empire state of mind :)

So much happened on this trip I think it deserves a blog post.

The trip started out with everyone having to be at the airport at 4:30 am, :) then we flew from Edmonton to Toronto (good job Crystal, you survived your first airplane ride!) then Toronto to New York.

Can we discuss how ghetto the airport was? LOL but seeing so many taxi's made our lives. (Brittany, you squealed.)

We all piled into a bus and went to our hotel, which was in Korea Town. After dumping off our stuff, we took a tour around NYC seeing things like the Trump Tower, Central Park, John Lennon's Memorial (my personal favorite <3), Lincoln Centre, Madison Square Garden, and a ton of other things. For supper we went to Bubba Gumps, I'm sure they wanted to kick us out. LOL. Our table was jamming it out and singing :D.

Day two we went hard, started out with going to the Statue of Liberty, resulting in me almost flying away on the ferry because the wind was so strong and I decided being on the top deck would be a fantastic idea. We also took a picture with a guy dressed as the statue, who then demanded 5 dollars from us... After the Statue we went to Ellis Island, missing our original ferry time because people never know what time it is. Once we got back to Battery Park, there were 3 street dancer/performers/comedians who made us have front row seats because we were the "SPARTAAANS", due to this I was pulled into the performance. Yeah, great times. The guy told me that once I would go black, I'd never go back, but with being white I was aaaaaaalways right. ;) they were hilarious. They also pulled up Brittany as the "sexy white girl" they needed! LOL. One of the guys jumped over 5 of us, it was great. Later on we walked through Wall Street, saw the Stock Market, and then made our way to Ground Zero, which was under construction. It's going to be amazing when it opens and I'm definitely visiting when it does. :) That night we went to a Jazz restaurant where we were charged 66 dollars in pop. yup, pop. I guess no one gave us the memo on refills arn't free..... Did I mention that on the second day we decided that piling 14 people into an elevator would be a fantastic idea? Yeah, that happened. 14 people were stuck in an elevator for atleast 25 minutes because the front desk wouldn't answer the alarm sound and took forever to save us. LOL, quiiiiteee the experience.

Day three, we ventured over to Rockefeller Centre (can I mention that there are flowers? in New York?), and then had a tour around Radio City. We got to go on the stage, which was amazing considering all the famous and talented people who have performed on it! Afterwards, we had an intense shopping day on 5th Avenue, hitting up the 6 floored Forever 21 primarily, along with other stores. Macy's has 9 floors and two buildings, you can only imagine how overwhelmed it is to walk into it. And that there is also a washroom every two floors...... booking it to the washroom, right cm + bi + jc?! LOL

Day Four, was our tour at NBC studios and acting workshop with Thurman E. Scott. The tour was amazing, we got to see the studio where they film Dr. Oz (<3 i died), and the studio for Saturday Night Live! After the tour, we walked over to the workshop. It was quite the....experience. He had an awkward and odd way of getting us to become "better actors". His assistants were alittle over the top... there was this one excersise where we had to talk to our "negative self" and they were LOSINNNGG it, like telling them that they needed to be murdered and that they were bitches and sluts, LOL it was an awkward situation to overhear. That night was our first Broadway Show, RAIN. It was like seeing The Beatles in concert, my life was complete. I have never been so happy and screamed so much and sang along so hard, it was amazing. <3 <3 considering there arn't time machines, it was practically like seeing The Beatles. They sounded identical, I shit you not.

Day Five, we walked literally like, 20 km around Manhattan. hitting up places like CHINA TOWN! :) Jenna got hit on by a black man in McDonald's, apperantly she's a "squealer"! We walked over to the "white horse tavern" where Bob Dylan performed, Tanner was quite relieved in a cuban place where he left his communist shirt... (I won't reveal details tanner LOL) and where i also tripped over two curbs and walked into a parking meter. Later that night, we all got our fancy on and went to our second broadway show, Wicked. This show is SICK, I definitely want to see it again when it comes to the Jubilee. The set, the actors, the story line and their voices are absolutely mindblowing. I reccommend it to everyone and anyone. It's also hilarious, which I didn't expect at all =P.

Day Six, we went over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, can I just say it's huuuuge? There's so many displays, and sadly this was the day our tour guide Louis (aka Yellowman) had left us with a woman who got us lost going to our hotel. I mean, no hate, but when we get used to yellowman talking and being so friendly and so informative, it's hard to walk behind a lady holding up an umbrella, giving no information and getting us lost. Afterwards, we walked over the United Nations and were given a tour. Our headphones had the worst static of life, i could hear the tourguide better with them off. But we got to see the conference rooms and everything the United Nations does, which was cool. :) It was also our final night at Bubba Gumps!

Day Seven, the last day.

It was mostly designated as a shopping day. EXCEPT, we were supposed to be on the Today Show! People were always late which lead us to missing our bus and not being able to get there on time. :( But we managed to subway by ourselves to Shoe Mania! Quite proud, not getting lost in New York City. :) It was sad leaving the hotel room, BUT IN OUR HOTEL ROOM WE FOUND "BLOOD" ON THE CURTAIN. Yeah, that's right people. Blood. It was questionable....

I want to thank everyone for making this trip, it was the highlight of my final year at O'Leary. It was great making new friendships, and rekindling friendships with cast family <3, being there with all you guys made every moment worth it. Our happy laughing moments, to our grumpy no-sleep moments (no names ;)), freeezing our butts off, getting seperated by ferries, almost getting hit by taxi's, experiencing thurman e. scott, pranks. Everything. I know I'm probably missing alot out, but just add them in the comments, :) thank you to everyone, I will never forget this. I really wish it wasn't over, and that it hadn't passed as fast as it did.

love you all,

Joana :)