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Hey girls! I'm Shaana of SCG ( @MaeShaanaP ) and this is the tale of my trip to Manhattan, New York, New York!
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Day 1
I remember it like it was yesterday. The morning sun of late-August heating up the black cement of our empty parking space at the front of our house. My little sister's whining about the stifling humidity and my mother quickly reprimanding her to get back to conducting a meaningful conversation with my big brother about house-sitting for the weekend. All I could think about is how different the US was going to be from home. And maybe even scarier than dear old Canada.
Just as I was pondering on how we would deal with racism because of our dark skin, my father finally arrived with a shiny white Jeep. My parents had decided to rent a car for the trip, a rare thing for them to do. Hugging my brother one last time and taking a family selfie, we embarked into the leased car and drove off.
Inside the vehicle, my sister and I started setting up. On road, it would take us seven hours to get to our destination, so why not cozy up during the ride? We each brought two book (mine were novels, hers were comics), a neck-rest, a leather wallet with twenty American dollars, at least seven stuffed animals and, of course, our smiles!
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It took us forty-five minutes to get to the borders (in which we had to cross a super tall, scary bridge). Once we entered New York State, our stomachs started rumbling. With no other restaurants within a mile, we settled for some McDonalds, but not just regular McDonalds, an American one. It was so American that we got sliced apples with our Happy Meals! After the lunch break, we got back on the road.
We rode the 81 interstate (or something) all the way up to NYC, going through multiple towns such as Watertown, Syracuse, Binghamton and Scranton. I especially enjoyed listening to the local radios (being a total music lover and musician myself), discovering new songs ranging from country to disco.
At one point, we needed a pee break, so my dad stopped at yet another McDonalds (it's amazing how many of those are in the US) in a town with a Native American name as well as a lot of shops selling dream catchers and such. Only when I went outside did I realize that we were right across a gun shop! We definitely didn't have a wide range of those in Canada! (I won't lie to you, after all that I've heard on how easy it was to buy a gun in the States, I was tempted to walk right in there and yell "Two semi-automatics, please!" Evidently, I did not.) So, we took the road again after everybody had relieved themselves.
