Pennsylvania

       After two long days in New York City, it was time for us to move on to bigger and better things. We woke up early this morning in our New Jersey hotel, and boarded the big fancy buses. Two hours later we found ourselves at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Almost immediately we were rushed to a huge circular theater, where we were told the story of how the United States Constitution was written.
      After that we had some free time to look around the museum. One of the exhibits I thought was the coolest was piles of law book spiraling up to the ceiling. Next we were taken to a room filled with statues of all the people who had written the Constitution, and then lunch. When everyone was finished, we divided up into our groups and had a chance to walk around Philadelphia. My favorite part was the storytellers. They were people who were standing in front of historical sites and telling stories about why these places were so well known. They got so into the story that sometimes they’d start screaming and running around to illustrate.
       All too soon we were crammed back on the bus, and had to ride another two hours to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Lancaster is known for a huge Amish community. We had a tour of an Amish house, located right next to Target. Also, we got to stop at an Amish convenience store where we got to taste Root Beer and pretzels. Dinner was at a restaurant called Plain N’ Fancy, where they served a traditional Amish meal, family style. And now we’re at the end of our third day of the Freedom Tour, exhausted, happy, and can’t wait for tomorrow.

By Terra

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

Entertainment at Battery Park, NYC.  Note the two at the end of the line were our very own Dylan and Kevin! 

We packed a lot in today! It was our opportunity to see many of New York’s most famous attractions from the Statue of Liberty to Ellis Island to Ground Zero. We ended the day with a trip to the “Top of the Rock” for a panoramic view of New York City.

Part of the day was spent looking back at the history of the people who immigrated to America through Ellis Island. We spent time looking at an exhibit of photographs of the people who settled in New York’s Lower East Side. The students were asked to examine the photographs and notice what was happening in the photo, how the people in the picture were the same or different from us today, and why the photographer might have taken the picture.

Some of the comments were:

“The man in the picture is sad looking. You would think he’d be happy that he was escaping whatever disasters he left, however, I’d be sad if I had to leave my belongings behind.”

“If the photograph was taken today, the choice of clothing would be different. There wouldn’t be many similarities compared to today because things are extremely different.”

“I think the photographer took this photo for two reasons…the first is because maybe they took pictures of each person who passed through. The second is that maybe they wanted to show all of the different cultures of people who were coming to America.”