A couple of days ago, I found an email from my sponsor offering to go to a baseball game. The ticket was only $12, and besides the baseball, there was free food and a bunch of new people to meet! So, I decided to finally head to NYC and blow off some steam. That's why I went to the sponsor's baseball event yesterday. I'm not really into baseball itself, but I wanted to meet new people—other students like me—and finally get out to New York. Living on Long Island all summer, I hadn't made it out once; either I didn't have the money, the desire, or the time.

I had such an amazing time! I arrived in the city, visited Greg, and went to meet up with other travelers. It was so wild seeing skyscrapers, since for almost two months I'd only seen private houses on Long Island. I met some Russian guys who also live in the NYC area (I guess they didn't send invitations to those living too far away), and there were a lot of people from Long Island. Besides the Russians, there were many people from Europe. We took a boat cruise and admired the views of New York. Damn, I was such a fool sitting in my town for so long and not coming here! No money is worth these experiences! But I'll fix that; from now on, every day off, I'm going to the city—it's just awesome here!

By the way, I met a girl from Moscow, and it turned out we live literally a kilometer away from each other, at the same metro station! It's just mind-blowing—we've lived side-by-side our whole lives, but met in America! I'm still in a bit of shock.

I also ran into a guy I met at the London airport during my flight. He moved to New York just like he wanted to; work is a bit tough for him, but he's hanging in there.

After the game, I went with some guys from Macedonia to see off my Moscow neighbor, Vika, and then we walked through the night in New York to Penn Station. I was so caught up in the trip that I forgot to check when my return train to my town was. When I finally checked, I was horrified—the next one was in 20 minutes, and then not until 2 hours later, at 1:37 AM! I had to get to the station urgently because I really didn't want to wait 2 hours at night.

But then the guys let me down—we got lost and didn't know where the station was... in the end, when we figured it out and ran to the station, it turned out the train had left 2 minutes ago. Damn, I didn't know what to do, and I had to get up for work the next day... plus my bike was at the station, and I had to pick it up anyway.

But then my lifesaver, a golden human being named Veronika, came along and agreed to give me a ride if I took a train to a different station that was still close to my house (well, close by car). It just arrives earlier. As it turned out, the guys and I were going the same way; we were even on the same train, they just got off earlier.

Only when I went to bed did I realize how tired I was and that I had blisters on my feet. I barely got up for work this morning, but I was so charged with positivity from the trip that I managed to make it through the whole day. In a word—I have a sea of impressions! And now I want to get out to the city more often; why am I sitting here bored when I live so close? I need to make up for lost time!