Dedicated to my students and the Hope College education department.

For spring break during my senior year of high school, my family took a trip to the one place that I had always wanted to go. We spent the week in New York City!

On the first day of our vacation, we took the bus from our hotel into Times Square. It was exactly how I had seen it in movies and TV shows for so long, and now it was all there in real life. We walked around Central Park which seemed to stretch for miles and miles. We got hungry after awhile, so we decided to eat lunch at Ellen's Stardust Diner.

This diner wasn't like any restaurant I had ever been to. As we ordered and ate, the waiters and waitresses sang Broadway karaoke songs in front of everyone! They would dance on chairs, and sometimes they had their own costumes or props. Not only was the food delicious, but it was also high quality entertainment.

On the second day of the trip, we saw the Statue of Liberty. We took a ferry to Liberty Island and walked to the highest pedestal on the statue. There was a marvelous view at the top where you could see the Manhattan skyline.

Another place we went that day was the World Trade Center Memorial. The memorial is a powerful and important symbol to commemorate the attacks on September 11, 2001. The new One World Trade Center was enormous, and the memorial had two reflecting pools to mark where the original towers stood. This was an experience that I will never forget.