Partying it up in NYC

Us.  Enough said.  Pastor Wrede took this sweet shot.

Tapestry in St. John the Divine.

Continuing in a long and glorious tradition, we got lost in NYC... Queens to be exact.  Strange to be lost where your dad was born.  We found Pastor Wrede and realized that God had given a host who completely understood the nature of freshly graduated college students.  His house was made to entertain and his knowledge and anecdotes about the city were unparalleled.  We told him what we wanted to see in Manhattan, and he gave us a map and directions infinitely better than GoogleMaps (that is, we never got lost).  :)  The morning after we arrived, we performed for a chapel service for Redeemer Lutheran School.  After performing many of our sacred songs, we left the church and followed the kids to their classrooms to sing a few of our pop songs.  We then zoomed into Manhattan on the Metro and began at the Anglican Cathedral St. John the Divine.  After asking permission (very politely) to sing sacred songs, they declined.  We called their music director and no one picked up.  So we decided to discretely sing in a side chapel our five minute Agnus Dei.  In the meantime, the church security had called NYPD and as we started our next piece, they... umm... kicked us out.  

We continued on and explored Central Park.  At the bottom of Central Park, we visited St. Patrick's for mass.  A pleasant rain accompanied most of our outdoor walking.  We checked out Ground Zero and are glad to see the new buildings on their way in defiance of Islam.  :)  Coming back up to Times Square (we didn't get all the way down to the bottom of Manhattan to see the Statue of Liberty... but we saw it on the way out), we joined Pastor Wrede at a GREAT Irish Pub O'Lunney's.  We sang some barbershop music and got our SECOND round on the house.  We then went to Rockefeller Center and took a picture of us under the Letterman sign.  We then went to another O'Lunney's just around the corner from the Rockefeller Center.  There, we also got a round on the house just for being with Pastor Wrede (who seems to know about 5 of the 6 million people in Manhattan).  He is on good terms with all of them too.  I have to admit that the "New Yorker" stereotyped attitude I never saw while walking around the city or in the pubs.  It only seemed to show up on the road.  TERRIBLE DRIVING!  Getting through Queens and Brooklyn to get back onto the freeway, we had to get four miles through New York traffic.  4 miles took 45 minutes.  The number of people that cut me off, turned left in front of me, honked, and yelled was innumerable in such a short space of time.  As always, for those to challenged to read, we leave you with a few pictures...  New York we definitely want to go back to as soon as possible, that city has far too much to do for just one day.