
Spending the 4th of July holidays in NYC was the coolest journey I had. Ever!
We took off in a rainy Thursday afternoon from Pittsburgh. Everything here was a mess! I was in the middle of writing a paper. Had to put it to a halt, and with my small suitcase with a pillow stuffed inside it, I joined my amazing friends. The ride was pretty long. We got there at 10:30 or something. My lovely lovely Friend A was waiting for us, and we had a lovely dinner together. I then went back to my annoying paper, finished it and submitted it, took a soothing shower, and at 2am was sleeping in the very humid weather of NY.
The next day was the big day! On Friday morning on 4th of July of 2008 we went to visit Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We took the ferry (my first ferry ride) to Ellis Island at first. There we visited the immigration museum. There was this cute little theater performance there which we bought tickets for. (my first theater performance in the US) It was a funny story about how Béla Lugosi immigrated to the US. What else do you expect to watch in an immigration museum after all? I liked it.

Then we went to watching all the old interesting photos of immigrants of old times. It was really interesting, seeing how things has changed. How people's traditions has changed over time. I wonder how each of my American reader's ancestors came to the US. Each single person who immigrated must have lived a novel!

After Ellis Island we took ferry again to the Statue of Liberty island. We only visited the outside of the statue (we had not reserved tickets, and the line was too long). But of course even from the outside it was pretty exciting experience. I didn't know the statue is copper, and that the blue color is because of oxidation. I like the blue color now.

We then went to get our first New York style pizza in Manhattan. Wow, Manhattan: Dirty, big, crowded, full of shops and crazy cab drivers. That's my definition of a perfect home city! Going to Manhattan, more than anything, brought back fun memories of life in Tehran. There's just so much going on, and you can have fun, but with the expense of losing lots of time in traffic and looking for parking. Hehe. I loved Manhattan specially for these features.

We got a nice pizza. Actually on Friday we didn't get into too much traffic. We even found parking pretty easily. After lunch, we went up the Empire State Building. Before that we passed through fifth avenue, breathed in all the crowd and shops (so refreshing after living in Pittsburgh for sooo long!) and then went to see the whole city from 86th floor of the Empire state building. The line was pretty long! Specially because there were only this limited number of elevators to take everyone up. I think we spend an hour just to get up there! But it was worth it. We got to see everywhere. The weather wasn't as clear as we wished for, but still, it was pretty interesting, watching all these long building from tip of an even longer building.

After the Empire State Building we went to find a nice place for watching the famous fireworks. We went to south sea port and watched the fireworks from there. I loved the one firework which was like a cube and another one which was like palm trees, and there were some which looked like waterfalls and there was one that had different speed at different stages of burning. I don't mind repeating the experience next year :D

After the fireworks, we were pretty tired. We had to walk a long way through China town. It was so funny that some shops didn't even have English banners. I think you can live there without ever having to speak English. Well, at least if you are Chinese.
We then went back home and were fast asleep soon after.
The next morning we got up a little late. (We were exhausted the night before). It was a rainy Saturday, and we headed to Metropolitan Museum. We spend a good 4-5 hours there, and enjoyed different sections throughly. I even found many pieces that were from Iran. I took several photos with them :) Unfortunately I didn't have time to cover the Far east section. I should plan another visit some time just for that!
After Met we, the loyal good students of the world, went to visit campus of Columbia University. We went to every floor in the engineering building, and took photos. We even discovered an Iranian faculty there. She used to be my teacher, when I was at middle school and when she probably was still a very young student in Iran. World, with all its greatness, is indeed very very small!
At 6 we were walking down the Broadway Avenue after joining with 2 other Iranian friends. We met up with them at Columbus Circle, and decided to walk down. The good thing about crowded crowded streets is that you enjoy just the walk itself without even spending a penny. Window shopping is definitely one of my favorite activities! Times square was so heavenly (=crowded and with many big shops and screens!)

We spend half an hour in the m&m shop, hehee, and I even bought souvenir. We then walked back up and said goodbye to our friends in Columbus circle and went to our luckily found parking place. We then got a nice food from
mamoon's falafel, and then passed through an street which lots of people were standing with cameras. We asked people around and found out that Madonna is coming out of of the house in any minute. But we couldn't wait (we were in the street, driving) but still, heard people's cheers just a few seconds after we got away from that place. They must have seen her.

We then went back home and slept like a log!
Sunday we went to Princeton University. I liked the campus. It looked so prestigious, the city was very peaceful, and it was close to NYC. We walked around the campus till lunch, and then went to another friend's house for the lunch. They were one of those cool people that I heard about back in Iran. I couldn't believe that I was having lunch with them!

It was then time to say goodbye and head back to pack again. Our wonderful wonderful journey was now over. We headed back, had a fun dinner, missed an exit somewhere and lost an hour for that, but just when clock showed 2am I turned my keys to my home sweet home. I didn't even take a shower. I went straight to bed, and the next day, life was back to normal in Pittsburgh!