The Saturday after my last post, the Christian Fellowship Club headed to Jones Beach on the south side of the island for a day of fun at the beach. It was a little cool, but we all still had lots of fun playing football, volleyball, building sand castles, grilling, and other things too. I didn't realize that feet could get sunburned, but I found that out after I returned to the Academy.
The next week went by rather slowly as I anticipated the arrival of my parents for Memorial Day Weekend. They were able to come on campus Thursday evening to pick me up, as I had received a dinner liberty for the night. We ate at an Italian place in Great Neck which wasn't too bad. We often get pizza from them here at the Academy, which is fairly good. They came back the next day to check out the maritime museum we have here on campus, as well as pick me up to go back to the hotel in Flushing. Even though I had been off-campus a decent number of times in the past couple of months, it still felt great to be able to just relax at the hotel and not worry about school stuff.
We went out for some good Chinese food Friday night before walking around Flushing for a bit. It's an area heavily settled by Asians, particularly Koreans and Chinese, so it honestly feels a bit like Hong Kong, minus the tall buildings, in a few places. The next day we took the 7 Subway all the way from Flushing into Times Square, a trip that took a good chunk of time due to all the stops. From Times Square, we walked west to look at the Navy ships moored at Pier 88 as well as take a boat cruise around Manhattan Island. I didn't get to board the USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) at Pier 88, but it was still very cool to look at. The boat cruise was excellent, as we were able to see The Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero from the water, Yankee Stadium from the Harlem River, and several other sites. Once our boat docked back at Pier 83, we headed back to Times Square and ate at the Dallas BBQ restaurant located on 42nd St. The food was good and the prices fairly reasonable, a notable feat for NYC, especially Times Square...
Sunday was definitely my favorite day of the weekend. We took the Long Island Railroad into Penn Station and then hopped on a subway to take us to the southern part of Manhattan, where the Staten Island Ferry had a stop. The Staten Island Ferry uses massive ferry boats to carry large amounts of people between Lower Manhattan and Staten Island. We were able to see the Statue of Liberty again, as well as parts of Brooklyn and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Once we arrived at Staten Island, we checked out the memorial to 9-11 before taking a very long walk to find the Navy ships moored at the Staten Island Piers.
Once we finally arrived, I realized exactly how good of an idea it was t0 wear my Summer Whites, as my parents and I were able to go right to the front of an over two hour long line because I am a midshipman. The first ship we toured was USS Philippine Sea (CG-58), a cruiser built in 1983. This was really cool to see in person, as cruisers are some of the most destructive ships ever built, housing Tomahawk cruise missiles, Harpoon missiles, torpedoes, and an array of guns. An interesting fact: the USS Philippine Sea was the first U.S. vessel to launch missiles at Saddam Hussein in Operation Desert Storm. From there we boarded the USS James E. Williams (DDG-95), a destroyer built in 2003. We toured that for a few minutes before opting to cross over to the USS De Wert (FFG-45), a frigate built in 1983. Out of the three ships we toured (really two, we didn't tour much of the USS James E. Williams), we got the most thorough on the USS De Wert. It was really fascinating how much stuff is put on these ships and how potent they are. Even ships that are nearly 30 years old could seemingly destroy a lot of things in a short period of time.
Once we finished touring the ships, we headed back to the ferry and took it to Manhattan. From the ferry terminal, we took a subway back to Penn Station and ate at a small cafe, which was pretty good. We arrived back at our hotel sometime around 7, and I spent the next couple of hours watching the Twins take on the Rangers on ESPN. We had to be back at school the next morning at 6am for the Memorial Day Parade in Great Neck, but I figured it'd be easier to go back Sunday night and sleep there to simplify things.
For the parade, we just walked through Great Neck for a little while before being released again on liberty, this time until 2300. From there I met up with my parents in Great Neck and we stopped at a Chinese restaurant for Dim Sum before going back to the hotel for a quick nap. After the nap, we took the subway to the Mets-Willets Point stop to check out the park where the 1964 World's Fair was held. Unfortunately, many of the structures built for that event were rusting and in disrepair, but at least they looked cool in Iron Man 2! After some more walking, a lot of walking in all reality, we ended up eating dinner in Flushing before I had to hop on the train again to go back to school. It was really good to see my parents even though it was only a couple of weeks until I would see them again. Although a bit of schoolwork piled up for me, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
The following week was short, but really was very hectic as I had firefighting school on Wednesday, a test after getting back from firefighting Wednesday afternoon, watch from 1200-1600 and 0000-0400 Thursday night/Friday morning, and a paper due for History of Sea Power Friday afternoon. Somehow I managed to get through all of that, but my grades in that stretch definitely could have been better. For fun's sake, I didn't bother going to sleep, save 20-30 minutes, between Thursday morning when I woke up around 6 until just before 9 Friday night. That probably wasn't the best of ideas, but I can chalk it up to experience, right? Friday was the day that the first round of US Coast Guard license tests wrapped up. Most of the afternoon the ringing of the bell near Wiley Hall could be heard as that is tradition for seniors who pass their respective license tests. Since I was completely passed out Friday night into Saturday morning, I was told that people were ringing it throughout the night, but I couldn't really say for sure.
The weekend was pretty relaxed as I spent most of my time studying for finals and getting all my stuff packed up in preparation for going to sea. This past week wasn't too bad as we were prepping for finals in most of my classes. Saturday was the first day of finals, which in and of itself wasn't a great idea, but to make it worse it was in my worst class. As of right now I'm still waiting to find out whether or not if I passed the class, which isn't the best of feelings. I never thought I would say this, but I'll even take a D at this point. Just as long as I pass... This afternoon I have my final for my engineering graphics class, a final based completely on drawings we do on the AutoCAD computer program. The only other finals that will give me much trouble are Engineering Mechanics (Statics and Dynamics) on Wednesday afternoon and Chemistry on Thursday morning.
Once my Thursday final finishes I'll be free to fly out to Montana to spend time with family and friends before driving home with my parents to spend time at home until I am called up by Military Sealift Command to report to my ship. I just need to keep my nose to the grindstone until then. Stand by for further posts.
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