A Californian's Bias in New York

Today was a day of days. After 8 exhausting hours of conquering Manhattan, we're back! I knew that New York was an enormous city, but today's trip really put things into perspective. We started from North Manhattan and headed South all the way to Times Square. We only explored Manhattan yet the city felt so big! I'm just a small Californian, huh. A trip to New York is like a trip to Disneyland, but the amazement replaced the fun, not to say that it wasn't. (The pictures below aren't even half the amount that I took in total)

Before we could even get to New York, we faced a couple difficulties. Apparently, the date of the reserved tickets for Amtrack was scheduled for another day, which is fairly odd, and so we had pay much, much more in order to get to New York. During the ride, I met a nice young lady; she's younger than me by a year. Mr. Hillyer and I conversed with her and she was pleasant to talk to! She will be visiting Stanford to scout out the school - it's surprising because she's an upcoming sophomore. Kudos to her! We gave her the link to our site and so we won't find out her name until then because we forgot to ask.

We used the subway to go up and down through Manhattan and the subway system is highly inefficient. I'm so used to BART - we can buy multiple tickets at once; plus, we can get back our money through the machines. However, New York's subway system does not have those functions and so we had to spend a good twenty minutes just getting six cards for everyone. We couldn't put all the money on one card because after a good four uses, the card is rejected to prevent fraud (something like that). I'm so used to BART so New York subways seem very inefficient.

We arrived at Columbia University and it was different from what I imagined. In my mind, Columbia's buildings seemed like they would be completely brand new, seeing as how they're in the city. However, the school had many old buildings. BUT, that is not bad at all. I think it gives Columbia a much more refined and unique feeling especially because they reside in Manhattan. Many of their statues have Greek influences; one of their buildings list off the classic Greek philosophers and an Alma Mater statue. Unfortunately, Columbia's campus was closed today so we didn't get an official tour from the school, however, we later received a small tour from Mr. Hillyer's aunt.

After taking pictures and wandering around, we met up with Doctor Grace Hillyer and her husband Mike - Mr. Hillyer's aunt and uncle. Since Mr. Hillyer was there, it was much easier getting to meet and talk to them. I was excited to meet Grace especially because she's a researcher! Through her, I was able to get a clearer image of Columbia. Students are required to take classes in the Classics. At first, I thought this was ridiculous because those classes could occupy other classes that students would want to take. Columbia is a college that not only wants to produce educated and sophisticated students, but rather leaders that can make a change in the world. The Classics - philosophy, Latin, and Greek - can really contribute to that goal. They engage the students to explore not only the context of papers, but also the ideas and philosophy. They really take education at a higher level back at the origins. Grace quotes: "In order to change the world, you have to know what the world was like before". Learning the Classics truly produces students that can function in society to make a change in the world.

I also had my first experience in a Jewish deli! I've never had Jewish food before, nonetheless authentic Jewish food! I've never had meat that melted in my mouth as easily as the roast beef. I forgot the restaurant's name, but I'm sure you can get that from the other blogs. I was a brave soul so I attempted the triple decker (check out the photos). A certain someone doesn't believe that I finished the sandwich. I had 5 slices of roast beef left, but I finished MOST of the sandwich. I eat very neatly so you don't see any on my face or shirt. If you see the napkin on my left, you'll see the grease of the meat from my mouth. If you ask anyone from my group, they'll tell you that I did finish the triple decker!

I was stupefied by the colossal size of New York. Seriously, every corner I spotted buildings that "scraped the sky". I wouldn't know what to do if I lived here.