My new bottle of CK Euphoria must've broken when my luggage was tossed around at JFK, drenching the entire contents of my backpack with a pungent, flowery perfume. I apologized to Kirsten as I tossed it in the back of her Nissan. We laughed as the scent wafted upfront dominating our ride.

In comparison to Austin, Albany's ethnic diversity and weathered exterior are overwhelming. Albany's architecture consists of mainly old brick and cement column-like buildings with stoops and fire ladders. This makeup, as a normalcy in most northeastern cities, is closer to my connotations of "urban". Austin feels so new and clean. The diversity seems more ghettoized into neighborhoods, leaving the downtown area very WASPy.

Kirsten's building is close to Washington Park and SUNY. It has a really neat, impressive building layout. Once you enter a secured door from the street, there's a courtyard with a cement path and stairs to different entrances for sections of the building. It creates a really quaint feeling in the midst of what can be a very loud downtown area in light of the neighboring bars and businesses.

Speaking of neighborhood ruckus, someone, somewhere was making a ridiculous scene. Either this lunatic thought he was experiencing a church revival-esque encounter with the Holy Spirit or was dangerously intoxicated. Either way, it's a fair assumption he is insane. He carried on in spurts for quite awhile before our curiosities overcame us and we geared up for an undercover walk-by. With a leashed-up Cameron (Kirsten's sassy pit bull) to insure our safety, we took it to the streets.

We lit a cigarette beyond the first gated entrance, listened up, and scanned the cold, dark streets. Nothing. Figures. We turned the corner to indulge Cameron and landed behind a pack of young thugs. Noticing the presence of three 25 yr old girls behind them (Kirsten's roommate was with us), these young hooligans talked up their game, "I just wanna…rock'em to sleep, rock'em to sleep." We held in our laughter until they faded into Washington Park.