Actually, most of the time we take the C train, but that isn't how the song goes.

I got in to New York on Wednesday, after a lot of the other agents were already here.  I found the hostel just fine, and decided from there to make my way to the UN (how hard could it be?).  I'd read something that said the UN was on West 46th Street, and it wasn't until I was wandering around near Broadway that I figured out something wasn't right.  And nobody had any idea where the UN was.  Finally I stopped at a restaurant and the woman there gave me a telephone book.  The UN is indeed on East 46th Street, not West.  So I got back on the subway and tried to hide the fact that I was looking at a large fold-out map of the metro lines in my lap.  I figured that would be like a large billboard flashing "I'm not from here."  Through trial and error I made it to Grand Central station and down to the UN.  That seems like it should have been the end of my aimless wandering, but in fact I got lost inside the UN as well.  I could see the large room with people in it, but I couldn't get in from the upstairs doors, and going downstairs only led to the bookstore.  Then I wandered a little further and found out that there was a secure entrance that my new brown badge got me through.  I resisted the impulse to go around asking everyone I saw "how cool is it that I have security clearance at the UN?"  I call it security clearance, because I think it's really awesome, but in actuality it's a photo ID that gets me downstairs.  Upstairs is still strictly off limits.

 Today Lauren and I met with the delegation from Morocco.  They were looking to talk to some youth from NGOs, so we went over and introduced ourselves.  They were glad to meet us, and very respectful of our time and our viewpoints.  They only had twenty minutes to fit us in before another meeting, but they wanted to hear about our views and the policies we were supporting.  One woman translated for two of the other senators.  She spoke in French, but they must have answered in Arabic, because I couldn't understand anything they said.  It felt very official and important.  They asked questions and we tried to explain (for example, if job cafes were anything like cyber cafes).   The last question they asked us when their time ran out was how our experience had been so far, if we had been discouraged or if we found reason to hope for change.  I thought that question showed very much their approach to us and the consideration they gave to our viewpoint, which was very encouraging.  We tried to stress that having youth from all parts of the world would be valuable to the commission, and they mentioned putting us in contact with Moroccan youth.  They took our information, so hopefully something will come of that.  Even if nothing does, that wins for my coolest experience of the day.  Not that my 400 page reading assignment in Tom Jones put up much of a fight.