The First Day I Arrived in New York City

At the airport, I heard an announcement calling my name. I went to the information desk. And a friendly black woman told me that they had missed putting my luggage on my flight, so it would be coming with the next flight.

I hadn’t decided where I would be staying, so she gave me a number to call with my address later so that they would deliver my luggage. This turned out to be great as I did not have to carry my heavy bag while looking for a place to stay in New York. I only had my portfolio case.

I took a bus from the airport to the closest train station. On the bus, I asked a young man who was sitting behind me where to get off for the train to New York City, and he kindly told me.

The bus arrived at the train station. I asked a large stocky black man at the ticket booth for a ticket and gave him money. But he didn’t give me a ticket and he was just sitting there. So, I said, “Can I have a ticket?” Then he pointed to a small clear box in front of me and said, “That is a token.” There was a really small and gold-coloured thing that looked like a coin in it. (I had never seen a token before.) I took it and entered the platform.

Subway platform

I was on the train. It was in the afternoon so the inside of the train was fairly quiet. Sometimes many people got in and got off. Looking at the map of New York City, I didn’t know where I should get off. So, I was on the train for quite a while.

As I started seeing the city views outside the train, I instinctively thought, “I will get off at the next stop”, and I got off. It was Penn Station that I had got off at.

Penn Station

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