Ah, what an exciting morning. I woke up a few times in the middle of the night and felt a little sick, but was able to convince myself that it was nothing and went back to sleep. However, in the morning I was really not feeling well and after not feeling terrific each morning all of the previous week, feeling sick again on Sunday, and being sick on the bus the day before I started to feel a little nervous that it was more than a slightly upset stomach, that I was indeed coming down with something. Not something that I wanted that week. Again, my friend called our chaperone to update her on how I was feeling. We made it down to breakfast fine and I tried to eat a plain piece of toast with a little bit of milk to help wash it down, but I could not eat it. I probably only took 2 or 3 small bites and about half of my milk before I decided that it was just not working. Mrs. S. decided that it would be best for me if we just took a 20 minute rest in our room before heading out. At this point I started to feel really bad that I was really coming down with something and would continue to weigh down the group. I followed Mrs. S advice and called my mom to talk with her, where I later found out that she did the same. My mom convinced me that it was just nerves about how things would play out mixed with overwhelming excitement with being in the city. My chaperone also thought that it was a mix of all of the moving around the day before between the bus, boat, all of sudden lots of fast walking everywhere, and all of the crowds and different sights and sounds. It was probably a mix of all of those things, I was indeed not sick. My stomach was feeling better after the break, but I still wasn’t buying it.
Mrs. S took us downstairs and instead of letting us lead, she took the front and we just and to follow her. None of knew where we were going, we just had to trust her. Not all that long of walking we started to hear some music, none of us knew where it was coming from though, well Mrs. S probably did. In under 5 minutes of walking we saw the outdoor set to the Today Show. I had forgotten that we had told her that we wanted to go the the Today Show, preferably on Tuesday. We were too late. As soon as we got there we saw The Fray, the people providing the music, jump off the stage finishing their one song. The outdoor segment was over. Mrs. S said that we should have been quicker getting out of our rooms when she came to get us, but I felt like it was mostly my fault, despite Mrs. S trying to reassure me that it wasn’t. If I hadn’t needed the 20 minute break, we would have made it.
Because of me, we still took it slow to begin our documentary footage. Even though I was co-director for the one documentary, I sat out on the first stop next to Mrs. S. on the midtown walking tour, which happened to be Rockefeller Plaza, where we had been hoping to go ice skating later in the week. I was feeling better with the “fresh” air and just walking around as opposed to psyching myself out. Our next stop was the St. Patrick’s cathedral, which doubled as our historical documentary topic, where I was a camera person. After this stop I was feeling so much better and was able to enjoy myself and the city once more.
Everything else on the walking tour was in central park, so we made our way over to the very lovely area. It was a very nice walk with all nine of us girls being very silly and having loads of fun. There was one point where we passed an Aeropostale or some other store like that where there was a live male model in the window. Funny enough Mrs. S. was the one who was freaking out the most and making jokes because the model was”so cute.” It was just so fun, yes I know that I have said that a lot already, but my words are not doing the experience justice, to act like teenagers, walk the beautiful streets of NYC with my closest friends, and have the best chaperone of them all. Not only that, but we passed the Trump Tower on our way to the park. Mrs. S wanted us to see the inside of the building, (which is so beautiful) but we aren’t allowed to just wonder around as it is a place of business. Her solution, we go in and we get Starbucks, her treat. I was feeling so much better, but still not super great, so I decided to pass, though it was still so sweet of her. We were all feeling refreshed from her generosity, a sugary drink, and a break from walking, and we were still in a light-hearted mood as we walked out.
We left Trump Tower and finished our walk to central park, where I immediately fell in love with that area. It was the perfect mix of city and suburban, I could easily picture myself living there. Filming went really well and it was even fun to do. I think that my friend and I will have plenty to work with to create a creative documentary. My favorite two parts were Umpire rock and the carousel. Mrs. S took us to one of the big rocks in the park, convinced that it was Umpire and told us to get our footage and to play on the rock for a little bit. We tried to tell her that it was indeed not the rock that she thought it was, but she was jokingly offended that we thought that she had mislead us. None of us believed her though so after relaxing for a little bit we decided that we wanted to go check out another rock, still not convinced that we were at the Umpire Rock. We had been right and Mrs. S reaction was pretty amusing to watch. After getting all the other footage from the park we went to the carousel which had just opened for the day and we had a rather clever, or at least I think so, idea of getting footage from someone riding the carousel looking out and also getting footage from someone looking in. I’m pretty excited to see how that turned out.
We finished all of our filming in a pretty timely manner and headed to lunch. We managed to find a little sub, cafe type place not far from central park and decided to stop there. The first time where one of my friends and I were going to order the same thing. It was also at lunch where I was convinced that Mrs. S was right as to why I wasn’t feeling well that morning. I had been fine in central park, but I stepped into the crowded building with lots of different smells and not all that much breathing room and the upset feeling started to come back. Even though I had hardly had a breakfast, I had lost my appetite, but I started to feel a little better again after lunch when we once again out on the street.
We had a little bit of leisure time it seemed so we decided to take it easy and “stroll” through the streets a little bit and thought that it might be fun to go a Sony Technology Wonder Lab, which was completely optional, but seemed interesting. I’m glad we went. There was lots of interesting information about animation with lots of hands on activities and we got to “produce” a news show, which felt like home when we first did the jobs for real back in 6th grade. Though, by the end of the lab I was ready to take a small break and head back to the hotel before broadway.
We had fun in our room being like girls getting ready for a night out at the theater. Lots of other girls put on some makeup, really nice dresses, and heals, but the most that we did in my room was put on a little bit of mascara and change into dresses and skirts. One girl curled her eyelashes, though the rest of us were too scared to actually try doing it. Also, another girl in my room had brought a leather jacket and we were being silly trying it on along with sunglasses pretending to be rebel, biker chicks, which none of us are near being. I was also feeling a little adventurous again and let the same girl who curled her eyelashes straighten my hair. It was only super straight for the first half hour when it became to curl under again, but it was definitely straight for me. I am thinking about buying myself my own straightener. What do you think?
It was nice being at broadway and joking with all my other friends that aren’t in my group. Even though I have seen Wicked twice, been backstage, and met one of the actresses that played Elphaba, I have never seen it on Broadway, well actually I haven’t seen anything on Broadway. Again, our super awesome chaperone was causing trouble. One of my friends was talking with her mom on the phone and we all took turns saying hi to her when Mrs. S came over and reassured her that she was taking care of her daughter…and her boyfriend. Which immediately resulted in everyone making jokes about describing this obviously fake person.
Our group was the first one in from school as to set the example for everyone else. It was such a cute theater. The whole building was set up for the showing of Wicked. And even though there was literally only one more row behind us before you were at the very top of the theater, you could see every thing on stage. It was such a good show and the walk home was filled with lots of jokes about the play. It is amazing how some people can change with lack of sleep, uh um Mrs. S.
We were in charge of all of the cameras and technology equipment, so that meant that even though it was a late night, we had to charge everything, keep organized, and make sure that everything was working well. However, something with the charger was not working. Luckily the teacher in charge of all of the cameras was dropping off his group to their room across from us, so we managed to get his attention. We told him our problem and he helped us fix it. However, before he could come back from the tech room to get what we needed, I was asleep, with all the lights on. Yes, I was that tired and it was only the first full day in NYC.
A really rough start to the day, but it was wonderful in the end and middle. And I’ll admit, on the walk home it was mostly Mrs. S and two other girls in the front making most of the jokes and talking to one another and it was a slight slap in the face for an unnamed reason, but I now realize that it was rather stupid for me to feel the way that I did. What a day it was with its own up and downs, but I could not have asked for a better day, well except for maybe the sick morning.
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