While we were in New York, we had the opportunity to meet so many cool people. It made an incredible trip even more special because we got to hear some stories from people who have been all over the world.
On our first full day in NYC, we went to visit the 9/11 Memorial. On our way, there was a wall that had a memorial for the firefighters that sacrificed their lives to save others. On that corner was a man who had been in NYC that day.
We talked to Harry for almost an hour. He had a binder full of pictures, his own memories, and the stories of all the people he’d talked to since the attacks. He answered all of our questions (and there were a lot of them) with a smile on his face. And when we parted ways, we all knew more about 9/11 than we knew before arriving (and we had watched 2 documentaries with Mom and Dad before our trip).
Later that day, we went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. While we were waiting for the ferry to take us back to Manhattan, we met Jane, one of our customers!
It’s always so cool to meet our customers face to face because we get to know the people that we are serving.
Later that night, we walked from Battery Park (where we caught the ferry to the Statue Of Liberty) to our hotel in Times Square. On the way, we stopped in Little Italy for dinner. Mom was on the hunt for calzones because she says that nobody in the midwest knows how to make a ‘real” calzone (Mom grew up in New Jersey and spent a lot of time in NYC).
Mom walked up to a man outside one of the restaurants and asked him, “Does your restaurant make calzones?”
“No, but you come here and I’ll show you,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulder and pulling her into the street with him. He pointed down the street and said, “You see that place? They might. If not, you go to this other place,” and he gave her directions to a restaurant that was a street over.
“What’s your name?” Hewitt asked him.
“I’m Vinny,” he said.
So we all thanked Vinny and headed down the street to the restaurant he’d pointed out.
When we came out of the restaurant, stuffed to the brim from our calzones (which are definitely better than any we’d had in Indiana), someone said, “We should go tell Vinny that the food was really good.” So we walked back up the street to find Vinny.
Vinny (Italian man we met): Les take-a peekture. Me *mumbles*: We’re in the middle of the street! V: Don’t-a worry about eet! LOL #GMS2NYC
— Brett Jonas (@BookSquirt) May 7, 2014
We talked with Vinny for almost an hour before it started to get dark and we needed to walk back to the hotel. Vinny told us about his life growing up in Albania and how he eventually ended up in America. He even described the Albanian flag for us (which we later found at Rockefeller Plaza).
The next day we were going to breakfast when we met Officer Jimmy and his horse (Arabian/Percheron/Quarter Horse) Tego. We all talked to him for a while and learned about how the police use horses in the city. Officer Jimmy is the only one who rides Tego, unless somebody else takes him out for exercise when Officer Jimmy is away on vacation.
Later that same day we met this soldier who wanted a picture with us because we matched.
These are only some of the really cool people we met on our trip. Some of the others are Denise (from Ireland) and Nino (from Puerto Rico) from Connolly’s, Michael and Antonio from our hotel, and the taxi drivers (from Bangladesh, Morocco, and Uzbekistan) who drove us to and from the airport.
Everyone we met was so nice and everyone had a story to share with us. Mom always says that it is important to pay atttention to the people that you meet because you can learn something from all of them. After this trip to NYC, I think she’s right.
We love meeting new people!
