Day 3-NYC-Monday

Today was a long day. Tiffany led morning prayer. Today was the feast of St. Alban and she did a wonderful job of incorporating that in to our morning prayer. I implemented my new approach to working the schedule and I think it was very successful. Today was much more relaxed for the most part and I think everyone enjoyed knowing a little more about their day. I think I am learning a lot about how to lead a group. I am glad everyone is letting work out my growing edges here.

We hoped on the train and headed down to Trinity Wall St. That church is super cool. I really enjoyed walking around their graveyard in the middle of the city. The windows were beautiful and the organist was playing while we were there, so that was neat. Then we headed over to St. Paul's Chapel for our walking tour of Ground Zero. There was an interesting museum there, but I really enjoyed the walking tour. A lot of the landscape has changed, but there was enough still there to really enjoy the voices that were explaining what happened that day and all the days after. I was kind of annoyed at the people rushing past me and kind of pushing me out of the way while I was standing on that holy ground, but I guess they have moved on for the most part, which is a good thing for the health of the city. Unfortunately I did not give us enough time to finish the tour before we had to rush to the ferry for the Statue of Liberty.

Everyone went ahead to the island while I waited for poor Sharon to get there. Her plane landed around 10 am, and her shuttle did not drop her off until after 1 pm at the dock. I can't imagine how horrible that ride was. :) She and I headed over and did a condensed version of the audio tour so that we could head over to Ellis Island and catch up with the rest of the group. But, in order to even get in the statue and walk to the top of the base, we had to wait in line for 30 minutes to be violated by some air quality screening machine in security. you walked in to this chamber, and it blew air on you from the floor and then tested the air air for bomb materials and such. It was really weird.

Tiffany met up with us and then the three of us headed to Ellis Island. I really enjoyed that museum. It opened just after my last sight seeing trip to New York when I was in the 6th grade. Learning all about the things that went on there was really interesting. The things these people went through to enter our country was amazing. Doctor's examined their eyes with button hooks and judged them on their physical and mental health in a matter of minutes letting those deemed healthy go in one line and the others had to be detained for further research. The reasons people were denied entry were astonishing in some cases. If you were denied, you were sent immediately to a boat and back to your country of origin. Families were often split up, some staying and some being forced to leave. It was hard to hear some of the stories from the people who were just children when they went through the process.

As one would assume, women were treated much differently. They were not allowed to leave the island without a male escort that had to be part of her family. It was crazy to see how immigration has changed in the last 60 years and how much better some of the policies were then. The most shocking part to me was the first time they were judged by the doctors. Once they entered the building, they dropped off their luggage and had to climb a huge staircase up to get their physical exam. Doctors would stand at the top of the stairs judging their ability to walk up them and sometimes deciding right then if they could stay. I can't imagine how tired, hungry, and stiff some of these people were after their long journeys and then having to be judged immediately on your physical fitness. It was really sad to think about. It reminded me of the way society is now. We often judge people from the moment we see them and either embrace or shun them without even taking the opportunity to hear one word out of their mouth.

Afterwards, tired and hungry, we went to Little Italy to meet up with a few of Sharon's friends, Remington and David Sibley. It was great, we all had pasta and some drinks and then went to pastry shop for some dessert. When we got home, Sharon debrief us on our day and helped us prepare for meeting the PB the next day and then we all went to sleep, which was much needed.