The summer before my junior year in high school, my family and I took a trip to a completely new world. Being from a small town, I had never really been exposed to the elements of a large city such as New York City. My trip there was like discovering an entirely new way of life that I had only heard stories of previously.

For about the tenth time the morning of the flight, I checked my room to make sure I didn’t leave anything essential behind. My stomach was doing flips as we arrived at the airport and made our way to the gate. It didn’t get much better than this: I watched through the window as the runway zoomed by and the buildings and houses became smaller and smaller as the plane gained altitude. An exhilarating feeling overcame me as I realized that I would soon be in one of the most amazing cities of the United States.

As we stood waiting for a taxi outside of the airport, it was immediately apparent to me that New York City was not the same as New Caney, Texas. It seemed like everyone there was in a hurry to get to another place. The loud and constant sound of cars honking was heard throughout the entire trip. As soon as a car seemed to be going slower than the person behind him liked, he would hear the horn of that car to let him know that he was apparently holding everybody else up! When we found our hotel in Times Square, I noticed that it wasn’t just the cars that were in a hurry. Everyone in the streets was walking at a brisk pace that indicated a rush to be somewhere. The transportation of the city was also far different than anything that I had ever been exposed to. In my little town, a bike, a car, or even walking was perfectly suitable for getting around town, but in this foreign land, there were many more ways for one to get to another destination. Everywhere you looked, there were people hailing taxis, waiting on buses, rushing underground