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Wow. If I thought New York was busy...
I spent today running through Grand Central Station trying to make my train to New Haven, Connecticut to visit my brother in college. He exasperatedly explained it to me on the phone ("Take Metro North. Seriously, it's that easy.") the night before, but there were so many people, and all of them seemed in some crazy kind of rush. I finally made it on the train and found my seat though, and put in my iPod for several hours and listened to radio shows until I was too hungry to sleep more, and wandered around the train in search of food. I eventually found a bag of chips and devoured them, much to the disgust of my uppity seat neighbor. In my many hours though I was given the chance to read a lot about Grand Central Station, and it's a lot different now than it was when it was created. Between 1903 and 1913, it was actually demolished and then rebuilt! And during that time in history, there were tons of immigrants immigrating to New York, which meant a lot of people going hungry. Immigrants were living mostly on the east side, two or three families in a house, and because of limited water personal hygiene was a huge issue, and ended up giving people diseased. The culture was really mixed at that point, because so many people were bringing over their own. The economy was also fairly unstable, which made it hard to get a job that wasn't incredibly taxing work. The land was just starting to be very developed, but nowhere near what it is today. The president during this time was Theodore Rosevelt. Anyways, I finally arrived in New Haven, and caught a taxi to the Omni Hotel. I was exhausted, but hauled myself out around town, finally eating a small restauraunt near campus. I walked sleepily back to the hotel and crashed. I ended up writing a poem though, before I went to sleep:
I am forgein.
I am in an utterly different world.
They watch me curiously,
I study them in return.
But I am hardly four hours from home.
And I am so completely
Totally
Stranded.
It's hard to believe I'm not from across the world
I stumble blindly,
Grasping for any kind of direction
Hoping for any kind of help.
I am in a new world.
I am in a new universe.
I am sure of it.
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