June 18th Birthday in Brooklyn; Viewer Discretion Advised

So today is my 19th birthday. It doesn't feel much different than my 18th birthday, though now I can get into Pacha. Our adventures today consisted of going to Brooklyn and getting a walking tour from one of Andor's friends from Grad School; his name was Allan. He was a really great tour guide; he definitely knew his stuff. Our tour lasted for about an hour and a half, we walked all through Brooklyn; learned things that I didn't know. One in particular was Brooklyn used to be a city; though it merged with New York City and became one of the five burrows.

Old Brooklyn City Hall

Throughout the tour we payed close attention to the buildings. Allan told us how to tell the when the building was built just by the architecture. I found this really interesting. The picture below shows what is now apartments. If you look closely, the buildings have what looks like garage doors. At first I thought it was for a fire department, though I soon learned that these were the stables for the horses and carriages back when people rode them through the city.

An Alley Way 

 From the port, we could see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I am really excited to go to this on Friday. I have never seen the Lady Liberty up close, or even as close as this picture, so I should have a lot of fun, though I do not think that I could climb it due to my bad knees.

Statue of Liberty

 After a short lunch and a trip to the park to discuss salt marshes we ventured to the Brooklyn bridge. Now before I get into how the walk was, I would just like to point out that a classmate of ours has chosen to be unfair to the rest of the class and skip out on the walk. Now I understand that you may be afraid of the sun, or the sunburn, but that should be no reason to skip out on a whole part of class. None of us really wanted to walk the bridge, but we still did it anyway. The whole point of this class is to step out of your comfort zone and try new things. There are some people that are afraid of water, are afraid of heights, or are physically injured but the rest of us did the walk. Just because you want to be miserable during our trips doesn't mean that you should get out of activities. If you really didn't feel well, it's because you refused to drink all day and when you did drink, you drank a milkshake; not too smart when it 90 degrees out. Now that I got that out, the walk was actually better than I thought it would be. It would have been a little better if the sun wasn't beating down on us. It actually didn't take as long as I thought it would and the views were amazing.

Manhattan Skyline from Brooklyn Bridge

Freedom Tower

 My favorite part of this trip was being able to see the Freedom Tower. I really would love to visit this, but there is just no time. After a four hour break we were able to go to a Broadway show. Me and Krista went on a date (again), and went to see Matilda. I thought the play was awesome. I had two favorite characters in this play, Matilda and Mrs. Trunchbowl. I would say actresses but Mrs. Trunchbowl was played by a man. They were a riot. We laughed, and applauded and enjoyed ourselves. It turned out to be a good day with a few speed bumps. It was definitely a different way to celebrate my birthday, and now I can't wait to go home and celebrate with my family. Until next time...