Empire State of Mind

Yesterday (Wednesay) was a long, but amazing day. We started the day at 8am, proceeded through the Linclon tunnel and spent a lot of time in traffic. Wee met out step on guide and had a bus tour of Manhattan. The most powerful part of the day was touring the 9/11 memorial. The really great part of the tour was meeting up with former Wild Rose Alum, Lori Pitzen-Doherty who works for the memorial. She explained her role with the memorial foundation and shared her experience of September 11th. 

Here is Lori and all the WR Alums that are on our trip. 

After seeing the memorial, we headed up town to see, well a lot. Our tour guide Meredith took us all over the city and shared not only history but information about where various famous movie scenes were filmed. Not only was Meredith great, but our bus driver Larry (also from Wild Rose) did a great job getting us through traffic all day. 

Highlights of the tour yesterday included, Chinatown, the Harlem district, a drive past Carnegie Hall, lunch and grand central station, Central Park and many other things. Basically we went Uptown (funk), then we went Downtown, because things will be great when you're downtown.

After the tour we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in the heart of Times Square, and the students and chaperones had some time to explore Times Square, before we saw the Broadway show Alladin. As I said it was a long day, we headed out at 8am,and did not return to the hotel until 11:30 last night. Thursday is our last day in the city, complete with Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, MOMA, and the Top of the Rock. 

Overheard on the trip: "What does this Schnook think he's doing" -Meredith our tour guide commenting on a few NY drivers. 

Enjoy the following pictures from day 1in NYC. Can you guess our locations from the pictures? Feel free to comment below to interact with us on the tour.