Friday May 13, 2011

Friday morning began with our devotional and then another meeting with John and Anna. Shortly after, we all began painting. Around lunch time, Jared and I went to West Side for food and soon returned to finish painting primer on the backside of the bathroom door.
Once we finished painting, our entire group headed out to Chinatown around 1:30 PM (John gave us the afternoon off seeing as it was such a nice day and we had a long day of painting the day before). Chinatown was so incredibly busy and our entire group of 11 could not stay together. Jared, Katy, Dani and I ended up exploring the town together and had a blast! We did run in to a few pushy Chinese vendors and one Middle Eastern fellow who tried to guilt trip us into buying something. We fled those stores as soon as we could and then avoided them like the plague.
After buying a few things here and there (and bargaining for a MUCH cheaper price than what the vendors first gave us), we found ourselves in Little Italy, the Italian part of NYC. It was a neat little part of town with a lot of quaint shops and restaurants. We soon headed back to Chinatown to finish our shopping and look for a place to eat supper. We bought a few more things, ate at a good Chinese restaurant, and headed toward the Brooklyn Bridge.
In Chinatown, Katy accidentally purchased (she thought the vendor said free, when he actually said 3) a Statue to Liberty Crown hat and wore it all over, including across the Brooklyn Bridge and on our way home. She received many compliments on her hat and deemed her purchase successful.
On our way to the bridge, we were distracted by beautiful buildings and random statues and had to take pictures (like normal). We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and took a bajillion pictures (or so it seemed). The view was beautiful and the walk was nice, but long (especially after Chinatown). No matter how long it was or how tired we all were, it was definitely worth the time and energy to walk it!
We headed back to Manhattan after crossing the bridge and went directly to our housing. We were all exhausted and relaxed the rest of the evening. Another successful day ended for us, with many memories made.