Israel Bound

By the time I was at the airport ready to fly out to Israel, I had already had many adventures in New York. I flew red eye Thursday, July 28th and arrived in New York the morning of July 29th. I collected my luggage and made my way to the air tran to get to my hostel. I enjoy hostels better than hotels or airbnbing with friends because of the people you meet and the things to do.

After taking the air tran, I jumped on what I thought was a metro but ended up being the Long Island Railroad. I also was going in the wrong direction. Luckily, a very nice conductor yelled at me in a New

Yorker way to get off the train and get on the train going in the opposite direction. I did just that, getting caught by another conductor while not having a ticket because I thought my metro pass I had bought at the airport would suffice. It didn't, and I ended up paying the $19 railroad fee once I ended up at the right station.

Using the metro in New York is very simple and easy, if you can find the stations. I found GPS to be somewhat unreliable in this area and human beings as much better directors to the subway stations.

My first journey was to Central Park, which was a few blocks from my hostel. The hostel I was staying at was the largest in the United States, and I was very impressed. People were very nice and I had a great time. The reason for my journey through Central Park was to get two tickets to a free Shakespeare play being shown in the park. As I GPS'ed my way to Delacorte Theater, walking through the drizzly park, I caught numerous New York Pokemon. It was a very relaxing morning and I ended up getting two tickets but not going to the show because I later crashed at the hostel and missed it.

After Central Park, I headed to the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue. The place is massive and beautiful and no pictures do it justice. It was definitely the highlight of my trip. On my way back I walked through Times Square, which is certainly overrated.

My second day in New York included trips to the Statue of Liberty, the 9/11 Monument, and Trinity Church. I also stopped in at a New York Deli for food because how can you not while you are in New York? I then tried to find my way back to the airport using the Metro and Long Island Railroad, but due to weekend disrupted routes I ended up getting a cab and finding my way to the airport much later than expected.

The best precursor to my trip had to be my trip to the 9/11 Monument. The attacks happened while I was in high school and was a major determinant of me studying Politics and International Studies in college. It was slightly ironic that I was going to two of the places that were very important to me as an undergrad: New York and Israel. New York brought back a lot of memories of who I used to be and what was important to me in a past life, and I knew more of those memories were going to come back while I was in Israel, as that was also a research interest of mine. It was a trip down memory lane, but one that could easily influence my future.