New York

New York, New York oh New York, its defiantly a place you hear a lot about see a lot of in movies but would it live up to its name? Well I arrived after my flight from Seattle and after waiting a little while was greeted by my friend Jay from the ship. We went back to his place and I got my first taste of New York food as we ordered a large pizza, and it was good. The next day we went on our tourist sight seeing tour around the City. We first headed out to go and see the Statue of Liberty which Jay had actually never been to before. It was cool to look around and see it up close and find out more about how it was made. After that we continued on the ferry and went to Elis island, which is were they used to process all immigrants before they came into the US. And that was also cool to see and find out about that whole process, even though I am not from the US its was cool to found out some of the history of the country. Also while we were there it was St Patricks day and they had a group of Irish dancers that did a show there so that was cool to see as well. After that we went to see the museum of natural history, which was really cool but unfortunately we only had a short period of time there before it was closing time so we were only about to see a small amount of the large 4 level museum. We headed back to Jay's place and had dinner and then decided to stay in after originally planning to go back out, but we were both really tired after a lot of walking all day. Then on Thursday we planned on getting up and going early but ended up sleeping in late, which for those of you that know me and/or Jay wouldn't find that hard to believe. Then after our late start Jay had to go to School for a few hours so I headed back into town by myself and went back to finish off the Museum. Its a great museum and I highly recommend seeing it to anyone that goes to New York, I did have to pay for entry this time because this time I was there while they were fully open and busy unlike the other time we went when they were close to closing. I managed to complete the whole museum before Jay came to meet up with me at 4pm, so then we headed off to see the Empire State Building. Another well known site that people say you need to see while in New York, although I would say if you are tight on time you can skip this one. The building is very nice and looks great on the inside, but it costs $15 just to take the lift up to the top and I wasn't going to pay that much just for an elevator ride. After that we headed for the ferry to Statin island where we met up with 2 friends of Jay's and we headed to this group that Jay found through his Church which helps Liberians learn to read and write. I thought it was amazing that Jay had found a group like this after all the time we had both spent in Liberia so when he mentioned it I jumped at the chance to go and help out. We were there for about 2 hours and were just helping out 2 people each with going through workbooks they had to learn to read and write. The 2 that I was working were an older man named Morris and he was from Grand Bassa county in Liberia, which I have actually been to and it was funny because he did not believe me that I had been there until I started talking about the area and the surrounding counties. The other person I was working with was a woman from Serra Leon named Alice and even though she wasn't from Liberia I could relate a little bit because I had made friends from Serra Leon while on the ship. It was a great experience and brought back some good memories hearing them speak in Liberian English. After that was finished we caught the train into the famous Times Square were we stood and looked at all the pretty lights for a bit and just hung out in some of the cool shops they have there like ESPN sportszone and the M&M shop.

The next day was an early start with me having to leave at 6am to go to the airport, but it was good to sit in the airport and reflect a bit on my time in the US and the fact that I was actually a bit sad to be leaving. It was quiet funny as I sat there and heard on the TV that it was officially the first day of spring and I looked outside and it started snowing, after all the good weather they had while I was there.