New York City

         Our first two days of the Freedom Tour were spent in New York City. For me, this was the place I was looking forward to seeing the most, probably because it’s the least like Maine and one of the most talked about and famous cities here in America. From afar, it seems small but getting into the city was definitely a huge culture shock. What I like most about New York City is that there seems to always be something new to look at. You never seem to catch everything in just a couple of glances.
        The buses drove us through parts of NYC to get us to the famous Apollo Theater. The inside was really fancy with its imported crystal chandeliers, its red velvet ropes, and the details around the stage. I found the history of the theater to be really interesting like the fact that the Apollo has been hosting an organized talent show for about 77 years. After we heard about the history, a bunch of people got to perform in a mock “Amateur Night”. When we were done performing, we went backstage and saw a wall that was covered in the signatures of all the artists that had performed there for the past nine years. We went upstairs, where we saw dressing rooms that had been used by famous musicians. We then said our goodbyes and went to load onto the buses to drive to Central Park.
        It looked just like how it was portrayed in the movies that had been set there. For a park in the middle of the huge city, it was surprisingly clean. We walked through until we got to the part of the park called Strawberry Fields, where the John Lennon memorial is. There also is the Mayor of Strawberry Fields, who every day, makes a peace sign around or on the memorial in different materials. That day, it was made out of coins. During that time we also got to get a glimpse of where John used to live and where Yoko lives now, which I thought was pretty cool. We then walked through the rest of the park to the buses, which were going to take us to Katz’s Deli.
      When we got to the deli, you could already see that it would be chaotic in there getting your food and finding a seat but it was really fun anyway. The sandwich I had was pretty good, although it fell apart as soon as I picked it up. Finally, we loaded onto the buses to make the rather long journey to our hotel in Hanover, New Jersey.

By Mallory