The hurry and chaos for Enrique, in New York!

From now on I want to write my paper in English, so please forgive me for my mistakes, I'm still learning (Arie). So at the last blog I stopped at the farewell party of Juan. It was awesome! We were still at the party around 6 am, the same as the week before. So we were home at 6:30 am. The plan for me was to go to Harvard square with Anna and Beate, but I was so tired that I slept till 2 pm. The rest of the day was very lazy, I didn't do anything. But there was a small surprise in the evening in the Hostfamily, Peter (from Kenia) had cooked dinner for us. It was delicious! He cooked a kind of pancakes, but not the sweet one, and salad and something which I forgot the name from. Before dinner we said goodbye to Beate because she had to go back to Seattle again, Anna brought her to the airport. I had to wake up the next day at 6 am, as usual. In next week we finally bought our bus ticket for the bus to New York. I was so excited, I talked with Alessandra and I could sleep at her place and she would show me whole New York. I know Alessandra from another time that I went with EF, in Malta. I became good friends with Alessandra, she is from Italy and she visited me in Amsterdam last year and I visited her in Milan. So we bought the tickets and Anna, Teresa and Eri booked the hotel. The last few weeks in EF I got volunteership lessons, to prepare for the internship which we could do after the springbreak. I had my first meeting with Deanne this week on Wednesday. Deanne helps students to find a company to do an internship, but I don't have enough experience so she recommended me to do the internship in EF. There is an international day in may in EF, and she told me that it is one of te best days of the year in EF. So I can help with this event to organize with presenting the Netherlands at this day.

I was so excited about this weekend, because I went to New York and it was so awesome. I couldn't believe it went to one of the most biggest and important city's in the world. We had to leave the house very early the Saturday that we left. We woke up at 05:00 and left the house at 06:00. It was early but we were early in New York, so it was worth it. We had to be at the riverside station there was the bus stop. I thought I had everything, but of course just when we arrived at riverside I noticed that I forgot my passport. But no worries I didn't need it, I only wanted to take it with me in case that I needed it. The bus trip was actually not that bad, it is hard sometimes for me to sit without moving for 4,5 hours, but I slept a little and I had wifi and free water so I made it till the end. So after 4,5 hours at 12:00 we were finally in New York City, in the middle of manhattan in front of Madison square garden. Madison square garden was the same place were Anna and I had the concert of Enrique Iglesias that night and that is a long story for that night, but I will tell you later. So there we were, in the middle of manhattan, my first time in New York, I couldn't believe it. We went to the Starbucks at first (like always) Anna needed her daily coffee and I had to wait for Alessandra because I should meet her there. It took Alessandra one hour to find me because her cellphone was death and there were to many Starbuckses in the area. In the main time, Anna and Teresa went to the hotel to check in and put their stuff there. Eri had another bus so she arrived late, but Anna and Teresa met her later so it was not a problem. After one hour, Alessandra finally found me and we went to a take out restaurant to have lunch.

Alessandra told me that we were going to meet her friend at the Starbucks. So we went to the Starbucks and I met her Italian friend Karlotte, she was also aupair in Brooklyn. We went all together to timesquare and I couldn't believe it, it was so big there were billboard every were, people in costumes and big advertisements everywhere. This was it, this was timesquare, the famous timesquare from the movies and the series which I watched. After the pictures that I made and looking around we went to some shops on timesquare. It was so busy there were so many persons on timesquare, some were looking around, some were in a hurry and some were making pictures. My teacher told me the week before I left 'it doesn't matter what kind of wheater it is, but you are going to have a lot of fun in New York especially when it is your first time', and he was right it was snowing very hard and it was cold but it was amazing. Time flies when you are having fun, we were shopping a little bit and looking around but it was already 4 o'clock and we had to go to Alessandra's house to put my stuff there and I had to prepare myself for the concert. Alessandra's Hostfamily lived in Brooklyn, the house is as big as my house (back in the Netherlands) I guess, so it was pretty big for a house in New York. I just saw the children and the mother for a few seconds but they had to go and I had to change myself and do my make up for the concert. I had to hurry up because I had to meet anna at 6:00 pm at Madison square garden.

And now begins the story with the bad beginning of the evening, but with a very good end. Alessandra told me that I would just take me 20 minutes to go from Brooklyn to Madison square garden, so I went out at 5:30 that I had a little more time. But Alessandra wasn't right, it took me in total 50 minutes. Anna was waiting for me at 6:00 pm at Madison square garden and I didn't showed up. The other worse thing was that I can't call or text with my phone because I had a Dutch number so I couldn't call anna and she couldn't reach me either. Finally at 6:20 we met each other, and she was mad at me which I understand and I felt guilty. We were actually on time for the concert, but here comes the worst part, we didn't had the tickets. Eve was sick on Friday and we didn't want to bother her with printing the tickets, so we decide to print them in New York or if it is possible at Alessandra's place. In the afternoon on Saturday I tried to print them with Alessandra in the FedEx, but there was a problem so I couldn't print them. Alessandra told me that we could print them at her place so I thought it won't be a problem for tonight. But when we came home the mother and children left so we couldn't print the tickets. So at that moment we had a big problem, Anna is a really big fan of Enrique and we paid 138 dollars per person to go to this concert, so we defenitly had to find a solution for this. At first we were searching for a FedEx to print the tickets, we asked and we were sended in a direction and after 10 minutes we asked again and we were sended in a whole diffrent direction. So maybe this was not a good idea to ask, and than i knew that we passed a staples this morning near at Madison square garden and you can print pages over there. We finally found the Staples after 15 minutes, at that moment it was almost seven o'clock so we had one hour to print te tickets and be at Madison sqaure garden. So we were finally at the Staples, and than we noticed that the Staples closed one hour before, so at six o'clock.... "So what now?" Is what we thought, we didn't know what to do. We went back to Madison square garden, through the douane and we asked if it was possible to show our tickets at our mobile, but it wasn't possible. But the woman we asked told us that if we bought it at ticketmaster we could print it here at the ticket balie. Anna and I were happy that we could finally print our tickets and go to the concert, because at that moment it was almost 7:30 so in half an hour would start the concert. But when we were at the balie they couldn't print the tickets, because they said it was not from ticketmaster. So we had to go outside again and we had to find another solution to print the tickets. At that time we both felt horrible. I asked the same woman again what to do and she said we had to go to the Pennsylvania in front of Madison square garden. This was our last chance to get in to go to the concert. We went to the hotel and yes we were lucky this time. We found a small room with some computers and printers. We had to pay 10 dollars, but it worked, we had the tickets finally after 15 minutes. So we hurried back to the concert and found our seat.

It was huge, there were so many people, especially women of course. So we were there just in time, but we had to wait for 1,5 to see Enrique. There was a preprogram before Enrique came on stage, it was a DJ and he was pretty good but most of the people were not really interested in him because they wanted to see Enrique of course. Also Anna was sick of waiting, Anna is a big fan of Enrique Iglesias and she was looking forward to it from the time that we booked the tickets and she was telling me almost everyday how excited she was! So finally at 9:30 Enrique Iglesias came on stage and everybody was screaming and yelling include Anna and I of course. We enjoyed the concert so much, directly when we were in the concert hall and when we saw Enrique we forgot what happened before. The bad thing about the concert was that Enrique is a Spanish speaker, so a lot of people in the audience were Spanish and he spoke Spanish a lot. So Anna and I didn't understand anything about the Spanish part when he was speaking, but that doesn't meant that we didn't enjoy the concert. So after a lot of screaming, singing and dancing, Enrique's concert was over, unfortunately. Anna couldn't still believe that she saw Enrique, she was a fan for so long, but this was her first time that she went to a concert if him.

Alessandra and Karlotte were waiting at the entree of Madison
Square garden to pick us up. The plan was to go to a club voor 18 years and older, so I asked Anna to come with us. She wanted to come with us, but we had to hurry to be there on time. There was a really long line for the cab in front of Madison square garden, but we took one a little bit furder so we didn't had to wait. I don't know how we get in at that time, but I showed my Identity card (so the security guy saw that I was 18) and they let me in. So finally after to month I could party in a night club, and don't forget in New York, that is so awesome! So Anna and I hadn't been partying for a long time, so we start dancing a lot. We met a lot of people, a Dutch guy, a Egypt guy, a Turkish guy and a lot of others. Alessandra and Karlotte were tired so they were sitting and waiting for me and Anna, but we were still partying. So the beginning of this night was actually horrible, but the and was fantastic! We had to go home at 2:30, unfortunately, but we had a long ride home we had to take 3 subways instead of 1. Anna took the cab to go home, for her was it just a short ride.

So at four in the morning or maybe even later we arrived at Alessandra's Hostfamily. We were all so tired and fell directly a sleep. I set my alarm early for next morning to wake up, but I didn't hear it so Alessandra turned it off and I overslept. So I finally woke up at 11 and I took a shower and dressed myself very quickly and went to downtown. Alessandra and Karlotte were still wearing their pajamas so I went alone to downtown and asked Anna, Eri and Teresa to meet with me there. They were at the metropolitan museum, but it was not very interesting they said so I waited for them at Times Square. That is a bad thing in New York, it is hard to meet because New York is so big. Also, I had at that moment only my Dutch number so they couldn't reach me and I can only reach them sometimes. So we made an appointment to meet at the Starbucks at Time Square, but there were two Starbuckses. We found each other after 15 minutes. We took a cab and we went to the 9/11 memorial. It's is funny almost everybody take a cab to go somewhere in New York, they are cheap and mostly faster than the subway (not when there is a lot of traffic). We had to pay three dollars to enter the memorial, but it was not that much (you have to pay for everything in New York). The memorial was beautiful, it was a big square with a waterfall in it. There were a lot of signs with text about what happened and other information about the memorial. Teresa had made a reservation at a Italian restaurant, so after we saw the memorial we went there. Teresa had also invited some friends from school so we had some company from two Chinese guys. The food was very good, I always like Italian food I guess a lot of people does. Eri, Teresa and Anna had to hurry after dinner because they had to go to the musical at broadway. I didn't want to go because it was to expensive. So I met Alessandra when they were air the musical, we went to fifth street. It was so Sunday evening so a lot of stores were closed, unfortunately. After walking on the fifth street we went to grand central station, it was so big and so beautiful. I guess a lot of people have seen the movie Madagascar, me too, this was the station where they were after escaping from the zoo, I recognized it! We went home because it was late and we were tired.

Monday morning, I woke up early this time and I heard my alarm. My last day in New York, it was Presidents' Day. This was the day that America celebrates the birthday of president Washington, Lincoln and other presidents. We have this kind of holiday to in the Netherlands, of course queens day (now kings day), but they don't celebrate it like we do in the Netherlands. Actually they do nothing special in New York or Boston, I don't know if they do in other cities or states. But the good thing about this day is that we don't have to go to school! So I left Alessandra's house early with my stuff and dropped my stuff at the hotel where Anna, Teresa and Eri stayed these days. Alessandra couldn't come because she had to work that morning, so I was the whole day with my housemates and we went to the bottom of Manhattan to see the Statue of Liberty. At First we ate breakfast at the hotel (it was free so I was lucky). After that we took the cab to the boats who were going to the Statue of Liberty. We bought the tickets for the boat from a guy who was selling them in that area. He was not the only guy, there were a lot of those guys who were selling tickets there for the boat trip and helicopter flight. You see a lot of these guys in New York, for bus trips, boat trips, helicopter flights, tickets for shows (especially comedy shows) and many more things.

We get on the boat near at the Brooklyn bridge. We sail all round the south of Manhattan, so we had a beautiful view. At first we saw al the big buildings and the Brooklyn bridge. After that we saw the the Statue of Liberty, it was so big, but we didn't enter the island, we just saw it from the boat and then we continued the trip to see the rest of the south of Manhattan. It was so cold on the boat, everybody was freezing, but it was worth it, the view was beautiful. We get off the boat at the Time Square stop, because Anna, Teresa and Eri had another musical that day. They went to lion king, the plan was that I met Alessandra at that time, but she had to work so I walked in New York by myself.

Luckily we found our way back to the bus stop where we got out on Saturday. The trip back to Boston was faster than when we went from Boston to New York. Everybody was tired from the weekend, so everybody slept in the bus. I had a good time in New York, I haven't seen everything, but it is not a problem because I have still a trip planned to New York with Suzanne in march and with my parents in April. And in two weeks I will visit my friend Zoë in Cincinnati, I'm curious how that will be.