Back In The USA

On Saturday, August 25, 2011, at 11 p.m., Turkish Airlines flight number 11 touched down at JFK airport in New York City. Kathy and I were now back in the USA. We disembarked the aircraft and snaked our way through the Customs and Immigration line.

After retrieving our luggage, we went directly to the Eventi Hotel in mid-town Manhattan for some much needed rest and sleep. However, sleep did not come quickly. Yes, we were both tired from an 11 hour trans-Atlantic flight. However, strange as it may sound, we were both homesick for Ankawa. From our 20th floor hotel room, we looked over a forest of magnificent, high rise buildings, including the Empire State Building. However, our hearts were longing for the beauty and simplicity of the Ankawa city scape. After much reminiscing and reflecting upon life in Ankawa versus life in America, we both drifted off to sleep around 3 or 4 a.m.  It is that feeling of homesickness that we have which has caused me to delay writing and posting to this blogspot.




We were up by 9 a.m.  We enjoyed a good pancake breakfast in our room, as we looked east, out over the skyline of New York City.

 Kathy and I walked 2 blocks in order to attend the 11 a.m. Mass at St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church.  The last Mass in English that we had gone to was 2 months ago.  The liturgy was beautiful, and we felt like we were fully participating in the worship and adoration of our Lord and Saviour.

The main altar of the church.

 

This is the domed ceiling above the altar.  This scene, as well as all the other photos of St. Francis Church, was created with small ceramic tiles.  They are not painted!

 

 

 

 

After Mass we returned to our hotel room to change into our casual clothes.  Then we embarked on a walking tour of mid-town Manhattan.  We explored Penn Station, which is directly under Madison Square Garden.  This we did in order to get our Amtrak train tickets that we would need the following day for our journey to Albany, New York.  Kathy and I were going to visit Bob and his family.  If you recall, Bob is Kathy's older brother.  He had suffered a major heart attack back at the end of June.  Now, he had recovered enough to be released from the hospital.  He had been in the hospital for about 8 weeks.
 
Next we went to Macy's flagship store, where we rode the escalators to the 8th floor.  The 8th floor is the place where Miracle on 34th Street was filmed.  We were not there long as we had no desire to go shopping.



From Macy's we walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral.  There was quite a bit of scaffolding erected, both inside and outside of the church, for restoration work.  I was somewhat limited in the photos that I could take.  Therefore, I have searched the internet for the images posted.



Above, a view of the front of the cathedral, and a photo of the main altar.



Above, a stained glass window depicting St. Patrick, and a photo of one of the many, many side altars.





 After exploring St. Patrick's, we decided to procure a pedicab to take us back to the hotel.  Although we had walked from the hotel to St. Patrick's, we were a bit too tired for walking back the 20 blocks.

Once at the hotel, we went to the restaurant for the free wine and cheese party.  There we sat at a table with some tourists from Bologna, Italy.  One of the ladies spoke a little English, and I spoke some Spanish, so we were able to have a very nice converation.  Kathy and I then retired to our room just to relax and enjoy the view from the 20th floor.  Here are some photos I took from our hotel room.

 A view from the window looking down to the street below, and also looking to the northeast at the Empire State Building.

 

 

A view looking southward down the Avenue of the Americas.  You can see the two  "New" World Trade Center towers under construction.

 

Kathy and I were in New York City for a day and a half.  Sightseeing was very limited.  However, the activity that we most enjoyed was going to Mass on Sunday.  The place we visited that was the most impressive was the church of St. Francis of Assisi.  Although our hotel room was on the 20th floor, the place that we felt closest to our Heavenly Father was there, at the church of St. Francis.  It was there, in the Tabernacle, where our Lord waited for us to visit with him.

 

Francis of Assisi was born into an Italian, wealthy,  merchant class family.  He gave up all of that wealth to more fully embrace the Gospel and to follow Jesus, the Rabbi, more closely.  Living more simply, as Francis, has become more appealing to both of us.  Looking for Christ in others and trying to live our lives as the living stones we are called to be has taken on an even greater importance. 

 

From 1 Peter chapter 2: 

 

⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

 

⁴ As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— ⁵ you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

 

¹ Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. ² Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, ³ now that you have tasted that the Lord is good!

 

jw