NYC

Times Square

Hi!

Apologies for the delay, things had gotten so busy here over the past few weeks with exams and everything. Also sorry for the fact that this is probably going to be a rather long blog!

So last weekend Keele students, Laurel, Sabrina and myself hopped over the Canadian/American border for a long weekend in New York City. Early start on the Friday getting to Niagara Falls where the coach was to pick us up and from there we went over the rainbow bridge, through immigration and into the United States. The rest of the day was spent travelling through New York State and getting to know our tour guide Suun as well as finding out where all the other international students on the coach were from. After making a couple rest stops on the way we reached our hotel in New Jersey at about 7pm, we quickly left our luggage in our rooms and got back on our bus to head into New York City for the evening. The short drive from the hotel into the city gave us our first look of the concrete jungle from across the Hudson river. As we arrived in Times Square it was amazing to see just how many people there were walking around and also how bright it was, the lights made it seem like daylight and  we were walking around as if we'd just stepped onto a film set. We wandered around for a bit, getting a hotdog from a real New York hotdog vendor (have always wanted to do that) then made it back to the hotel at around 10.30.

The Saturday was busy from start to finish, after an early wake up call and breakfast in the hotel we headed into the city and straight to the Rockefeller Centre to go to 'The Top of the Rock' as they call it which is 67 floors up. They say that although it is not as big as the Empire State Building it has a better view of Central Park and the city as well as the Empire State itself. It was so good being that high up, you get such a good view of everything and you manage to get a perspective on how big the place is and how tall the skyscrapers are. From the Rockefeller it was straight over the river to Brooklyn, from there we were to walk back into the city over the Brooklyn Bridge. Great views of the Manhattan Bridge as well as the city, you could also see the Statue of Liberty in the distance, we were heading for Pier 17 (also the same pier that is featured lots in I Am Legend) where were got lunch and went on the boat tour. The tour was a really good part of the day, it lasted about an hour and took us around the south end of the island and close to the statue of liberty. The tour guide explaining the different things we saw on the way.

When we arrived back to the pier, we took a short walk to Wall Street and New York's financial district. As it goes there were protests going on at the time with people outraged over a financial system that they say favoured the rich and powerful at the expense of ordinary citezens. The place was filled with mounted police and a bunch of protesters settling down for the day. The place itself was very interesting, we got to see the New York Stock Exchange building as well as the famous Bull representing the bull market. A short distance away was ground zero, the place where such a historic attack happened 10 years ago. The place was filled with constructions works, building the 9/11 memorial and other construction taking place for the building of the new World Trade Centre towers. Tower 1 to be reaching a total of 1776 feet high. It was extremely thought provoking to be in the same place where devastation struck a decade ago.

From ground zero we headed back to Times Square for the evening to get some dinner and to have another look around. We headed back to the hotel completely exhausted after such a long day.

The next day was just as good. Another early morning we got the coach to Central Park where we would be spending the first half of the day. The weather saw clear blue skies and brilliant sunshine, it was perfect, as was Central Park. We began by walking through the Central Park Zoo, to get into the park. The park itself is so green and so large in size it doesn't feel as though you're still in the busiest city in the world. Everywhere you look there is something going on, the street theatre was really good to watch. After walking around for a while we came to a big fountain which Suun told us meant we were in the centre of the park. We spotted the boat house that we'd seen so many times from films and decided to go on the row boats that took us out onto the big lakes in the middle of Central Park. It was so much fun trying to work these boats and none of us were particularly good at it. From the centre of the lake we could see the skyscrapers in the background and thought it best we go and meet up with the rest of the group, on the way back to the boat house we witnessed a man proposing to his girlfriend in one of the row boats - it was just like a film.

We then met up with our group and once again got on the coach, this time to China Town and Little Italy for some shopping and dinner. Managed to get some good bargains as well as practice our haggling skills. Leaving Little Italy and heading back to the hotel in New Jersey signified the end of the trip as we left Manhattan for the last time. The journey home on Monday was long, with a nice lengthy stop at an outlet shopping centre in Pennsylvania, and an infinite wait on the Rainbow Bridge to get back into Canada we finally got back to Brock safe and sound... and exhausted.

It's difficult to pick just one highlight of the trip as all of it was incredible. One of the most amazing places I've been too and I would most definitely love to go back.

Last week was filled with midterm exams which were obviously lots of fun but I'm confident I did ok and hopefully will get some results this week.

Soph