Even though I had to say all my goodbyes in the start of June, it didn't really feel like my trip was beginning as I was spending the summer in New York City working and still getting to see my family. I'm also very lucky that I didn't come on this exchange on my own, I had six others in my course all coming to the same college and all of us living in the same place. For me my journey didn't begin until two of these people came over to New York on August 11th ....
Monday August 11th
This was a hectic day, I had to sit my New York State Drivers test today at the exact time my two friends, Fiona and Elliot, were landing in JFK. This test lasted all of about EIGHT minutes. Yes, eight. You literally just have to do one parallel parking, one three point turn and two all way stops signs and you're done with your test. Thankfully I passed so I'm now able to drive in the States unaccompanied! While I was doing this test, my Dad went and collected Fiona and Elliot from JFK airport and by the time I got back home they were chilling out waiting for me. We wasted no time whatsoever and within about two hours we set off into Manhattan (Fiona and Elliot had both never been to the States so I was their personal tour guide haha). We got the 7 train from Flushing in Queens all the way in to Grand Central Station. Once we finished looking around here we got the 7 train again into Times Square. We hung out here for a while, took in all the sights and took some pictures before strolling over to see Rockefeller Center and then we moved onto the Empire State Building. No matter how many times I go into Manhattan I'm still always blown away by the beauty of the city.
Below is one of the photos we took while in Times Square.
Tuesday August 12th
Today we went to the American Museum of Natural History. We were in the building about 15 minutes after opening (10:15am) and the place was already packed! We bought our student tickets and we also got one exhibition - The Dark Universe narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, very very interesting exhibition that I would encourage anyone who visits the museum to go and see. We spent all day in the museum until 5:30pm and we got to see absolutely everything. At one point, to ensure we all got to see what we were more interested in, Fiona and I went into the The Hall of North American Mammals, we're studying Zoology and love animals if you didn't already know, while Elliot, who studies Geology, went to see the Hall of Minerals and Gems (can't actually properly remember the names of those halls sorry!). This way everyone was happy leaving the Museum! After we finished, we went across to Central Park and found the Balto statue, from the movie Balto - this was a dream come true for Fiona and Elliot! From here we went to see the famous toy shop FAO Schwarz. By this time we were absolutely exhausted and my legs were fit to fall off me with all the walking! We got the N train from there back to Times Square and from there we got the 7 train back out to Flushing where my Dad collected us. Myself and Elliot stayed up and watched the Lego Movie while Fiona went to bed - she was exhausted and jet-lagged.
One of the Amur tigers on exhibit in the Museum of Natural History (if you know me at all you should know that tigers (all kinds) are my all time favorite animals). Would ya look at this beauty!
Wednesday August 13th - the busiest day.
Fi and Elliot were mad to try pancakes in an American diner, so that's what we did this morning. We went into a diner in Whitestone called The Cozy Diner - the pancakes were AMAZING. We then went and did a bit of food shopping and then left at about 12 o'clock and headed for Manhattan yet again. Our first stop was Wall Street, we walked around here, took in the sites and then we walked from here to the Freedom Tower and the 9/11 Memorial. I always get a chill whenever I visit here and also this eerie feeling, it's so heartbreaking seeing the names of all the people that died in the 9/11 tragedy. From here we went to do the Statue of Liberty Cruise in Battery Park, we were the first to load onto the boat so I picked the best spot for the view of the Manhattan Skyline as I had done this cruise a few weeks previous when another one of my friends from college, Av, came out on a holiday for two weeks. This boat brought us to Liberty Island where we got to see the lady herself - Lady Liberty - which provided the perfect selfie opportunity.
From here we got picked up and brought to Ellis Island - we spent the best part of an hour just reading exhibitions all about the history of Ellis Island and the immigrants that entered here so many years ago! We went and found the charging bull and then got the subway and got off at Brooklyn Bridge, we took in the sights here and then headed back to Times Square again for some dinner in Sbarro. By this time we were so exhausted but we went into Aeropostale and American Eagle and got some good deals on clothes before heading back out home on the 7 train.
Panoramic shot of one the foundations of the Twin Towers. Along the edges you can see some of the names of the many people who lost their lives in this tragedy.
Thursday August 14th
We took today to completely wind down. We were all exhausted after our extremely busy three days exploring what the 'City of Dreams' has to offer. We also had to spend this day trying to pack up our life into one suitcase - which I may add is not easy when you have to pack for a variety of seasons. This evening my Dad took the three of us out to dinner in a restaurant in Queens called the Copper Kettle. The food here was absolutely fantastic and we were all as full as butchers dogs leaving the place!
Friday August 15th
Our day began at 4am. Our first flight of the day was at 7am from JFK to LAX. My Dad dropped us off to the airport at 5am. I said my goodbyes and we were off, we got checked in so easily and then we went off through security and thankfully had no problems. We were flying with Delta with all three of our connecting flights. The flight wasn't all that bad, I watched the Disney movie Frozen for the 1 billionth time and I watched a Disney documentary on Bears also. We landed in LAX and had a bite to eat, we were starving at this point! While we were in LAX it turned out that one of the gaming channels I watch on YouTube by Stacy Hinojosa (@stacysays on twitter or stacyplays on YouTube) was on the same flight to Salt Lake City as me. I fangirled for a solid 10 minutes and when I was about to go and ask could I get a picture with her, her phone rang so I just left her be. Our flight was slightly delayed because an elderly man thought he could open the exit doors on the roof of the plane to store his baggage, leaving the flight attendants slightly agitated until it got sealed up again. From SLC we had a smaller airplane with only something like thirteen rows in it taking us to Missoula Airport. The views we got to see from the plane were absolutely stunning. The pilot had to take us around a thunder storm in order to try and reduce the turbulance we would be hitting.
We arrived in Missoula bang on time (4.47pm) and there was somebody from the college at the airport to collect the three of us and also another girl, Savannah, from Australia. We collected all our bags and Jeremy dropped us all off to where we would be staying during the college year. We had roughly 20 minutes around the apartment and Jeremy's wife, Casey, came by and collected us to do a shopping run to Walmart to kit out the apartment. While I'm attending college here I'm staying in Lewis and Clark apartments. These apartments are huge, everyone gets their own bedroom and there is a shared bathroom and kitchen here. However, the apartments are empty. Everything including cutlery needs to be bought. So off we went to Walmart were each of us spent in the range of $220 on the basics we needed to get us through for a few days. Because myself and Fiona are sharing an apartment we were able to split everything that was needed for the apartment, helping to reduce the cost a little bit. While on the way and at Walmart we were able to meet a lot of other International Students also.
Saturday August 16th
Today we decided we would go exploring. For some reason, even though I was exhausted, I woke up unreasonably early for a Saturday but it gave me a chance to FaceTime my family back in Ireland cause here in Missoula we are 7 hours behind so it makes it a little awkward to try and keep in contact. Fiona was wrecked so I headed off over to Dave and Elliot's apartment for a while and then we decided we would go and find a grocery store near here. We were roughly 20 minutes walking and then we came across one. We got a few bits and bobs and then walked back home again. Fiona was up and ready so we decided we would head into campus and check the place out ahead of orientation. The University of Montana has an absolutely stunningggggg campus! It's so gorgeous and everyone that we meet is so friendly.
We met two of the other Irish students, Siobhan and Barry, and we all walked into town together. We went to a restaurant called The Iron Horse for dinner and we all had burgers. The meal was unreal and our waitress was so lovely she even gave all six of us separate checks without us even having to ask which was pretty sound of her! (I know this cause I'm also a waitress and splitting checks is a slight pain in the arse). We all went to another store called Albertsons where we all stocked up on some food (probably a little too much food) because we didn't realize we had such a long walk back to our apartments as this was after 7pm when the city buses stop running. Earlier in the day, myself and Fiona found a lot of kitchen stuff such as plates and glasses outside the office in the apartments which are free for people to take if they want them so we grabbed whatever we could. So naturally, we put all these into the dishwasher to clean them before using them and Fiona decided that seeing as they were outside she thought it would be best to put a little extra washing up liquid into the dishwasher than usual to make sure they were clean. WRONG. I came out of the shower and our kitchen floor was covered in suds. We literally just stood and stared and laughed for about 10 minutes (after turning the dishwasher off of course). This shall be forever known as - The Dishwasher Disaster.
The picture below is after our third attempt to try and remove the suds, I never actually got to take a picture of the major disaster we had.
Sunday August 17th
Seeing as Dave wasn't on the same flights over as us he didn't get the chance to go to Walmart so we decided we would stroll over to the International House and see if they were going to be doing any Walmart runs that day and it so happened there was a bunch of other International Students all gathered there to go on a Walmart run (what timing?!). Since I had already gone, I wasn't sure if I would be able to go again but I was lucky enough to be able to hop in a car without taking up any space for another student who hadn't been there. This took up a big chunk of our day so when we got home it was all just unpacking everything and making dinner before heading over to Barry's house for chats before orientation starts Monday morning bright and early!
So this basically sums up the first hectic week since I've been here. I havn't blogged about my summer in New York because I just didn't feel the journey was beginning until Fiona and Elliot arrived. It still seems very surreal to be here right now. Check back next week for another post on our week of Orientation! Thanks for reading,
- Shannen
