Dear Anita

The past few days have been quite eventful. On Saturday, I took a trip with my Anatomy/Physiology class to Metropolitan Museum. The group I was with left me when I was adjusting my phone at the museum. I knew I had to be at the bus stop before 6:15pm to catch the bus that would bring me back to campus, it was only 11:15am so I wasn’t too worried. I searched for them around the museum, but didn’t find them. I took a few pictures along the way. At 1PM I started to feel worried, I knew that they had told me that they were going to the Planetarium part of the museum, so I walked around the museum and up many floors searching for my group members and the Planetarium. The museum has five floors, but the stairs aren’t very steep and there aren’t that many steps so it was okay. I also searched for them in the museum’s cafe at 12pm because they had told me they would be there for lunch before heading to the Planetarium. It was nerve-wracking when it was 2:20pm and I had searched everywhere I could think of in the museum and couldn’t find them. I decided to leave the museum and make my way back through Central Park which was the way I came into the museum, hoping to see them or wait at the bus stop until they arrived. Central Park is quite a big place and I was searching it and the roads around it until 4:20pm. I was quite scared now because it was getting close to the time, only about two hours before I had to be at the bus stop and I still wasn’t sure where the bus would stop. I decided to head towards the bus’s second stop on Broad Street to see if I could figure out where it parked but I couldn’t. I asked a person what I should do and they said to go to Port Authority Bus Terminal. It took me a while to find that place and after a few phone calls I was able to get information on how to use a NYC bus to get to Toms River, NJ. It was 4:40pm when I questioned the administrator in Port Authority Bus Terminal about the bus routes to NJ and he said that I only had 20 minutes before the last bus of the day left for NJ. I thanked him and hurriedly rushed up three flights of stairs to Gate 319 where bus 137 was the one that would take me to Toms River, NJ. While waiting in line, it hit me that I only had $10 and the ticket cost $21 and I didn’t have enough. Desperate, I asked a person in line if I could have some money to pay for the bus fare. I told them that I was lost in NYC and had no other way to get home and I didn’t have enough money and that I had been walking for 15 miles. Luckily, they said they would pay for my fare and I boarded the bus that took me to Toms River Bus Terminal. I felt relieved to have made it back to NJ, but I was still five miles away from campus. I decided to walk the way and since it was 6:38pm when I arrived in Toms River, NJ it was hard to navigate the roads even though I was familiar with the town. So I got lost and ended up near 829 Oak Avenue, quite far from my college off of Hooper Avenue. It was 7:15pm when I was cold and tired, I had walked a total of 20 miles that I called my parents. It took them a while to find my location and when my dad picked me up and brought me back to college my hands were frozen and he had to help me start my car. He also had to call out to me because I was quite drained from the exertion that I didn’t recognize his car, so after he called out I sort of awoke out of this trance and got in the car. I was feeling shaky. I’m still sore today, but feeling better. I am lucky that I was able to get home and I learned a lot about how to navigate the city. I had fun on the trip so it was okay.