Day 21

We were all able to sleep in a little bit this morning because the tour buses weren't running on weekdays I suppose. The day before there would be a huge bus drive about 20 feet from our heads every 15 minutes or so starting at 5am. We ate breakfast and got ready to meet at the train for our busy day.  I promise we have utensils, but what kid doesn't love to eat watermelon like this!?

  

We made it to the Empire State Building with what seemed like every other tourist as we waited in line after line after line. Just when we reached the end of a line that Disney-snaked all around a room we would make it to another room full of people waiting in line again.  The view was great though from a completely different side of town as the One World Tower with a much closer view of the buildings in the area.  We were able to point out buildings like the Flat Iron Building and Rockefeller Center since we were only 80 floors up.



The kids even spotted the One World Center downtown! We climbed the 6 floors up to the open air observatory  and walked around. Brayden even got the courage up to put his hand through the bars outside.



















Once we had our fill of beautiful views, we headed back down and hopped back on the tour bus for some more history of the city. This tour guide was really great with an obvious love for the city.
I love the architecture of the older buildings with their intricate carvings, statues, and designs. They did these amazing things without power tools and we just build boring boxes now!
       

We hopped off about an hour later for our tour at the United Nations. This was one of the places I was super excited about as I'd never been and I'd read they do wonderful tours, especially for children. They ended up putting us with another group that had already started for some reason so we didn't get to hear the beginning, but we did get to go to the room they'd visited for a quick picture.

We joined just as they were discussing the emblem of the UN that places no country in the center to make them seem more important.

Three of the rooms were gifts from different countries - Norway, Denmark, and Sweden and were finished in a style fitting to them. Each also had some part of their design that reminded the members present of the goal of the UN. It was really neat to see the actual rooms we see snippets of on news reports!

Ryan was asked to come in front of the group and tell the guide her tour was boring to illustrate the human rights articles the UN attempts to enforce in its member countries. It made sense to us that just because that statement might upset our tour guide it does not give her the right to take Ryan to jail for sharing her opinion but that's not what happens in many countries. 

Next she told us about some of the different committees that meet to solve some of the bigger problems in the world.  She talked with us at length about the newly developed goals that were to be reached by all countries by the year 2030.  I was especially interested in a campaign she talked about called ShareTheMeal (https://sharethemeal.org/en/index.html) that would be really easy for us to contribute to and see where the money was going at that point in time with all the needs around the world. I also thought the kids might be interested in sharing the money in their "give" parts of their banks with this program. 

Last up was the huge general assembly meeting room with room for all countries and some of the NGOs that help administer and oversee the programs the UN creates. Each year a country name gets drawn out of a hat and that country's delegates get to sit up front with all the other countries alphabetically seated behind them. There is so much attention to fairness I feel like I'm at home dealing with my children!

Before we left we just had to try on the UN security helmets for a picture! It was a tad too large for Ryan!

  

We hopped on the train back to our little city and had a quick dinner of enormous pizzas and salads. We all snacked on some M&Ms, rested, and took showers to get ready for the show tonight. 

We ended up taking the wrong train into the city though so we had to request an UBER lift to the Gershwin Theater. If you're ever in New York City, find Marvin to get you where you need to go fast! I had to close my eyes a few times, but he got us to the theater with 10 minutes to spare!

Dave had picked out our clothes and shoes to send with Grammie for the show so I was a little nervous about how we would look, but I think he did a pretty good job!  We were all super excited to see Wicked in some amazing seats Grammie scored. I'm really not sure how she does this every time we go to a show!

The show was wonderful and very funny! I do believe it will be all the kids' favorite part of New York City. I got chills every time the main character Elphaba belted out a solo.  What amazing talent in this show!

After the show we hopped in another UBER vehicle and arrived safely back at Grammie's apartment within 15 minutes. The girls and I walked back to our spot laughing the whole way about the different parts of the show we enjoyed. It was late, but a wonderful way to end our day!