Saturday, November 5, 2011

Our first "lazy day" - Saturday, November 5th

Finally, a Saturday where we could walk leisurely and smell the roses!  Heidi's family is here for a few days so they were up and at it right away in the morning; by the time Sarah and I woke up (8:30), the Rossow's were already out the door!  They have still not returned from their adventure or I'd be able to share about "Spider Man" on Broadway and other touristy sites they visited.  


Last night was our first time using the Staten Island public busing routes, so we decided to give it another go.  For someone who is from a tiny town of 4,000, it blows my mind that you can get to essentially any place you want to go (both on the island and in the various boroughs) without a car!  Although it takes a MUCH longer time to get there - we were commuting for four to five hours today - it's FREE and we're getting exercise from our walking journeys.  Wow, these people have it figured out. :)


The plan for the day was to head back to the Mid-Manhattan Library to spend some quality time on our Teacher Performance Assessments (TPA.) On our way there, we decided to check out the Wall Street Occupiers one more time (seeing as the location at night was more than slightly sketchy.) The site is very intriguing, although we still don't feel informed about their common purpose or the eventual goal.  Can you tell we aren't very political individuals yet? Protesting isn't really our cup of tea.  The gist of what we heard from the group is that they are protesting for "better lives for the 99%."  Here are some of the sites we saw:



If someone could help us understand "fracking", we'd really appreciate it! 


The guy next to him was "Born in China, made U.S. jobless."


People were really invested in his songs, singing along in loud spurts.


Interesting theory. I wonder if it's true and whether or not there are believers!

At the Mid-Manhattan Library, there were TONS of tables available, but only two that had outlets nearby.  This was very interesting to us because at GAC, you can't go two feet without finding a place to plug yourself in.  We were forced to share a teeny-tiny table with two gentlemen working feverishly.  Needless to say it was a very distracting environment and our plan to accomplish SO MUCH had gone SO WRONG.  We turned around and headed back home.  On the way home, we again tried taking the public bus.  I've never seen so many people jam packed into such a small space.  We would come to a halt at a bus stop and literally two people would get off while at least ten more got on.  If you were at all claustrophobic, you may just want to huff it the ten miles because you wouldn't survive!

Needless to say, it was an unproductive yet restful day.  The homesickness has hit for a few, but not all of us.  We feel very self-centered by writing all about us on our blog, so we'd love to hear from family and friends :)  Enjoy the rest of your weekend and get an extra hour of sleep - thank goodness for Daylight Savings Time!!

Your regards,
-Megan    

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