What Business Students Do in NYC

One of the first things we did in New York, besides visiting Central Park, is probably what every other tourist to NYC does...VISIT THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT. If that doesn't scream business student, I don't know what does. Out of the 11 of us, 10 were business students, but the other guy had only recently changed his major from business to English. So...we were stoked about seeing this part of town.

We had to visit. It's the financial captial of the world!

We visited Wall Street.

First, we came across this building. I forget it's name. fail. But I overheard a tour guide telling his group that it once employeed the first three presidents...or something like that. That's 'ol George Washington himself greeting the visitors.

Here is 'ol George patting me on the head, telling me how fun finance is and to stay motivated in my classes even though only 6 weeks remained after spring break.

Adjacent to George is the New York Stock Exchange. I was expecting the Bull to be right outside the exchange. Not the case. I was highly disappointed and requested from my Site Leader that we find the bull immediately. In class, I always had a hard time remembering if a good market was a bear or a bull. Both seemed intimidating to me, and then my lovely fiance said, "Kara, remember that there's a statue of a bull outside of the NYSE?" And I've never forgotten it since.

We found The Bank of New York adjacent to George in the other direction, but no bull.

We stopped inside the Trinity Church, which the Queen of England has also visited...as stated on the plaque on the entrance.

It was hard to get a picture inside, but it was very elegant. I heard somewhere that you can tell what a country values most by what it spends its money on. Some of the oldest buildings in America are very elaborate churches, and religion was one of the Founding Fathers' main values. Then we built massive government buildings, and today we have gigantic business headquarters. You could definitely see all three elements in New York. And whether or not you agree with that statement, there were definitely a lot more business building construction going on than churches.

But back to our trip. We walked around a ways, and a couple of guys wanted to visit some street vendors. I was just moseying along, knowing that our last destination for the day was a ferry to take us around the Statue of Liberty. Then all of a sudden, I looked up...

and there was the bull! So. Excited.

So we all posed around it, some imitating its expression. And my trip to the financial district was complete.

And then we saw this sign and was once again reminded of my beloved...

In case you don't know, one of Kyler's favorite games is Monopoly. Tangent: One time over Christmas break, I was at Kyler's house while his brother Kamaron and his girlfriend/fiance/wife Anique was there. And we all agreed to get off the couch and play a friendly game of Monopoly. It had always been a fun game at my house, but we rarely ever finished a game. It's so stinkin long! But the Gray family loved it and so we would play. Little did Anique and I know what we got outselves into. Within 15 minutes, Anique was in tears and had quit the game, and I sided up with Kamaron just to be mean to Kyler. It was the most horrible experience I've ever had with those boys, and I vowed to never play Monopoly again with them. I'm not talking about being competitive; they were so ruthless and mean. I won't go into the details because I might see Kyler tomorrow and be mad at him for something that happened years ago.

The good news is, Kamaron and Anique are happily married. And Kyler and I will be soon enough. We were able to see past our differences, and I can finally chuckle when I am reminded of that game.

More pictures and stories to come...eventually.