The journey back

So now we are back in S.A... It's so sad to leave all the people we met behind, but I'm sure that we'll see them all again sometime.

We started our last day with Rev and Daniel with our last breakfast together, and then Rev and us did some mad last-minute shopping and packing. Aunty Sandy came over to say goodbye and then we had to dash off to the airport.

We shed a few tears when we had to go inside, but we agreed we'd be back to visit. Even Jude knew that something wasn't right.

Then it was just so much waiting inside the airport! We finally had some Starbucks while we were waiting, and then we could finally board. What a full plane! Our flight from JHB to CT was almost completely empty, though. There were no more than 20 people on board. Crazy stuff.

^ Making the best of aallll the space :)

When we got home, our parents had left messages everywhere-on mirrors and all sorts lol.

Thank you everyone for making this trip so memorable! We so appreciate everything that everyone did. We'll be smiling when we think back on this trip forever.

New York-day 5 and 6

Saturday was the day we spent the day in the city. It ended up being a smaller group going than we expected because it would have been a terribly long day for the kids.
The temperature
 had been dropping steadily during the week, this is how cold it was:

Our first stop was a deli for bagels and coffee for breakfast. Mmmm yum! :D After that we just drove forever to find parking somewhere. I used the time to take photos out the window :)

Eventually we found a place to park- as with everything in New York, the car went up. It went into a structure that has 'shelves' for cars, which I sadly didn't photograph. The parking 'lot' was right next to Times Square; and there were some stalls nearby too, which meant we could do some shopping!

^ The stalls we stopped at.

Then on to Times Square! We saw billboards for all the famous shows- Mamma Mia, The Lion King, etc. Very cool :) There are screens all over, and Taris managed to get herself on one of the biggest screens there, I circled her in yellow :)

 

We spent a while looking for the Capezio store, and when we found it the guys found themselves an Irish pub while us girls took a look around :)

^ The Capezio store window.

 Our next stop was the Rockerfeller centre. It was really tall, but the ice rink was teeny tiny!

(The photo on the left is the centre itself, and the one on the right is the ice rink)

Some scenery while we were walking around:

^ This was a news/camera crew
outside Rockerfeller. We saw
 the presenter with his
mike in front of the camera. 

We then made our way to Grand Central station to get to Little Italy for lunch.

^ The 'whisper wall', where two
people can stand in opposite
corners of the room, whisper
into the corner  and
be heard on the other side
by the other person.

^Inside the station

When we were in Little Italy we ended up going to Lombardi's, which is supposed to be the oldest pizzeria in NYC. They made really good pizza!!

^ From left: Uncle Tommy, Taris, Daniel, Phil, me, Kenny, Brennan and Aunty Gail behind the camera.

THEN...we walked through Chinatown. We got some good laughs from what we saw!

We made it safely through Chinatown and into a tunnel for the subway. It turns out we took the wrong tunnel, but it wasn't too much of a big deal because we got to meet a group of Witnesses doing field with the stand! :D We had been looking for them all day, and were so happy to find them :)

The tunnel we went down took us over the Manhattan Bridge in the subway, so we got to see the East River and Brooklyn Bridge in the distance. The bridge passes directly passed some of the Bethel buildings!

^ View of Brooklyn bridge and part of the city
from the train on Manhattan bridge.

We went into one of the buildings and spoke briefly to the brothers. What a contrast to the rest of the city! The building was SO clean and well maintained (of course) and even though we didn't know the people inside, it felt like we did. We walked through part of the Bethel complex to get to Brooklyn bridge.

^ We saw the famous signs, including the
"Read God's Word the Holy Bible daily" sign.

^ 90 Sands, where we spoke to
the brothers inside.

Then it was time to walk across Brooklyn bridge! How gorgeous. The wrong train we'd taken had worked in our favour, because we got to walk across the bridge as the sun set. We saw the Watchtower sign all lit up in the distance.

Back to the subway, where we met more brothers and sisters witnessing with the stand! We chatted to them for a bit and then caught the train. At our last station we walked past a group of masked performers. The leader performed for my camera hehehe.

Here's the video on YouTube: (link to video)

Back in Times Square we ran into some familiar faces- Batman and Spiderman. Spidey chased us for a tip after the photo! It was incredibly light there from all the screens; it felt like it was still day, and it seemed to have gotten busier than it was during the day.

^ Taris jumping up and down in the middle of the road.

What a long day! We did so much walking, but we had so much fun :)

 On Sunday we left pretty early in the morning and spent most of the day driving. It was sad to see all the snow disappearing; there was almost none in Virginia. We spent Sunday evening packing and we had take-outs with Rev and Daniel. There was also an important football match on that we couldn't miss, but the team we were shouting for lost. Jude was so cute and happy to be out of the car that he kept us smiling :)

New York- day 3 and 4

Thursday was an important day! We were booked to go on a tour of Wallkill and Patterson Bethels, with lunch at Wallkill.

We looked at the displays in the foyer and then watched the video they had about the recent expansion work done and being done on the Wallkill branch. Then it was time for our tour :)

We learned a lot about the printery and how the whole system functions so smoothly. We also learnt how they apply the ink to the paper, and we felt what the paper for reference Bibles feels like before anything is printed on it.

The brother showed us how big the rolls of paper are that they use (1133.98 kg), as well as how seamlessly rolls change over just before they run out on the machines. He also let us look into the plate room and showed us what the aluminium plates that had just been used looked like.

We saw the new accommodation wing briefly out in the cold, and then it was time for lunch, which was simple and healthy.

All day we had been meeting friends, and this pattern continued at Patterson. There was also a lot of warm Christian love between those experiencing the tours for the first time...

--

^ Patterson foyer.

The tour at Patterson lead us past some really gorgeous illustration paintings (the original versions of the things we see in publications) :

And we saw some headpieces that are used for the composition photos, with accompanying  related objects. We learnt how much research goes into each detail for every object in all the illustrations. Astounding!

Then we got to see some things that aren't on the tour route, including Daniel looking like Sampson. Now isn't that a confusing statement, tehehehehe? :D

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^ Chromed exterior

^ Traditional interior

Friday saw an end to the touring, with us having a chilled day that started with a looong drive to find a favourite Diner of Taryn and Phil's. We all rejoiced a little when we finally saw it!

After that it was time for baby Reef's newborn photo shoot, so the rest of us took a little drive to see what we could. We ended up going to visit Taryn and Phil's old house and looking at the scenery.

^ Taryn and Phil's old house-y.

^ Scenery

^ More scenery

We took a look at Olana, the home of Frederic E. Church. It was pretty cool! We didn't go inside, but had a good look around the outside. Quite an architectural feat! The grounds were impressive, too.

We also messed around with some icicles, and Taris ran down a treacherous slope:)

After that we headed into the town of Hudson, where we met up with Jesse and Phil and went into the Spotty Dog for a while. I enjoyed having a moment to sketch the place (find the sketch here: Spotty Dog sketch) before we all headed off to go snow tubing.

That was fun, but SOOO freezing. None of us could feel our fingers or toes afterwards. Thankfully the Mexican restaurant we went to afterwards was pretty warm inside:)

^ Taris, Samantha and myself at the restaurant.

^ The last Phil we met and Kenny.

This is a video (complete with random kid talking in the background) of Taris going down the slope on a tube. It looks much slower than it is in real life!

After this...time for bed!