"The Situation" at the Statue of Liberty

March 20, 2011

Day 2!!! So the day started bright and early with a trip to Ellis Island at 9:30 a.m. Upon our arrival to Staten Island, we took a ferry and made our first stop to the Statue of Liberty where we took plenty of pictures.  Our next stop on the ferry ride was to Ellis Island where we took a tour of the Ellis Island Museum. This stop helped us connect the main focus of our trip, which is on the topic of immigration as a whole.  Here we learned an enormous amount of information of the first immigrants to arrive in America between 1890-1924. Many of the attractions in the museum were very dynamic, allowing us to grasp a real-time image of the initial immigration experience during this time. This includes seeing the actual beds that the immigrants slept in and the original tiles that they walked on as they waited for their turn to be processed as new American residents. Afterwards, we took the subway to 50^th street where we had lunch and dispersed to explore Times Square and the surrounding local attractions and also SHOP!!!! We got to experience the many “sights and sounds” that New York has to offer, including street venders and the relatively new Forever 21 store (which has 4 FLOORS might we add!!). We ended our day by heading back to the hostel, where we ate, and reflected on the day’s events. Overall, today was very exciting, interesting, and exhausting. Tomorrow we begin our journey with our community service at the Bronx International High School. Until next time…

<3 Bukky and Derin  <3