{"id":16944,"date":"2016-05-15T15:00:57","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T19:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=16944"},"modified":"2016-05-13T15:55:16","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T19:55:16","slug":"a-belgian-on-the-road-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2016\/05\/15\/a-belgian-on-the-road-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"A Belgian on the road: New York"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Day 1<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Wednesday, May 4, I left Ogdensburg. I was nervous and excited, which made my stomach a little bit sick. I was mostly nervous about the amount of money that I had to take. I flew with Cape Air again, which also made very nervous. A small plane with only 9 people? Not my cup of tea. But anyway, I arrived safely in Albany after a hour, where I had to take the bus.<\/p>\n<p>I must have done something wrong in the last months because my karma was not really good. I asked the not-so-very-friendly lady at the information desk where I could find the bus. She told me to keep walking until I saw the sign. She did not lie; there was a sign saying that the bus was leaving. She just forgot to mention that I had to take a bus to the bus stop. After waiting for two hours, I realized something was wrong. So I had to take a cab to the bus. The driver was creepy because when we arrived at the stop, he didn&#8217;t let me go. He said, &#8220;I would drive you around all day, because you&#8217;re so pretty.&#8221; I smiled and asked for my luggage without looking scared. Five hours later, I finally made it to the Big Apple. My luggage and I did just like Hillary Clinton; we didn&#8217;t know how to use the ticket turnstile so I got through but my suitcase decided to stay behind. Luckily for me, I had a smart guy passing who realized that my suitcase fit under the security bar. <em>Oooppsss&#8230;\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-dBJpiE9U4YA\/Vy5_0ToVX2I\/AAAAAAAAJY0\/Ke-mvkwJ8h4QW30PWBmld3cpO6tXVDuYgCLcB\/s640\/IMG_2158.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Manhattan Bridge \u00a9 Melissa Callaert<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Day 2<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Marilee and Carly (my hosts in New York) were working during the day so I wandered around the city alone. I decided to walk from Brooklyn center to the bridge. Not my brightest idea; after walking for almost two hours, I made it to the bridge.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-hu-7JZHK4PM\/Vy6BowQQH9I\/AAAAAAAAJZY\/5XK-RNEzWc4weDhbojHHemVTffIuhvFWACLcB\/s400\/IMG_2150.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" \/>The next stop was the 9\/11 memorial, where I ended up with tears in my eyes. The memorial reminded me of how cruel the world can be. I found it odd to see the new tower next to the memorial and I got frustrated when I saw people taking happy selfies with the memorial. People died there. I do not understand how can you stand there being pretty, just for your amusement? I have hope for a better future someday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A highlight of my day,\u00a0for sure, was the ferry ride. A half hour on a boat seeing this very beautiful skyline and the Statue of Liberty. I waved, but it was hard to tell if she was waving back or not. I mean, she had her arm up, but she seemed to be very busy.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-2uS2uJ24CHk\/Vy6CGyWJGxI\/AAAAAAAAJZk\/ueZACtFZBM0YvhMlasMrKGyr8E0LIsm4ACLcB\/s640\/IMG_2143.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-pIAvnnKmYQM\/Vy6CtIIEeQI\/AAAAAAAAJZw\/8emSWCve2zUPC0XAdl7_kZqNXmtCHqxLwCLcB\/s640\/IMG_2054.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And of course, I also visited Time Square, which is my favorite place in the city. In the late evening, I went to a play on 42 Street called &#8220;A Better Place.&#8221; It was a wonderful play about living the good life and being jealous of what you think other people might have. I enjoyed going to an American theater.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-TaraJhOYbGk\/Vy6DTpw_u1I\/AAAAAAAAJZ8\/DWSGtqKv2AEkuBm2Q6LWKrv8L2En_o7SQCLcB\/s400\/IMG_2310.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"400\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-yeGKpNceayw\/Vy6DfVuZh_I\/AAAAAAAAJaI\/nsP6EhtnB1wkzpzQYHIAJrPdEbyzdo2OgCLcB\/s400\/IMG_2123.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Day 3:<\/p>\n<p>I went to church. Yes, I did! But this time I did not go for mass, although there was mass at the time that I entered. I just love churches because they are always pretty, and I can make a wish when entering a new one. So I did, but I can not tell you what I wished for. The rest of the day I wandered around Rockefeller Center, Central Park, Fifth Ave, Grand Central Station, and so on. I went back to the flat early because I had blisters as big as my big toe and I was exhausted. For dinner I enjoyed &#8211; thank you Jon for the recommendation &#8211; pizza while watching Netflix. I went to bed early, because day four was going to be very busy with all the traveling.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Xi0JJsjO1rQ\/Vy6FJAggmzI\/AAAAAAAAJa4\/SVHlqk8cg-YkNc5p605b9lYyIAoBe7K7wCLcB\/s640\/IMG_2303.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><br \/>\n<em><br \/>\nMelissa Callaert worked as an intern at North Country Public Radio for the Spring 2016 semester. Currently, she is traveling around the United States before heading home.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Day 1<br \/>\nWednesday, May 4, I left Ogdensburg. I was nervous and excited, which made my [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[15815,15870,9846,15871],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16944"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16969,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16944\/revisions\/16969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}