August 21 | Arrive in New York City
Man, am I pooped! New York City has to be the biggest city in the entire world. I have been to all sorts of places … Yankee Stadium, Times Square, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge … did I mention Yankee Stadium … and I still have to see so many other things. Everything in New York is HUGE. Some buildings called skyscrapers are over 50 stories high. You can see for miles! And people…there were people everywhere! I found out that the New York Metropolitan Area is home to over 22 million people … that’s over 10 times the entire population of Arkansas. I feel so small here, but my guide around New York, Tony Moretti, told me that I was helping the world in a big way. Tony told me about how his great-grandparents immigrated to New York from Italy in the early 1920s. He told me that the first thing that his great-grandparents saw when they arrived by boat to New York was the Statue of Liberty. Tony said that it was a dream of his great-grandparents to come to America and start their family by living the “American Dream”. I was inspired by Tony’s story and felt good about what I have the opportunity to do. Tomorrow, I begin all the hard work that Governor and Mrs. Beebe have sent me to do. I can’t wait!