Well what a day!  After waking up to finish my paper for EDU 715, you're welcome Professor Kopetski, I had a hearty and healthy breakfast down with my fellow teachers and we were off to learn and discover...like a child turned loose on the world.  Our guides Ed O'Donnell and Charles C. Calhoun are incredibly insightful, humble, terrific men that dropped knowledge on us and inspired us to want to learn more. 

After a brief walk, we boarded a ferry around the Statue of Liberty, she is quite lovely by the way, and then were on to Ellis Island.  Ellis Island was an experience I will never forget.  You cannot help but think of the immigrants that came to the country, after 3 or 4 weeks on the sea, to a land they didn't know and having to face the possibility that they would not make it through customs and would have to go back.  The building itself has a strange inexplicable aura of eeriness.  There is a quality of the sanitary feeling of the building that is haunting, hauntingly beautiful.  It makes you think of the lives that started and those that were not allowed to continue in this country.  The journeys that started, and those that came to a screeching halt.  It was amazing.  I spent hours walking alone, learning, reading, getting lost in the ambiance and beauty of the stories and the heartbreaking photos and details of the travels that stopped and the difficulties of these poor individuals.

After a great lunch which I was patted down by one colleague (thanks Ken), told I was a piece of meat (Thanks Matt), and told to "eat a cookie" because I looked malnourished (thanks Nicole).  I really blame Tony Horton and P90X for that...for making me so svelte and awesome. It's a curse.

After returning to Manhattan we had a tremendously long, informational, amazing walk through and around Wall Street, a 14 foot tall George Washington, Alexander Hamilton's grave (he should have ducked), St. Paul's Church, the Bull, and eventually to the 9/11 Memorial.

The 9/11 Memorial is something I will never forget.  It was somber, inspirational, quiet, tranquil and hopeful.  There is a distinct beauty in the design and a indescribable quality of the companionship and togetherness that you feel with everyone else that is there.  Yet, it feels like you are there alone in your own temple or shrine to not only those lost, but for America as a people.  Again, I will never forget the time I was there.  I was fortunate enough to find the name and commemoration for my cousin that was lost that day, Maile Hale.  It was nice to see how well the memory of her and all others were preserved, it is classy, and approached in an elegant and respectful way.

It was a good, long day and I cannot wait for tomorrow. I get to see the tenement museum, and eat a sandwich at Katz Deli that will probably weigh 2 pounds. Bring on the Pastrami, Bring on the Corned Beef!