Subway Rats

NYC has been such an incredible experience so far! I'm loving every second of this trip :)

The other day we broke into smaller groups (a couple of us from each track) and were given the afternoon to explore the city. My group was awesome, and it was really cool to be able to get to know them. We ended up going on the subway to the tip of Manhattan in order to see the statue of liberty. Seeing it was so cool! It was a little bit off in the distance, but still close enough to make out what it was. We also realized that vendors in the city can sense a tourist from a mile away. They seemed to ignore everyone, but when they thought you were a tourist they jumped all over you trying to sell their stuff. I thought that was pretty funny.

The subway was also an interesting experience. It took us quite a bit to figure out which one we wanted to take and where we needed to transfer. Some New Yorkers helped us out when we were totally clueless, but no major mishaps. Well, there was one subway adventure, but thats for later on in the story.

We rushed back from the Statue of Liberty to make sure we could make our assigned tour time for the Top of the Rock. Basically, its the view from the top of Rockefeller Center (where they used to film CONAN!!!). It was such an incredible view of the city. You could see so much, and we were able to view some pretty famous buildings. It was really nice to be able to do that. I highly recommend it for anyone who visits NYC.

After that, our group went out to dinner at Tom's Restaurant which is a Seinfeld inspired restaurant. I wish I could remember more of what the diner looked like in the show so I could compare :P

A group of us were feeling adventurous last night, so we decided to venture out to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was really cool to just have the majority of us (we're already a small group when we're all present) just hang out in the city. The bridge was really beautiful (and worth the long subway ride and walk to get there). Seeing everything lit up at night and just walking along the bridge was a good way to end the day. The bridge walkway goes directly over the highway...that means you could look down through the boards and see the cars rushing under you. That got a little unsettling after awhile.

The ride back was an adventure...It was already getting pretty late and we were getting fairly tired. We rode the first subway without any problems, but the second ride is where we encountered some troubles. We sat around waiting for a train that wasn't even scheduled to come. No one noticed until about twenty minutes later. While we were waiting, we noticed a rat along the tracks. We all lined up and were looking down into the tracks for such a long time. Someone who was watching us came over and asked what was so interesting. When we told him it was a rat he instantly knew that we were tourists and called us out on it. He told us he was expecting to see a dead body or something haha. After we realized the train wasn't coming, we readjusted our schedule and made it back to our housing...it was quite the subway adventure. And now I can say I have seen my first subway rat!

Today we did a lot of orientation work so we can finally begin to know what this project is all about. We learned that for a exhibition at the end we will be showing our collaborative pieces that we'll be doing in two big groups. I'm so excited to see how everyone can bring their skills together to make some awesome works of art. People on this project are all focusing on such a wide variety of things including theater and music. I cant wait until we start planning and actually working on it.

I feel like the hardest thing for me is how fast paced everything is here. New Yorkers are in such a hurry and you actually get cussed out on the street for slowing down their pace. Even waiting in line somewhere is stressful because everyone is rushing you along. In Ledyard, people definitely take their time. I know I'm someone who likes to stop and take in my surroundings, but that cant be done here. The lifestyle is very different from what I'm used to.

Tomorrow we are going to the Museum of Modern Art, which will be good for me since I love art history and just learning about paintings. We have more orientation and time with our groups we went exploring the city with. Also, we've been promised a Broadway play on July 1...so you know I'm happy about that.

I'm just really excited that we're getting to know what this project is really all about and what exactly we'll be doing. We went to a gallery opening today in the studio that we'll be working in. I think it hit a lot of us that soon we'll be in their place. We all got so excited thinking about that! For a lot of us, this is definitely a dream come true, and we can't wait for this process to begin!