Happy Birthday, Christopher!!!

 I can't believe my baby boy is 14!!!  We celebrated in style at the Concord Mills Speed Park, when Christopher got to take his friend Chad and race, putt-putt and jump...and then we ate lunch at Cici's and came back to the house for Baskin Robbins ice cream cake.  It was a party indeed!

The Freedom Tower

I'm afraid of heights.  

But I wanted to see a pretty view of New York City while we were there.  So my husband decided that we would view it from the newly-constructed Freedom Tower, located adjacent to where the World Trade Center Towers stood.  I said, "Sure. Sounds fun."

But when we arrived at the site, I discovered that this wasn't just any tall building;  it is the TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE!!!  Not just the tallest building in New York City, or in our country, or even on our continent.  It's the tallest building in our half of the world!!!

I must admit I got a little queasy at the thought of going up in this monster.  (And FYI:  pictures don't do the height justice).  If the World Trade Center buildings were still standing, we would have been looking down on them.  But I am working on the life skill of being less afraid in life, so I went for it.

 First, you buy a ticket and go through security.  It's the exact same security you go through to get on an airplane.  Then you get in line for an elevator (the elevators are very large) which are some of the fastest elevators in the world.  Amazingly, you cannot feel yourself going up much at all.  The sides of the elevators are like a movie screen, and they show videos of what New York City looked like as it was being built.  And then in 45 seconds, you're at the top!  Just like that!  No ear popping or anything.

 And at the top, you simply walk around and have a 360 degree view of New York City.  It was spectacular!!!

Below is the New York Harbor.  That little, itty bitty thing on that island is the Statue of Liberty...

 One interesting perspective, though, is that although I was surprisingly unafraid of the heights up there, I was nervous about airplanes.  We were actually looking down on airplanes that were flying.  Every minute or so an airplane would fly out of the airport (LaGuirdia, I believe?), and I instinctively found myself watching to make sure that airplane would turn one way or another instead of heading for us.  It was incredibly chilling while we were standing up there to be where the people in the World Trade Center buildings were, so that if what happened on 9/11 happened while we were up in that building we would not be able to get out.   I realized that 9/11 still has its effect on us.  Terrorism certainly terrorizes, even 15 years after it has happened.  Even so, come quickly, Jesus...

-Kara

NYC Mission Trip: Getting Around On The Subway

In Brooklyn, New York, people have only two ways to get around:  walk or take the subway.  Unless you are in Manhattan, where the tourists hang-out, there are no taxis, few busses, and hardly anyone owns a car.  During our mission trip, we spent A LOT of time riding the subway!  Honestly, it was a lot of fun.  Depending on how fast your subway car is going and how many curves there are, it can feel a bit like an amusement ride.  

Several things surprised me about the subway.  First, how clean it was.  I had always envisioned the subway as a place filled with graffiti and trash.  But it wasn't that way at all.  In fact, we only saw one or two subway rats!  Secondly, I was surprised by how expensive it was.  I thought you just paid a quarter or two and rode the subway.  But it costs $32 per person/per week for a subway card.  To put that in perspective, it cost my family of five over $150 to ride the subway for one week!

So here's how you ride the subway.  First, you have to buy a subway card for every person who will be riding.  It's like a thin credit card. Because subway cards are so expensive and so necessary, people will sometimes steal credit cards just to buy subway cards.  So you're only allowed to buy two of them at one time...which made it tricky when we were trying to buy seven of them for everybody on our mission team!  Next, you find your nearest subway entrance.  But be careful: not every subway entrance takes you where you want to go.

 Once you know you're at the right subway entrance, you'll find a turn-style where you swipe your card and enter the subway.  You might remember that a few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton made the news when she couldn't get her subway card to swipe.  (Neither could we: it hardly ever works the first time.)

So after you've made it in, you just go stand at the stop for where you're going and wait for the subway.  It doesn't take long.  They run every five or ten minutes.  You can see that John and Christopher (below) were waiting on the L train to Manhattan.

Once you're on your subway car, you'll see a digital read-out that tells you all the stops.  You wait until your stop to get off.  This digital read-out is vital to knowing when to get off, because since you're underground and it's dark in the subway, every stop looks exactly the same.  

 And that's it!  The kids especially liked holding on to the poles and standing-up. 

-Kara