I’m sitting here in New York (Brooklyn to be precise) at Gella’s very hot and sticky apartment. Figured I’d give everyone a quick wrap up of our activities here in NY.

Things went well, the trip is tiring, but definitely worthwhile. I was up till after 2 am Monday night finishing stuff up for the trip - packing, talking points, etc. Keith had put together an amazing list of talking points on the voting age. He had been working on it for a while, and did the bulk of the work this weekend so it’d be ready for New York. My hat is off to him for the great job.

After staying up till like 2:30 Monday night, I had to get up before 6:30 to catch my bus. Ugh. I was fricken tired. Thankfully my housemate, Sura, drove me to the bus stop, so I wouldn’t have to worry about my car or anything. We got there just at 7, when the bus was supposed to leave. It was boarding when we arrived. It is the Chinatown bus, really a sweet deal. Probably about as much (if not cheaper) than what it would cost to drive. I climbed on board and the bus was packed, every single person there was Chinese (or Korean perhaps). Everyone was very busy and talking fast and frantically. It had all the signs of a tour group about to depart. I was a bit confused but shrugged, “eh, its the Chinatown bus, I guess it makes sense”. Then one of the women up front (trip leader it would seem) tapped me on the shoulder and asked what I was doing here. I asked if this was the Chinatown bus and she said no.

Crap.

I saw another bus on the other side of the building and quickly decided that was it. I got off the bus and walked across the parking lot and got on that. The driver there confirmed it was indeed the Chinatown bus, and he left soon after I got on. Just made it. I was exhausted, but I’m terrible at sleeping on buses (and everywhere else). The bus was totally empty, just me in the middle, a family in the back and a guy in front. I laid down a little bit, and then noticed we were going to DC first. When we stopped I got up, but reserved a whole aisle for myself. Once the bus loaded up (over half full now), I laid down again. Head down, legs across the aisle on the other set of seats. I actually think I did sleep - but very briefly.

We stopped in Baltimore to pick someone up, so I sat up so he could get by. He didn’t walk by though and instead sat in my leg seat. Oh well. I then realized I was a dumbass for not bringing a book or something, and alternately stared out the window and tried to sleep the rest of the trip.

I got in at 12:30 pm on Tuesday (June 7) and met up with Ana and Jason for lunch in Chinatown. We were originally going to have a meeting with Future Voters of America Party, but things were so busy down there preparing for the press conference and everything else, that they had to cancel. Oh well. We did however get a meeting with Tomas Hunt, our main contact in Councilwoman Gale Brewer’s office.

Ana had to go to work, so she couldn’t make it, but Jason and I sat down with Tomas for half an hour or so. The meeting went really well. We all got a good sense of where the other was coming from and what resources we each have to utilize. Jason and I both think Tomas was impressed with the level to which we understood the issue and (in Jason’s case at least) the level to which we understood New York City politics. Jason & Ana have a great deal of political connections in the city and the state, Ana’s whole family is very involved in New York politics. I think Tomas developed a new respect for what NYRA can do, and what having a relationship with NYRA can do.

He was a bit nervous about Jason taking notes at the meeting. No doubt fearing we were going to direct quote him on something, but then he grew more comfortable with it. He seemed like a real nice guy, and a great person to work with on the issue.

Afterwards we met up with Gella and hung out for a bit. We walked around, and then walked over the Brooklyn bridge. Right into a protest too. They were complaining about development I believe. I wasn’t sure what specifically, probably the stadium proposal, but I didn’t really care enough to stop. The bridge was cool, great views of the city from it. Jason took some pictures of me looking like a tourist as I tried walking backwards to take in Manhattan. Such enormous buildings. I kinda smirked when my Michigan friend, CJ, went to DC and was so impressed by the tall buildings there, and in turn, Jason & Gella were smirking at my turn being a tourist and taking in the steel & concrete mountain range.

We walked to Brooklyn, then hopped a train to Gella’s apartment. I was exhausted, so I collapsed on the couch, drank some water, and enjoyed a Fla-Vor-Ice. We talked and worked on the Media Kit a bit until Jason left. Gella’s printer is broken, so Jason would have to print everything out at his place. I couldn’t find the files in my e-mail, so I had Keith send them out to Jason. Then I finished up two more files, a Bio sheet and the front page for the kit, and sent those to Jason (along with instructions) and finally went to bed. I was fricken exhausted.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 8th, 2005 at 10:46 am and is filed under Youth Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.