New York State of Mind

Today was New York at it's finest. We began our whirlwind day with a trip to Ground Zero and the 911 museum. It is still under construction - but it will be an amazing tribute to those who died almost 10 years ago, when it is completed.

We walked down to Wall Street and saw the financial district.

We saw Trinity church, were able to go inside and enjoyed being there during a service.

We enjoyed Mariello's pizza - Oprah's favorite New York pizza. It was delicious!

After lunch, we made our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The building alone - was enough for me - then add to it the artifacts, and it is easily one of the most beautiful museums I've ever been in, not to mention home to some of the greatest collections and displays.

While we were in the Met, in began to pour buckets of rain accompanied with thunder that shook the building. It was unreal. Here we are in front a wall of glass while the rain poured behind us.





Following lunch and the Met we walked on over to Central Park - probably my favorite park I've ever seen.

Here is our group at the pond featured in "Stuart Little." Remember the boat race with the Wasp? Yep - we were there.

After leaving Central Park we walked through Strawberry Fields, which are located right across the street from the Dakota building - home of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. We also met the self appointed Mayor of Strawberry Fields. He had a name tag that had the word "mayor" written on it in sharpie - thus making him mayor.

I'm going to try this at home and see what happens.

From there we went on to dinner at Balmoor Lanes - which was really fun. We celebrated Brooke Myers' sweet 16 birthday with delicious cupcakes from a New York bakery - scrumptuous!

After dinner we walked around Times Square - which was unbelievable.
If you look behind Kyle you'll see the ABC studio where Good Morning America is filmed.

We had tickets to see "Phantom of the Opera." Wow!!! That's about all I can say - our group loved it so much - the special effects were tremendous and the vocal and dancing performances were so impressive. It was a real treat for parents and students alike.

What a day! It was fantastic - tomorrow we're headed to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and then home. I can't believe it! It's been such an amazing tour.

I will post our last day's events when I get home. This trip has really turned out to be such a blessing and a joyful time for all of us! I am so thankful for this opportunity to see Washington D.C. and New York City and to do it as a group from The River Academy. See you back on the West Coast side!