I found myself a nice seat next to the window, which gave me a nice view at the square. While enjoying the coffee and a double choco cookie ( ) I started writing this last blogpost.

Today is a special day, it’s day eighthy! This morning I was thinking back of my adventures and I really want to thank everyone that helped me out during this adventure. Most of all I’m thankful to God for making everything work out so much better than I could ever have dreamt before. It was absolutely the biggest adventure of my life so far. All the places I’ve been, all the people I’ve met, it was totally awesome!

I stay a couple of days more in New York, but I decided to stop my blog at day 80, since it’s called 80 days in America after all. I hope that you enjoyed reading my adventures and I want to thank you for being involved with this journey. It really surprised me how many people actually red my stories. If you have the opportunity, I can really recommend to have an adventure like this yourself!

It’s still beautiful weather outside, so I stop writing now and enjoy more of the beautiful city of New York!

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The whole day long I walked around with my camera and took many pictures of the kids. It’s nice that they are so excited about me taking pictures of them, that gives me a lot of opportunities to shoot some nice pics. In the afternoon I got the change to do something I always wanted to do: being a clown. Seriously, when I was younger I really wanted to become a clown. Today we had to dress up for the young kids and I found myself a clown suit with a red nose and a colorful wig (nl. pruik). That was a lot of fun! Everyone liked me as clown, especially the kids. I enjoyed it a lot to be a clown today.

Later in the afternoon I joined a bus to pick up and drop off children. Fortunately this was a bus with mainly really sweet kids, so we didn’t had a hard time keeping them calm. I played with many of them during the bus rides and enjoyed getting to know them a little bit.

In the evening we had a youth service with a guest preacher from London, good times again. Back home we had an icecream-party, something I introduced here last saturday. I think it’s totally awesome to end a long intensive day like this with sharing a lot of icecream with many friends :).

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In the afternoon I joined a truck that went to Queens. It’s nice that by this time I have seen almost all the neighborhoods of New York. In Queens we went to the area nearby the ocean. Today was really cold, especially here. It was nice to see the ocean and to walk for a couple of minutes at the beach in between of the programs. One of the programs was located next to some concrete buildings. I heard it were private buildings for people don’t apply for a house in New York and have no other place to go. I think those are the poorest of the poor in this city. We met a lot of children again today and had a good time together.

Back home I started to work out some first webdesign-ideas for a new website for the ministry. It was just some sketching and digital sketching, but I liked to work on a new website again, it had been a while since I did that for the last time. Like every evening here I went to bed later than planned again (It’s just so nice to hang out with the people here every time).

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This day didn’t had so many big happenings, just talked with some people on the streets and hang out with Peter. He’s a cool guy who came from London three years ago to help this ministry. At the end of the afternoon we joined another group who did a sidewalk sundayschool at the other side of the Bronx and we met some more children. In the evening I ordered a big pizza and in America a big pizza is really big (18 inch), so enough to eat for at least two people. I shared it with my new friends and we watched a movie, good times.

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After breakfast I ran through the rain to the subway station. It was about an hour to the Bronx. Traveling with the subway is definitely something I’m going to miss of New York. I really enjoy it. There are always so many different people and everyone is doing it’s own thing. Most of the times that I travel with the subway I just spend my time watching them, listening to music and use the time to think about all kinds of things.

When I was almost in the Bronx I asked some people in the subway what would be the best station to get off. A friendly guy told me where to get off and he even guided me to the entrance of the zoo. It’s actually quite simple once you know where it is, although I also have to mention that it’s not really a safe neighborhood, after all it’s still the Bronx.

It was still raining, but a couple of months ago I read an article about my camera and lens and how it’s quite waterproof, so I decided to take that for a test today. The nice thing about that it was raining all day was that I was almost the only one in the zoo. I think there were not more than fifty people in the whole zoo, so it was really nice and relaxed. I took many pictures and my camera perfectly endured the rain. It was a great time. I decided to do black and white photography today, because of the grey day. It’s nice to do that sometimes, a whole day in black and white.

I enjoyed the free day a lot. Last days were emotionally a bit heavy, so it was nice to be able to forget everything for a short while and just walk around in the zoo. Later that day I also spend some time in downtown New York and I returned to the centre in the evening. Back there I had diner and we watched a movie in the evening.

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We met a lot of kids who live in big house constructions in bad neighborhoods in The Bronx. I don’t know so good what to write about it, but it just breaks your heart when you meet all those kids. It changes your perspective, because you see how life is so different for a lot of people here. Kids that live in bad circumstances and don’t have the same changes as I had when I was their age. It really shows that the world is not fair. It’s good to visit these places, to see the reality of the world we live in. I think more people should do something like this, it broadens your horizon and make you think different about life.

The kids really like that we visit them. At our last stop they came running at us and asked us what took us so long. They greet us with a big hug and even remembered my name an hour later. Again I was really touched by everything today.

In the evening I spoke with a lady that had done mission work in Romania and that made me realize that there are many places in the world where it’s way worse than in the bad neighborhoods of New York. That of course doesn’t take off anything from the situation of the kids here. I’m really happy that I can do a bit these days to make their circumstances a little better.

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We started on the west side of Manhattan where there is a really nice bike-path next to the water. It was a super beautiful day again, warmth of the bright sun and a cool wind, I love it! We went to the Highline park, the park above the streets and after that we had lunch in the park at Union Square, such a nice place to hang out for a bit. There is a huge bookstore at Union Square. It was nice to spend some time there too. Later in the afternoon we went to Central Park and because of the beautiful weather, there were many people hanging out in the park. We made a quick stop at the Apple Store at 5th avenue, but it was super busy there. Then we suddenly realized that we had to hurry, because we had to return the bikes at six o’ clock. As fast as we could we raced back to the south side of the island. We crossed more than 50 blocks in about 45 minutes, I think that is quite fast for New York. It must be a dream job to be a delivery boy on a bike here in Manhattan. Or maybe just to do a race on bikes to see who can cross the city the fastest. Anyway, we had a lot of fun racing back and we were just in time back at the bike rental place. Quite exhausted we sat down at a bench and enjoyed a very nice sunset. All with all it was a great day in New York!

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On our way back we discovered that there was some roadwork in the subways and suddenly we were somewhere else than we planned to be. We couldn’t find the right subway to bring us home and then one of the girls suggested to take a yellow cab. I didn’t do that before, so that was very exciting! I really loved driving with a yellow cab through New York. I can recommend to do that too when you’re here, it’s something I think you should have done. I’m really happy that my adventure hasn’t ended yet. To be honest, right now I’m absolutely not looking forward to go home soon, so I’m going to enjoy the last days of my journey as much as possible.

P.S. Since I didn’t had internet the last couple of days, I just uploaded more stories at the same time, so if you want to read more, you can click here to see the list of my recent stories.

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I met a lot of children from all over Brooklyn during the the multiple busrides through the day and also had the opportunity to take a lot of nice pictures of them. I’ll upload them a later time, because we almost have no internet here and when we have connection, it’s really slow. But that doesn’t care me so much, because these days are really about more important things. This ministry teaches the kids a lot of important lessons like for example todays topic, the importance of choosing the right friends. For these kids lessons like that can change their future.

The last busrides were more exhausting, because there were about 70 kids in the bus and it’s a really hard job to keep them calm for about half an hour. Although you don’t know the background of these kids, you can tell they have a tough life by the way they behave. One girl told me that she was walking on the street the other day with her mum and that they saw a dead body covered with blood of a man that had been shot. Things like that happen here in Brooklyn, that is the situation where these kids grow up. I find it fantastic that this ministry can bring light in the life of these kids and that it really has the potential to change some of their lives. Like I wrote yesterday, traveling was fun, but these are the days that really rock my world!

P.S. Since I didn’t had internet the last couple of days, I just uploaded more stories at the same time, so if you want to read more, you can click here to see the list of my recent stories.

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In the afternoon I joined one of the trucks that went out in the different neighborhoods to reach the kids. My new friend Willie visits a particular area of Harlem for already more than thirteen years and he know’s a lot of the people there. The people know him too and it was really touching to see many of the kids running to him to give him a big hug. We opened one side of the truck what turned out into a stage. We played some games with the kids, told them a short story, sung a song and about half an hour later sended them back home with some sweets. I was really surprised by how many kids show up, I think about 50 kids from the neighborhood and some parents too. They know that the people of Metro Ministries are there every friday at the same time. I could see how much this ministry impacts these people. The kids here live tuff lives and this way the people of the ministry can give them love that they might not get at home.

In the evening we hang out in the living room and some people played guitar and we sung songs with each other. It’s really nice to get to know all these people and meet new friends here. Although traveling through America was a great adventure, it are the days here that really rock my world. These are the more important things, caring about other people. I’m very happy and thankful that I can finish my journey this way and am looking forward to what is still to come.

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