Day 29 – New York City/Boston

by Max Orston

On Sunday morning we left our hotel, the Cambria, at 9:00am. The Cambria had been our home for the past three nights, and I personally loved the rooms and services they offered. Earl arrived with the bus, and we cleared out our rooms and loaded up. However, we didn’t start our day on the bus, for we still had some of NYC we needed to explore! So in turn, we hopped on the subway and headed to Harlem, where we would walk around town and delve into subjects such as the Harlem Renisounce and what the American Dream us to us. After some consideration, I personally came to the conclusion that the idea of the American Dream is that one from any background and ethnicity can somehow make a decent living or better in the US rather than wherever they originally come from. Before we headed off to lunch, we met with Kyle, a close friend to Jacob, who talked to us about police brutality and listened to some of our ideas on how to stop it. He talked about his experience as a person of color living in America in 2019 and the importance of our communities working together against racial oppression and antisemitism. Once that conversation came to a close, we wrapped up our time in New York with a discussion at Columbia University and started our journey to Boston.

On our way to Boston, we got caught in some pretty nasty traffic; I mean people were literally getting out of their cars! Nevertheless, we eventually bypassed the blockage, and headed over to dinner at Leah’s house. Billy knew her mother from camp when he was a kid, so they had invited us to come over. It was great! Leah’s family had cooked burgers and hotdogs and all other sorts of food for us, plus we were able to go swimming and hang out in their backyard. I am so grateful for their hospitality, and their kindness as well. We ended up hanging out at Leah’s house for hours having fun, and it wasn’t until about 11:00pm when we arrived at our hotel outside of Boston, where our final week of this extravagant journey would start.

An unexpected bonus to the day: Leah’s mom showed us a picture of Billy from summer camp way back in the day!