New York City

For an Iowa bred girl who’s never been to New York before, this was quite the experience. I’ve watched the movie “On the Town” with Gene Kelly dozens of times growing up, and was mildly surprised when I didn’t meet my true love in New York, nor find any opportunity to break in to song-and-dance on the street corners of Broadway. Once reality set in and I discovered that not all experiences are like the movies, things perked up.

One of our first stops in New York was to a church dedicated to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. As she is the patroness of my middle name, I was overjoyed to spend some time there. It was built into a place where she once lived. Some of the original columns are still in front of it, with a beautiful chapel on the inside. From there it was a short walk across the street to Battery Park where we saw the Statue of Liberty in the distance.

We took the subway to Central Park where we enjoyed our lunch on some rocks. I later found out that they’re significant rocks, but I can’t remember why. While praying before our meal, a man took a bunch of pictures of us, which was relatively odd. He afterwards offered to e-mail them to us, I hear they were good pictures, and have yet to see them. (Don’t worry, I didn’t give him my e-mail.)

During lunch, which Br. Peter Francis ate using the top of my head as a table, we were also accosted by a man who was a “rapper trying to make it.” He was making it up as he went along and after Father Nathan turned to let him know that he could rap if he wanted to, but that we couldn’t pay him anything, he began to mosey on. We were all interjecting our farewells to this new friend of ours and in my Iowa-naiveté I called after him, “Don’t fall off the rocks while you’re rapping.” It was meant as more of a silly addition to the “Thanks for rapping, have a good day” and “God Bless”s pouring from the EEI girls. After the moment of silence following my smooth send-off everyone burst into laughter. It was decided, and by whom I’m not sure, that for the rest of the day we would banter “Don’t fall off the rocks while you’re rappin’, Yo” back and forth as we toured New York. I should have gone with the momentum and broken into song, but I doubt that would have been well received.

Our next order of business was to walk 2 miles to the office of the New York Times. Father Nathan knew the mother of one of the editors and she was kind enough to arrange a tour for us with her son. It was very informative, and for someone who studied media, it was exciting to see the different facets of life at the New York Times. We were even treated to a New York Times coffee after the tour where we could ask our gracious guide questions about everything we’d seen and what he’d told us about working in the Newspaper media.

On our way out of the city we took time to see St. Patrick’s Cathedral, passing sites such as Radio City Music Hall, the Rockefeller building as well as walking along Broadway and taking in Times Square. St. Patrick’s was beautiful and a wonderful way to end our tour of New York City.