Around the World in 26 Days

(I wrote all of this yesterday, but didn't have wifi access until today. Youd' think of all the places, New York would have free wifi, right? Yeah, not so. So I'm sorry this is late!)

Day 1 of my study abroad is finally over and it already feels like it's been a week. I haven't slept since 11 am yesterday... it's 8 pm now. Yeah... I'm a little tired. It was SUCH a great day though.

The flight was about 4 hours long and I tried to sleep but I couldn't. There were screaming children and I just couldn't get comfortable enough to zonk out. After the flight, we then took my first subway ride ever to get out of the airport and into Times Square. (We got our own unlimited metro passes! How cool is that?) We couldn't check into our separate hotel rooms, so we had to pile all our stuff into one room and somehow manage to change for church at the same time. We were all so sweaty and gross by this point that the odor in that room was pretty disgusto.

Katy and Mark loving the cramped space.

We had some time to kill before church, and since our hotel is right on Times Square, we bummed around there for a while, taking pictures.

Times Square!

Inspired by the Glee finale :)

These ads were everywhere!

We then went to sacrament meeting at the Manhattan YSA 8th Ward. The church building here is so interesting! The church makes up the first few floors of a skyscraper and the temple is on the floors above it. Check out the angel Moroni:




Sacrament seemed pretty interesting, but by this point nobody in our group could keep their eyes open. If you looked around, you would have seem our whole group with our heads down, trying to fight off sleep. I felt kind of bad, but I honestly couldn't help it. My brain had a mind of its own at that point.

After church I then went and saw Jersey Boys, a Broadway production about the life of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. It was really good - the musical numbers and production value was superb. It made me just wanna get up and dance, which is what I did on the final number anyway, haha.



After the show, we got some real New York pizza at John's Pizzeria!.I got the bruschetta pizza and it was sooo good.

Mmm Bruschetta

Emily, Jilli, Adam, Michael, Elizabeth, and Katy

After dinner, I went to the hotel and changed and rested for a little bit, before going out to Rockefeller Center (where 30 Rock is located). We didn't go up the tower because it costs like $30, but we took pictures around the gorgeous plaza and just walked around 5th Ave before getting some delicious New York cheesecake at Fluffy's.

The NBC room!

Looking up at the tower

gorgeous

Liz Lemon, where are you??

Fluffy's cheesecake!

Also, since New York just passed gay marriage, there was a gay pride parade going on today. I didn't actually get to see the parade, but there was gay pride stuff everywhere. I think I saw more gay guys than straight guys, actually. They were pretty hilarious. 

It was such a fun-filled day and it seems weird that we did so much in one day, but if this is how the rest of the trip is going to be then I am pretty excited. Everyone in my group is awesome and super fun.

Overall, I really love New York City. It's pretty dirty, especially around Times Square, but I love the hustle and bustle and the random street vendors who try to save you/make you donate/buy their cheap crap, the dirty water hotdog stands, all the billboards, everything. Let's hear it for New York!