To be quite honest this last week went by so fast that it is a pretty big blur of what things I did on what days in turn I got fairly far behind on my blogging, now for the sake of time I’m to just make a blog for the week.

I do remember on Monday we went to the Fountain House for a tour. You may be asking yourself what The Fountain House is and so was I until midway through our tour of their facilities. From what I gathered through our tour The Fountain House is a place where people with metal illnesses can come and work and become functioning members of society. That is why I was confused because it looks and is a full-fledged employment facility with many employees, but the employees just happen to have in some way or another a mental illness.

At some point in the week we ate at Café Habana, which is a Cuban restaurant and in my opinion one of the best in the city. Our waitress was hands down one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. I don’t even know how do describe her so I wont because I don’t believe I could do her justice. I know on Wednesday Haley and I went to the Dakota again, which is were John Lennon was shot and then we walked through the park for most of the afternoon. On Thursday Jon and I went to the Museum of Natural History and it was amazing. I had no idea that there was even a museum that big that existed. Most of the exhibits were taxidermies of real animals from across the world and of course many castings of dinosaur bones.

Luckily today is fresh in my mind and I can tell you most of what I did. To start the day we had a late lunch with my mother at Café Habana again because the people that went before and the ones that didn’t really wanted to go. I especially wanted to go to see if the beautiful waitress was working again and she was. I know it’s impolite to stair, but once again I could not take my eyes off of this women. Eventually she caught me looking at I was embossed, but she smiled every time she saw me looking at her. So at the end of the meal with nothing to loose because I leave tomorrow and will never see her again I told her how I felt about her. When I approached her she knew that I wanted to say something to her so she met me half way through the restaurant. She smiled and said “can I help you” and I said “I don’t know if this is going to mean anything to you, but I have been in this city for over a month and you are by far the most beautiful women I have seen” she smiled and called me cute and told me that I made her week. Then she thanked be but I told her “no, thank you” and I walked out of the small cramped corner restaurant and I knew I would probably never see her again. Then the group us went to do some last minute shopping and stopped at a coffee shop that had the best cupcakes in town. They actually were voted the best cupcakes in town and they deserve that award, they were amazing and filling. Later in day Mariah and I went to Canal Street to get some last minute NYC novelty souvenirs to give people back home for gifts, the street shops were closed up for the night. After a short time also shopping around Union Square we went home. Once we got there we began to pack all of things up and clean the apartment. Now it’s two in the morning and we are all still awake and have to be up and ready to go in less than five hours.

This morning my mother and I had to get up pretty early to go way uptown to a church to help serve lunch to over 200 people in need. This New Cares project was the biggest one I have been to. There were a lot of volunteers helping out at this church. The church it was held in is the largest church in North American and I can believe it. It was massive; it looked like something from Europe. After we finished with the project my mother and I took the bus all the way back downtown to the West Village. She wanted to sit down somewhere and eat, but today was my fourth day in a row doing New York Cares projects and I had no energy. So I told that I was just going to grab some pizza, go back to the apartment and eat it then take a long nap. That is exactly what I did and when I woke up we watched the NFL playoffs until it was time for bed. I have to admit it was nice to not be going a thousand miles an hour and just being able to have a regular Sunday with pizza, naps, and football just like back home.

We had to wake up early today to meet our team leader for New York Cares at the 59^th street station. Once all of the volunteers got our meeting place on the platform of the D train we headed way uptown to the alternative housing center to meet the kids that we were taking to the Transit Museum. Once we got there we were assigned a kid to chaperone during the remainder of our NY Cares session. My kid was fourteen and was taller than me, he was the oldest of the kids that lived at this housing center, so he was very responsible and I knew we would be every easy to chaperone. We gathered the kids and went to the subway station to begin our roughly 45 minute train ride to the museum in Brooklyn. When we got of the train we stopped at a McDonalds to get the kids and ourselves something to eat. Eventually we made our way to the museum, which was located in an old subway station to emphasize it’s purpose of being the Transit Museum. It was filled with all of the history behind the old subway trains and buses, but the kids were not to interested in the history so we went down to the old platform where there were many old subway cars. They had subway cars dating all the way back to the 1930’s and it was pretty cool to see how far we have come from a technology standpoint. After hours of climbing around the subway cars and fake driving buses we headed back to the housing center that collectively took over an hour. We said goodbye to our kids and we made our way back to the Village, which took about another 45 minutes. We in retrospect spent most of hour day on the train and waiting in subway stations. When we eventually got back to the apartment we were all bushed, so I power napped most of the late afternoon. After my great nap Jordan and grabbed a bite to eat. Once it got a bit later we when to a sketch improve comedy show in the East Village. It was a great show and unlike anything I have ever seen. Once again I need to get a good night sleep again because I have to get up early again to go help serve lunch at a soup kitchen with my mother in the morning. Today was another productive day and energy level at the moment is testament to our long day.

Today we were lucky enough to get a in dept tour of Carnegie Hall with our guide being a graduate of O’Gorman High School from my hometown. He graduated before my mother ever taught there, but there was still a personal connection with all of us being from the Midwest. Our to was amazing, we were able to go all over the massive historical building. The main concert hall was like nothing I had ever seen before, it was all still original design and kept in its authentic state other than some twenty-first century sound equipment. The famous acoustics were nothing short of magical. On our tour we given access to every nook and cranny, most places we went none of the normal tours were allowed. After the tour we headed back to the apartment, but once we got there my mother, Jordan, and myself realized we were starving so we went to the historic White Horse Tavern that has been there since 1890. We had a great meal and afterwards went back to the apartment and once again I left as soon as I got there to go to Brooklyn with Haley and Jordan to fill one of Haley’s prescriptions at Target. Once we finally got there I realized how late it was and I needed to be in Harlem for a New York Cares project by 5:30. So I got on the train and made my way back to Manhattan and eventually uptown to Harlem. Tonight my New York Cares project was to read and do arts and crafts with kids for the ages of 7 to 10. The kid I got was less than cooperative to say the least, but I just think despite the fact he just did not feel like reading, he just wanted some one to talk to. So we talked about football and professional wrestling and many other things that he was interested in. By far though he was a big fan of pro wrestling like on T.V. and when I was in elementary school I followed enough pro wrestling because of my friends that I was able to keep up in the conversation with this young, but avid fan. After I finished the session I decided to walk down from 103^rd street to 72^nd street to catch the 1 train going downtown. It was a long walk to get there but nice to walk along side Central Park for 31 blocks. When I got home I realized I was beat and now I’m going to get a good nights sleep so I can have some energy tomorrow so I can keep up with the kids we are taking to a museum with New York Cares.

Today I went to a coffee shop in the east village to catch up on some of these blogs and have a little time to myself. The coffee shop was packed with student and businessmen, but the people working there found me a nice little spot where I could sit and write. After awhile I had to make my way back to the apartment to quickly eat and then make my way uptown to the Broadway Church of Christ to help with handing out sandwiches to the less fortunate. It was a good turn out today at he sandwich line, but the line moves quickly and things are rapped up pretty quick. After finishing with the sandwiches we went back to the apartment again to get ready for New York Cares activities that we all had to go to. Some of us had activities together, but like me others went to other things solo. Tonight I went to the Village Nursing Home to hang out and talk to people with Alzheimer’s and I was a blast. Since I was a little kid I have always for one reason or another visited nursing homes and I have always been good with talking to the elderly. I spent most of my time with a women named (for New York Cares polices I can’t disclose names so I making one up) Linda, she was in her late seventies and was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Linda was defiantly the sharpest out of the group and was very quick and witty. Linda was born in Europe and a slight Austrian accent witch I love talking to people with accents. To be honest Linda was kind of a dirty bird she would tell me thing such as that she had be married twice but “had many lovers”, things like this was what made her special because she had no filter talking to me. She was talking to me like she had knew me for years and that we were old friends so she could tell me anything. I had a great time talking with Linda and hearing her stories of her life in Europe and many other interesting things that had happened to her over her years. On side note I came to the conclusion that many of the people that volunteer in The New York Cares program are doing it not to only serve and help out, but to also meet other members kind of like a blind dating service. Anyways I had an amazing time talking with Linda and playing games with the rest of the elderly at the nursing home. Afterwards my mother and I went out to eat a very small, but good Mexican restaurant and we caught up on things. I need to get a good night sleep so I can get up early to go on tour of Carnagie Hall tomorrow.

Yesterday was Wednesday and after eating so more pizza for lunch Ann and I went to go see “The Lion King” (the play) it is just kind of a must see at least once kind of thing in the theater world. It was in a huge theater with escalators and flat screen T.V.s, it was just very modern and massive. We had great seats for the show right next to the aisle so we could the processions that came thought the aisle through out the show up close. The costumes and set was one of the intricate things I had ever seen on a stage. I mean the stage would move, raise, and transform into it pieces of the set. The costuming alone was one of a kind. They had very animal in the kingdom, but played by humans. It was no wonder why the cast were so physically fit, it as very physically demanding show with the choreography and to operate the costumes. I’m glad I got to go see it and now I can say I have.

I just like movies better

On Tuesday Jon and both knew that we needed to check off things on our “to-do list”, so we decided to go to Battery Park and get a distant view of The Statue of Liberty. I guess last time at Battery Park I did not look around very much because I noticed things that I did not see before. For instance I had no idea that they had names from people that served in the Navy and Air Force. I also did not notice the old Navy brick cannon bunker that has been there since pre WWII. It was pretty foggy out, but we could still see the outline of The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Jon and I both pitched in to donate money to a group of guys that were raising money for a youth basketball team in Harlem. Then we made our way back to the apartment to get so grub and see what the others were doing. I got the idea of going to a movie because frankly I have seen enough theater to last me a lifetime and I’m way more into film then I am into theater. So Jon and I made our way to the Movie Theater to see “The Book of Eli” which go great reviews and that is always good for me because I’m kind of a movie snob. Now I loved Denzel Washington in “Philadelphia” and “Hurricane” and I thought those were his best roles in his career yet, but I was proven wrong after going to see “ The Book of Eli”. I can’t tell you much about the movie because I do not want to give anything away, but I strongly recommend this movie to anyone that appreciates a good cinematic adventure. Quite literally Jon and I were speechless after we left the movie theater because of awe of what we just saw. That was a pretty great way to end the night.

Martin Luther King Day Assignment

Monday was Martin Luther King Day and we were given an assignment to read five of his speeches, but then pick one and write about it in this blog. I read: I Have A Dream, Where Do We Go From Here, Beyond Vietnam, Loving Your Enemies, and lastly King’s acceptance when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1964. I have decided to blog about his acceptance speech because I did not even know that he won the Nobel Prize. Martin Luther King was one of the most unselfish men in all of American history. Even when he was awarded one of the most sought after awards in the world he did not take any of it for himself. He accepted the Prize on behalf of his African American brothers and sisters struggling with the everyday problems of racism and segregation. King does not even forget for a moment that there are atrocities taking place even during his speech. He realizes just because he won The Nobel Prize does not mean it was going to change over night of what is going on in the street. King was smart to realize that he would get no other greater forum to speak of his movement than the place where the Nobel Peace Prize was held. There were world leaders and extremely important people that could help in the audience that night and Martin knew this would be the place to state the facts of the Civil Right Movement. Obviously Martin Luther King died before long before his time, but the impact he left on the Civil Rights Movement was immeasurable. Dr. King deserves his own day and deserved that award and he also deserves much more than he got credit for. The least we could do is recognize what he did for this country to forward thinking and just imagine what the world would have been like if he did step up and speak the truth.

Sunday, We ate at of my favorite places to eat in the city, it’s a place called simply The Hudson Diner. It was really nice to actually have some breakfast food for a change other than Poptarts in the morning. I had a delicious meal that consisted of sunny side up eggs, bacon, and hash browns. After our great meal we headed back to the apartment for a lazy day of watching the NFL playoffs, eating junk food, and frequent cat naps. When the night came around and it was time to go to bed I realized it was going to be tough to fall asleep. So I went uptown to small grocery story by our old apartment because I knew it was open 24 hours and everything around our new apartment was closed. When I got there I bought some Tylenol PM to help me fall asleep, but I had never taken it before. Long story short I had a reaction to it and it made me itch from head to toe literally. You know the felling for pins and needles when a limb wakes up from falling asleep? I had the feeling all over my body and it made it near impossible to fall asleep. So I called my mother and headed to her apartment to get so good sleeping pills. They did the trick and I sleep like a baby.

Saturday I did not really do any assigned thing because we had to move back to our apartment near Tribecca. Jon and I had to walk all of our food items to the other apartment so they wouldn’t spoil. When we go here there were still people living there and they were kind enough to let us put our things in the fridge. The rest of the day consisted of a lot of waiting for our apartment to get cleaned. So while we waited we stopped at many coffee shops and parks to burn time until we could go into our living space. Later in the afternoon we finally were able to get in. It’s weird to me that the days that consisted the least events are the days that tired me out the most. So I took a nap for most of the afternoon until our luggage arrived. I spent my night walking solo around the East Village and area of NYU and SoHo. When I was walking a few blocks away from Washington Square Park I heard a familiar voice behind me. It was Billy Crudup the actor from many movies such as: Almost Famous, The Watchmen, Big Fish, and many other blockbuster. He was a date with a very attractive women and did not want to bother him during his date. That was pretty much the highlight of my night and I began to walk back to the apartment. On my back I went into “Hercules Fancy Grocery” and man who owns it treats me like a grandson of his own. So I stopped in to just say hello, but I ended up story swapping and talking about penguins with Hercules for over and hour. Eventually I made my way home and had tough time falling asleep thanks to the very loud plumbing system and the arguing couple next door.

It's tough to find motivation every night to blog, but now I have to catch up on my documentation on my time this last weekend. Since I didn’t blog Friday or yesterday I’m a bit fuzzy on the small details, but I will do my best to remember all of what happened.

On Friday it was so nice out that we decided that it would be a good idea to walk the Brooklyn Bridge while it was nice out. So we took the 1 train to 42^nd street and then the shuttle over to Grand Central Station. Once we got to Grand Central we took the 6 train downtown to the Brooklyn Bridge. There we waited for my mom and Ann for about a half hour, but it was nice to just sit and enjoy Town Hall Park. At the park the there were pidgins and grey and black squirrels everywhere. All of these creatures were extremely tame especially the squirrels. On many different occasions at the park I could reach out a touch one of these squirrels and hand feed them. After awhile my mother and Ann showed up and we began to walk the Brooklyn Bridge. The scenery was amazing with the sun setting on Hudson River and shimmered off the skyscrapers. We the entire length of the bridge, touched Brooklyn soil and turned around and walked back across the historical bridge. When we reached the other side some of us ate at a small dinner in the business district and then we all kind of went our separate ways for the night.

I was woken up bright and early this morning…to just sit around and do nothing because we don’t have things that need to be done until after twelve so… I went back to bed until I actually had something to get up for. After my second awakening we waited around to move our things into a new apartment, but then found out that we would not be able to move in until later in the day so we made our way up to Time Square. We met up with my mom who was waiting for Michelle and I decided to join my mother and Michelle for lunch at BB Kings BBQ. It was very good and it was nice to see Michelle and spend time with my mom. Later in the day Mariah, Jon, and myself went to the Broadway Church of Christ to help and out sandwiches. Then we went back to the apartment and waited until Mariah and I had to leave to help usher and The Women’s Project’s play called “Smudge”. Ushering was pretty easy to do, but we sat and watched the play and it was interesting. Actually I’m going to be blunt it was very weird and frankly I thought it sucked. I’m not going to go into details, but just know I was not very good at all. Afterwards we grabbed a bite to eat and went back to the apartment we meet with my mom and just talked about things we were going to do for service work.

Once again I’m writing this in the past-tense form because I was too tired and just not feel like blogging last night.

When I woke up I remembered that it was a “museum day” or that’s what it said in our syllabus for this class. Most of the morning we brainstormed for ideas for what to do to accommodate our “museum day” and some of us decided to go to the Museum of Fashion. I didn’t really know what to expect when going to the museum, but I actually kind of enjoyed seeing how the styles have changed in the last couple hundred years. After the museum we went to Canal Street to do some shopping at the shops that line the busy street. I have to say I was kind of uncomfortable on Canal Street because their were a lot of sketchy people trying to sell me illegal drugs among other things I don’t need to mention in the middle of the day. Then we went to go eat in China Town and that did not go very smoothly either. It was a $4.50 Chinese buffet and I knew even from the outside that I didn’t want to eat there, but others in our group thought it was a good idea. Needless to say they changed their minds by the end. That pretty much rapped up the day and we made the sketchy walk back down Canal Street to get to the number 1 subway. We made it back to the apartment safe and sound and a story to tell.

Waking up to thought of a 5^th floor walk up is enough to just want to fall right back asleep. We had to move all of our things up five flights of stairs into a smaller apartment. After we moved our things in Mariah and I looked up some vintage shops and thrift stores in the village. Then we set of after our doing our homework on shops around the area and the first place we stopped I had been before. The last time I was here in New York I bought a original Grateful Dead concert shirt at this vintage shop, it was the expensive t-shirt I ever bought and it had holes in it, but that didn’t matter. These kind of stores are my favorite kind of place to shop because you know if you by a shirt or something there that it is very unlikely that anyone else will have that shirt. Actually my favorite store that we stopped at was urban outfitter because of their novelty items. Then we ate at a really good pizza shop and eventually made our way back to the apartment to chill out for a bit before we headed up town to Time Square and Columbus Circle to do some more shopping. When we got to the square we went into a couple shoe places, but we could not quite find what we are looking for. Then we went up to Columbus Square to the 5-story mall. Not far up the street from the mall there was a Best Buy where I bought some things for my computer that I needed. Eventually we made our way back to the apartment and I was a fairly uneventful night.

Today I headed over to my mother’s apartment to see my aunt Jenny who came into town from Baltimore. We went and ate at a franchise called “Five Guys” it was a burger joint and was really good but very greasy. Then my aunt and I went for a walk, not really on a mission, but we found a record shop that was pretty cool. After perusing through their record section we walked around in a loop. We stopped at to get some coffee and just sat and caught up on things. When we finished our coffee we had to get back to the apartment to go to our orientation for the New York Cares program. The New York Cares orientation was very insightful and got me pretty fired up about helping the community, I think this program will be good for everybody involved and it is a wonderful program that that has been around for over twenty years. After the orientation we came back to the apartment so my mom could talk about some things for the class. Then I got a great deli sandwich from around the corner. I will be off to bed soon because we have to move into another apartment tomorrow morning and I need to start going to bed earlier and wake earlier after all I am in New York City.

It was nice to have a little taste of home and by that I mean it was nice to have a very chill Sunday. I sleep in pretty late and I was much needed. After I woke up the guys and I just bummed around the apartment for a while then we decided to go eat. Since we have been here we have been talking about going to Tom’s Restaurant where they shot a good majority of the “Seinfeld” series. We figured today would be the best day to do it because we had no plans so we could just sit and enjoy ourselves at the infamous diner with no interruptions. When we finished eating we decided to head down town to Columbus Square to enter the Southeast corner of Central Park. We walked over to the Trump ice skating rink and also made a substantial loop through the massive park. Not much happened after we got back to the apartment other than watching T.V. and Saturday Night Live on Hulu. Some of the best days don’t involve much a this was a good day.

I don’t how I woke up before 11:00 this morning, but I did and I had to because before we were leave our apartment we had to have all of our things packed up and ready to go so we could move into a different apartment complex. Then we walked up to my mother’s apartment to get ready to enter the “lottery” to win tickets to “Ragtime” which is closing this week. My mom knew a man named Mike McMGowan who has family in Sioux Falls. We did not win the “Lottery” to get ticket, but we did find out that Mike would invite us backstage of the set after the show. The show was amazing and it was the first Broadway musical I had ever been to and it was quite a treat. Like I said after show we were given access to the backstage area and an opportunity to ask Mike questions about the Broadway production. It was pretty cool to set foot on a really Broadway stage. After the tour and Q and A were headed back to our new apartment and we sit watching football and blogging. This is not a typical Saturday night for me, but you wont hear any complaints about being able to just sit down and relax and watch to T.V. !

I’m writing this in past tense because I was too tired last night to blog:

When we woke up I knew that I was going to be sore by the end of the day because our assignment was to help the women’s project get the word out about their now performance called “Smudge”. In order to spread the word we set out on foot to drop off information and promotion cards to coffee shops and any place that looked like they would substantially circulated. My group and I were assigned to the east village, which involves a lot of walking, but is easier to navigate. After we finished our deliveries we met up with the rest of the kids in the class and went out to eat at a really good Chinese restaurant. When we finished eating a classmate and I went out to look a store called Strawberry’s, but we were pressed for time to get up town to attend “free Fridays” at the Museum of Modern Art. The MoMA as they call it was filled with timeless pieces of art such as Picasso, Tim Burton, and Vincent Van Gogh just to name a few. That was out last stop of the night and we went back to out apartment to just rest and some of us passed out as soon as we got there. It was somewhat weird to be no be in and toning down by 8:30 on a Friday night, but it was very refreshing to just sit and relax.

Lots of Things To Do

Today I woke up today with a somewhat better sleep and a pep in my step. One of our main objectives of the day was to go on a site-seeing scavenger hunt that was spread over the entire city. Our assignment was to go to a list of tourist attractions and take pictures of the area to prove that we were there. We started the hunt at Washington Square Park and then walked up town to Union Square Park. After many pictures we made on to the subway to head up to Grand Central Station. After Grand Central we stopped at a playbook shop and picked up a couple scripts. As we walked out of the bookstore we saw a pizza place on the corner and decided to grab a bite to eat. After our stomachs were filled we made our way up to The Dakota where John Lennon was shot. From there we walked across the street to the imagine circle and that was the start of our Central Park adventure. When we finished our site-seeing scavenger we were scheduled to help hand out sandwiches to less fortunate at the Broadway Church of Christ. It was a eye opening experience and I left with a sense of fulfillment that I helped someone in need. The man that heads to passing out of sandwiches was very wonderful man named Tim. In the 30 minutes that I was able to interact with Tim I learned more social justice than I have ever learned in my entire life. I’m excited to spend more time with Tim to hear his story’s and theories on social justice. One of the Pastors at this church was a graduate of USF and was a very delightful man that we had dinner with after our activities at the church. At 8:30 we went to free concert at the Lincoln Center where an instrumental band called “Asphalt Orchestra” played. The end the night we ventured to Rockefeller Center to watch people ice skate. Yet another eventful day in bag and now it is time to get some rest for eyes and for my feet.

I woke up today at the crack of 11:30am and immediately felt the urge to walk the streets and get my bearings again in this tall city. It surprisingly did not take long at all to figure out my way around the village, but midtown or the time square area was a different story. After much trial and error we all eventually figured out our way around midtown. We were all sent to midtown to learn how to find and buy tickets to the Broadway shows. Our first stop was at 240 44^th st to get tickets for a play I had never heard of. The play was called “39 Steps” and I had no idea what it was going to be about. Then we zig zagged our way up to 111 48^th st to check on a show called “The Understudy”. We found out the information that we needed and headed back to the apartment. That is when all the fun started. While we trying to get into our apartment the doorknob to our door decided to just fall off leaving us was no way to get in. After a few calls everything was sorted out and we eventually fitted with a new knob and lock. Then we proceeded back up to midtown on the one train to go to “39 Steps”. Like I said I had no idea what it was going to be like other than all my other classmates really wanted to see it. It was absolutely hilarious and I was very happy that my first on Broadway show was comedy. The show was a slapstick style collection of all the Alfred Hitchcock’s movies with it’s own personal story plot. All in all the day was full of excitement from the doorknob to show, but as usual everything tents to work itself out and no real bad things happened which always makes for a good day.