One Great Weekend. Part I

So our usual Friday class got cancelled, and thanks to that evil man who gave all the indians small pox and discovered America (and as my friend ben pointed out hes a member of the church by proxy...), I got to enjoy a four day weekend! What better way to spend 4 days of freedom than by going up north to NYC and Boston!?!? It was very specatacular and i will do my best to capture all the joy i had on this trip in a simple blog...

My friend Mark Williams and I decided to leave Thursday night/Friday morning (depending on how you look at it) and take the 1:00 am bus to NYC.
On our way to the bus station, we ran to our fair share of hooligans...

This is how I learned lesson #1- Dont ever do anything a drunk person tells you.


Here we can see the wine-bibbers in their natural habitat... the last train outta metro center... anyhow they asked me to slap their catatonic looking friend in the face to wake him up. i wasnt about to be a part of that, which led the ringleader to remark "look a little more manly with those signs...." What signs you may be asking? Why the signs we had made in order to get us on the TODAY Show!!! and thats why were taking the late/early bus, so we could arrive just in time for the taping!

so we got to the greyhound station, and there is already about 25 people in line, including a group of korean students, who dont even know im spying on them and translating to mark. Anyhow the bus finally arrives and about 20 people get off and get in the reboarding line... now im starting to get nervous. The line starts moving and we get closer and closer. finally we get to the front and the bus driver takes our tickets and the tickets of two people behind us and we get on the bus! when we get up there, there are no seats, except for a big bench of three in the very back. so i walk back there and sit down and as i breath in, my nose is stung with the vile stench of port-o-potty... which brings me to lesson #2- dont be the last one on a greyhound bus or else you will have sit in the back and it smells like pee. After i learned that lesson i figured i had learned enough and stopped writing down the life lessons i was learning.

Mark was lucky enough to sit right next to the bathroom....

The bus ride went well with just a few hiccups, like how everyone was coughing like they had the swine flu, how everytime the bathroom door opened i wanted to barf and the time i woke up and thought mark had been replaced with someone else. We arrived safely to NYC and the first thing i did was wash my hands, there is no telling what kind of germs i contracted! then we headed over to rockefeller center to get ready for our national tv debut!

Heres me with my sign (created by the talented mark jensen)!

so we got there around 615 and the TODAY show started taping at 7. around 7:20 al roker came out and said hello and i yelled and hooted and hollered and at around 7:40 Al set up the shot right in front of us AND- lets go to the tape!




Pretty much awesome.

So we hung out at Today for a while, met and shook hands with all the anchors. When Meredith Viera came out i asked her for a kiss! and she gave me a peck right on the cheek! they were all really nice and it was a great experience! i would do it again in a hearbeat!

after the today show we went over to a really neat Cathedral called St Peters(?)... anyhow while we there i saw the archbishop walking around with some dudes in suits. I walked over to get a better a look and much to my surprise there was Elder Richard G. Scott and Elder Jensen!It was pretty cool to see them and talk with them for a little bit. Usually when you see general authorities they are being thronged in much the same way me and mark thronged them, but there is just more people. they were really nice and it was a great experience! so when that was all done it was about 10 am and it was time to do more! but right now its 12:45 and its time for me to go to sleep! there will be much more to come! stay tuned!