Hi guys, as I'm writing this I'm currently waiting to board a flight for a vacation my family and I have been planning for four years: Japan! After Japan I'll definitely write a blog about my time there, but in this blog I wanted to talk about my final travel conference at the National High School Model United Nations (NHSMUN) conference in New York.
If you don't know what Model United Nations is, you essentially represent a country/character in a committee, where your goal is to work with other people to solve global issues or ongoing crises. For me, I was the "Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate of Cox's Bazar", basically meaning I run the district of Cox's Bazar. Cox's Bazar is a province in Bangladesh, and my committee focused on maintaining the Kutupalong Refugee Camp, the largest refugee camp in the world. If you don't know about this crisis, you should definitely look into it as it gets way less media coverage and attention than it should deserve.
I'm essentially going to narrate my stream of consciousness of the trip now. On the first day, as our team arrived at our airport gate, we saw Charli D'Amelio sitting in the corner. This was really funny not just because we saw a freaking rich celebrity flying business class, but because she was shorter than me (I'm 5'5). I thought Charli D'Amelio was hella tall from the photos I've seen of her. At the end of the day, we get out of JFK airport and arrive at our hotel where we go out at 1:00AM to eat the original Halal Guys.
On the second day, our team went on an exploratory adventure of Manhattan, visiting Battery Park, the New York Stock Exchange, Trinity Church, NYU, and more. We walked and rode the Subway all around New York. My personal favorite moments were when we met local people, because that was when it felt like I was rly grounded in the city. For example, me and two other friends snuck away from the group and saw "The Cage", which is a famous basketball court in NYC. Here, we met this old dude who was famous on Instagram for making money off basketball 1v1s. At night, we ate at Katz's Deli and visited Times Square, which my friends and I now call "real life Instagram reels". At Times Square, I met these guys from France who were in a Brazilian soccer juggle circle or whatever you like to call it. I joined the circle and had a lot of fun juggling a soccer ball with people who live across the ocean. Despite this, apparently, one of the boys tried to pickpocket our advisor.
The next day, we visited the United Nations headquarters in the morning, where I put in seven dollars towards a soccer ball at the gift shop. This was probably the best purchase of the trip. Afterwards, I visited central park with some guys from my team, which is where we met these guys from New Jersey who were ditching their team to play soccer with us. After we played soccer for a bit with the ball we bought, we headed back to hotel to eat and prepare for the beginning of our competition. At night, we headed to the opening ceremony, where a local drum band beautifully performed. After opening, we finished off the day with the competition, where it ended at 10:15PM.
On the fourth day, our team got breakfast in the Rockefeller Center and we ended up splitting up afterwards, having the choice to either go to the Harry Potter store or Columbia University. I'm not really a Harry Potter fan so I opted for the latter, so I visited Columbia. The hilltop location of the campus was nice and the main lawn was beautiful, but I wasn't there for. After this, I went back to the hotel and was mostly occupied with the actual conference for the rest of the day.
On the fifth day, my team and I finally ended committee around 4:00PM and went to go eat dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner, which is known for their entertainment and NOT their food. Despite the mediocre food, I had enjoyed randomly singing songs like "I'm Still Standing" by John Elton with my teammates - simultaneously eating fried chicken. After this dinner, our team went to the highly anticipated "Delegate Social", which is where everyone gathered to mosh, play cards, and hangout. I spent 90% of my time in the mosh pit, and I soon learned that international kids are freaking crazy. Weed, alcohol, vaping, were commonplace at the dance and one of my friends ended up getting sick because some guy from Italy vaped in his face. Fortunately for me, I came out of the dance safe. After the dance, our team gathered in a room and chilled till 3:00AM, talking and playing Mafia.
On the final day, everybody gathered for closing ceremonies in the morning. Our team won "Distinction" awards (the best award given) for both our research and overall performance. This turned out to be more bittersweet than happy, because our advisor (who is retiring this year) started to tear up. As a senior who's done MUN for six years, I started to cry as well and soon everybody was emotional. That was probably the most heartfelt and emotional I have ever been in a decade. After closing ceremonies, I prepared to fly back home - returning with not just our awards, but a memory I'll never forget as long as I live.