Day 78 - Slight Change in Plans

Hooray for the Chrysler Building!

I've realized a few irritating things: one, New Jersey and Delaware have the most restrictive hitchhiking laws I've seen thus far. It's effectively illegal to ask for rides while standing anywhere related to the roads, including shoulders and sidewalks. Two, on inner-city transit fares alone I'm burning through more per day than I have in my budget. Three, I've been straight up spending more than I'd originally budgeted.

Add this to the fact that I'd originally conceived of this trip as a 60 day venture, and I've since decided to make it closer to 100 days, and I reach the inevitable conclusion: I'm poor.

Columbia's chapel.

Though, not broke! And based off of tonight's calculations, at my current rate of spending I won't hit that point until the very end of this trip. So....yay! I've also realized that I spend more in New England than I typically do, and it behooves me to leave it quickly. So I'm going to do just that. I've purchased a Megabus ticket to DC, leaving Thursday afternoon. I'll leave DC on Monday, and hopefully be back into warmer weather and cheaper locales. It almost feels like cheating to use a bus for the second time, but I feel pretty justified with snow on the ground and power outages still dotting northern New Jersey. And laws that are much harder than usual to get around.

Cuban dinner :D

Korean Lunch :D

Enough of the money-talk, though, because today has been an awesome day of catching up with old friends! As some may know, I spent a year of my high school career as a page in the US House of Representatives. And since arriving in NYC I've been able to catch up with two of my former classmates, and hope to see more before I leave. And not only page friends, but an HKU friend studying at Columbia. This trip has been such an awesome chance to meet up with old friends, and I'm looking forward to seeing more in the next few weeks :)