By Luna Manela

Today we woke up in Pennsylvania and continued our drive to New York. For lunch we had a one of a kind experience at a Wawa gas station and convenience store. After a couple more hours of cruising, Frank Sinatra’s famous “New York, New York” boomed through the bus as we finally entered the Big Apple. The monumental buildings, crazy crowds and buzzing streets were a warm welcome to the exciting and incredible New York City. After arriving, we hopped on their famous subway to get to our meeting with the American Jewish World Service. There, we had a meeting with a representative that ran us through some exercises which made us think about our responsibility to ourselves, others and the universe. Then she explained to us the work that AJWS does as the only Jewish non-profit that provides services and aid all over the world. It was very interesting and some of us were even curious about participating in their volunteer programs when we are older.

After a Q&A session, we went to dinner at a delicious Chinese noodle restaurant. We quickly finished our meals, read our fortunes, and headed off to the Rodgers Theater where we anxiously waited in line for a while. As we took our seats for “In The Heights,” the lights went down and the stage lit up. The crowd went wild when Corbin Bleu, the well known actor from “High School Musical,” came on stage and began the show. “In the Heights,” a musical about the many characters living in the “barrio” of Washington Heights, is told through a unique mix of rap and hip hop song with Latin music and culture mixed in. Most of us thought the play was incredible and unforgettable and left the theater on “cloud nine.”

Following the show we walked out into the bright lights and crazy crowds of Times Square. We were give time to shop. After a magical first day in New York City, we rode the subway back to our hotel and slept with some sweet dreams.