hadn’t even been the victim of that situation. a lot of people were being aggressive and overstepping boundaries”

Strangest tumblr Rumour Ever

In combination with the social media rumour mill this lead to perhaps the strangest rumour ever. That an overzealous fan had licked the face of vlogger Danisnotonfire.

The fact that it didn’t actually happen didn’t seem to bother all that many outraged fans.

Gratitude

What has shined through throughout the course of the gathering and later blog posts and videos made about it is an overwhelming sense of gratitute that the event exists at all.

For most attending just the chance to interact with those whose work you admire made the experience worthwhile. Even if it was just a 90 second conversation and the time it took to pose for a photo.

More than that it was the opportunity to make friends with and talk to people who share the still relatively niche interest of online video (at least the bit that goes beyond cat videos).

And all of it for free. Something Summer in the City definitely has over -understandably- pricey events like VidCon and Playlist Live.