Three months ago I had no idea what road God was about to lead me down. Now it's September and here I am in NYC learning the culture of a thousand cultures tossed into one big city. NYC is a big salad with every topping in the world. And here I am--a Midwest country girl--suddenly a topping in this big salad.
I haven't caught on to the schedule yet, but I know that every Thursday is ethnic day. Last Thursday was Morocco. Lauren Mong and Rebecca Byler did a wonderful job of cooking the food. We had lamb, eggplant, and tea for lunch. The picture above is Brianne Coblentz, me, and Joanna Ropp trying to drink our tea the way they do in Morocco (Arabic-style). For dinner the cooks set down one main dish in the middle of the table and we used our fingers to eat. It was fun until some guests walked in on us. The picture to the right is Myreya and Bob Miller, Scott Gehman, Lauren Mong, Anthony Mast, and Rebecca Byler (what you can see of them). 
This is some of the delicious food before we ate it. The left-handed people like me had a hard time eating with our right hands since our left hands were considered dirty.Friday outreach was a lot of fun. Brianne and I walked towards Roosevelt and suddenly found ourselves immersed in a Hispanic culture where many of the store owners didn't even speak English. Our job was to try to learn some words in Spanish by speaking with someone. I was forced to recall my poor Spanish so that I could explain to them that we were students who were going to Mexico who needed to learn some words in Spanish. We got many interesting responses.
On Friday evening, Hubert and Joanna, Scott, Anthony, Brianne, Lauren, and I went to Times Square for the evening. Sheldon and Ellen Graber pleaded out of the journey due to the threat of the ominous Perspectives homework. We took the subway, and were totally wowed as we stepped out of the underground world and into a new world bursting with untasted experiences. I absolutely loved it. Flashing billboards, gently wafting of greasy American food, the press of curious tourists made me want to write a poem. We stopped at Starbucks. We three tightwads, Brianne, Lauren, and I split a mango-orange smoothie. We ate it under my umbrella thanks to Joanna's dare. The evening climaxed at Starbucks and fizzled when we got back on the subway for our long ride home. 
To the right is a tiny taste of what Times Square was like.On Saturday, the laundromat was ungodly hot. Brianne and I suffered through it for the sake of clean clothes. We even hauled our homework along to study. Unfortunately, there was no place to sit down (and blaring Power Rangers stole our concentration). In short, we didn't get much studying done.
Someday, I'm going to get ice cream from the truck that comes down our street multiple times during the day. Lauren, Bri, and I are going to go charging down two flights of stairs and buy some ice cream. The ice cream truck reminds me of e.e. cummings' poem "in Just-" featuring the goat-footed balloonman.
I guess that I should mention my living conditions. I live in the MTC center on the third floor with the Marv and Charlene King family, Bri and Lauren. Class is in the basement and Bob and Myreya live the floor below us. Our apartment is small, but it's a great home for the next five weeks. We all get along great (at least so far!). Marv and Charlene's little boys, Javonn and Adrian, are absolutely adorable. Javonn loves to run into our room with his balloon and tell us excitedly, "JJUUU!" which means different things at different times of the day. It so fun to see his face light up when we get up in the morning.Hubert and Joanna live a few doors down from the center. The other half of the trainees live over in Brooklyn and have a little bit of a drive every morning to class.
Since Bri is leaving next weekend, we crammed our weekend full of tourist activities. Saturday night we rode the subway to Manhattan again and took the Staten Island Ferry to...well...Staten Island. The only reason we went on it was to see the Statue of Liberty, not to go to Staten Island. On the ferry, we stood along the outside and watched the water roll beneath us. The rain was cool and refreshing. Afterwards, we went out for New York style pizza (much to Scott's dismay). We even folded the pizza in half when we ate it. We had fun hanging out and just being our tired, crazy selves. 
Above is a picture of the Manhattan skyline. To the right is the Statue of Liberty (obviously). Below is Bri and I with our Illinois vs. Ohio State T-shirts. The Statue of Liberty is right beside Brianne's head.
Later that evening, we walked down to Ground Zero. There wasn't much to see. Instead, we sat on the steps across the street and wondered what it would be like to be walking down the street in the middle of the morning and see a plane crash into the side of a building. Below is a picture of what Ground Zero looks like.
Well, I've written enough for one day. It's time to jump into the next week and trust that God is just as faithful and just as patient with someone as accident-prone as I am. Pray for me as I adjust to my new life. Pray specifically for the mission and all of God's workers here in NYC and at MTC.I hope that everyone has a good week... Let me know how you all are doing!
-triciaK
