Hello New York!

How much does a guy sleep the night before he knows he's going to New York the next morning? Not very much! I woke up at 6:30 like usual, and did everything I needed to do before leaving for the whole day to take a tour around Columbia and to walk around New York City. We met up with john at 7 in the front office so we could be signed out for the day.

Train Ride Boredom

We left a bit later than John scheduled so we took a cab to the 30^th Street Train Station. Since we took two different cabs I took the role being in charge of paying and getting the receipt. The station was massive and it was beautiful. The walls stood high and the pillars mighty. It was very old and it looked amazing to me. We didn’t get tickets in advance so we had to wait in line to get tickets, although John took care of that for all the transfers we used. Whenever we moved location we had efficient John keeping us on track. We transferred trains about three times before we finally made it to Columbia. We joined a walking tour as soon as we saw one.

NYT

 The tour was about half way done when we joined so we didn’t get to see much. The student guide told us that Columbia isn’t for everyone and that if you attend you need to finish all the core requirement classes and the ones for your major and minor within four years. If you don’t, you will not graduate on time. I personally thought the requirement common core classes was a great idea but I want to have the freedom to choose my own classes in college. That doesn’t feel right for me because I don’t believe that everyone should take the same classes since we all have different majors. It doesn’t help our minds develop our own thoughts and ideas.

On the other hand the campus was great, the copper roofs were a beautiful green and there was a lot of copper around the buildings that complemented their architecture. We ended the tour and went to the bookstore and we all took our time looking around although I didn’t buy anything for me because I don’t think I will end up going there and the Penn book store has shirts made out of really good material. We then went to eat lunch and we ate huge slices of pizza that we shared with one another. The day continued with us taking a long train ride to Central Park. I was expecting a calm walk through the park like in the movie “Little Manhattan” but instead we had a very eventful walk with live music, sunbathing, and it seemed like a big event was going on because the park was very crowded and there was a lot going on.

Loving The Locks

We then took the train again, it was a bit scary since a diabetic person didn’t eat or drink anything the whole day and collapsed twice. John called for help and it didn’t arrive during the time we were there. There was no staff that could help at the station and I thought that was sad. Although my sorrow quickly passed with the walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, it was a beautiful sight to behold and we got a really good view of the city and it helped us realize its massiveness. We finished out NYC trip with a quick walk thought Times Square. We grabbed drinks and snacks before the long ride home. When we got on the train at Penn Station it was hectic and extremely crowded. We made it home safe and ate dinner at Shake Shack. I ate the Shack Stack and it was almost the best fast food burger that I’ve ever had. We headed to the dorms and I fell asleep in no time due to how tired I was.

Brooklyn Bridge