Date: 5/23/2015
Time: 10.10 pm
Weather: Chilly, sunny
Location: Stayover at Brooklyn (church)
There were some complications with last night's stayover-Ben found out that it was connected to a homeless shelter and it was unsafe for us to pull a night there. So we had the chance to stay in a hotel in Manhattan instead. I believe the hotel was Belleclaire. There were 5 rooms in total, and we had to fit everyone and all our stuffs and bikes in the rooms too. We reached Penn Station at about 12am, took subway to the hotel, and finally got everything settled by 2am. I took a short bath last night before sleep.
I woke up at 7.50 am this morning just so that I could take another nice shower again. I spent about 20 minutes just taking that shower. You never know when you'll get to shower again. :/ Then everyone in my room was awake by 8.30 am and we were all gathered by 9.30am. We were running kinda late this morning. There was an event at Damon Runyon Research Center at 10am but we were late. They served us with super good breakfast-bagels with cream cheese, cakes, fruits, orange juice, and coffee. We got to meet 2 scientists who are currently postdocs at Rockefeller University. Heard that this university has pretty cool research programs!
The event ended at about 12pm and we were free to explore NYC on our own. I was in a group with Angelica, Lizzie, Khrystyna, Alex, Corinne, and Hannah B. We went to 9/11 memorial, see Statue of Liberty from afar, Rockefellar Plaza, Times Square, Central Park, and walked on Brooklyn bridge. We walked a lot today, well I guess that's a prep for tomorrow's 70'mile ride.
We met outside of the church by 8.30pm. Got our stuffs, unpacked, had group meeting, and now we're finally ready to go to bed. We've to be up by 5am tomorrow and get off by 6am. We'll be going to Famon Runyon Research Center to collect our bikes because we stored our bikes there today.
One story I want to share with you guys before I end this post:
I was in a subway this evening. There was this old man named Richard, despite his age, he stood up and gave his seat to one woman. I was sitting beside him and I felt bad cause I don't think young person like me should get the seat. So I stood up and told him to have my seat. Then he was like you're fine, I know you needed the seat. When I sat down, he looked at our quarter zip and asked so you guys are fighting Illini? Then I started talking to him about who we are and what the team is doing. "There are 28 of us, we're from the UofI, we bike from NYC to San Fran to raise fund and raise awareness for cancer. We chatted a little and before he got off the subway, he gave me $20 as donation. Isn't it amazing how people like him are so supportive and willing to put in $20 with just 5 minutes of chat? I'm so thankful for these amazing people I met and will be meeting. This is definitely gonna be a life-changing experience!
Tomorrow will be our first ride day! Time to get everything started! It's also time to say goodbye to my favorite city :( Bye New York! Off to bed now! Lights off!
Loves.
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