Harlem

The team spent the night in Greenwich, CT last night. This morning I woke up and went for a ride around the very affluent area and then ate a delicious breakfast on the deck of our homestay house that overlooks the Long Island Sound. Then Pat, Gabi, and I trained into NYC again and walked through Harlem down 125th St. to make our way towards Riverside Church, an interracial, interdenominational, and international faith community. There we had a great conversation with a group of kids aged 6th-12th grade at a vacation Bible school. From there we continued up the hill to Columbia University, walked around campus, and then walked down the hill, back through a different part of Harlem, and then trained back to Greenwich. I absolutely loved the atmosphere of the Harlem area and was happy to have the opportunity to see yet another part of New York City. When I got back I went for another short ride out to Tod's Point (a small island in the Sound that we can see from our homestay) to decompress everything I saw this afternoon. The change in environment between the bottom of the hill (part of Harlem) and the top of the hill (Columbia U area) was abrupt. This summer biking has become my way of processing all the conversations I've had and the places I've visited. While at Tod's I saw the Manhattan skyline and touched the Atlantic Ocean water (which is warm in comparison with the Pacific's).