My Fabulous, Wonderful New York City Field Trip

"My Fabulous, Wonderful New York City Field Trip"

by Sarah Palin

My teacher, John McCain, said we could all go on a field trip to New York City to learn about world leaders, foreign affairs and all that stuff. I suggested that since I got my first passport last year, maybe we could actually visit world leaders in their own countries. But Mr. McCain said that there wasn’t time for that and, anyway, it didn’t really matter because everything we needed to know was at the United Nations.

Gosh, the United Nations is a neat building. It’s kind of curvy at the bottom and then there’s a big tower. It’s kind of modern but not really. Inside there’s a really big auditorium, even bigger than the biggest theater at the Regal Totem 8 multiplex in Anchorage.

In the auditorium, there’s like a whole bunch of desks with nameplates with the names of a whole bunch of countries I’ve never even heard of. I mean, I can see Russia from where I live in Alaska but I have no idea if I can see Tajikistan or Uzbekistan or Azerbaijan. At first I thought I’d been punked by Mr. McCain but he assured me that these were real countries. At least he was pretty sure they were real countries. After all, he was still a little unclear if Spain was in South America or not.

I got to see President Bush address something called the Generals’ Assembly in the big auditorium. I’m surprised that it has a military name but I guess with all the wars and disputes all around the world, it only makes sense. Anyway, I was very impressed with the President’s speech which I now recognize as part of what he calls the Bush Doctrine.

On the first night, we got to go to a cocktail party in Manhattan with the President and a whole bunch of world leaders. I got to meet the heads of all kinds of neat countries including Michel Suleiman who’s the president of Lebanon. It was a little embarrassing at first because I ordered a margarita from him thinking that he was a waiter. We all had a good laugh over that and then everybody talked about an atlas or a roadmap or something for the Middle East.

On the second day, we were supposed to go to a rally to protest the arrival of the leader of Iran. I’d include his name in my essay but it’s really hard to spell and has way too many vowels. But it doesn’t matter because we didn’t get to go to the rally after all because that witch Hillary Clinton didn’t want us there. I mean, I kind of respect her for putting all those cracks in the glass ceiling and all but sometimes she can be such a.......well, I’ll just leave it at that.

Honestly, after that second day, my head was spinning. We got to meet so many leaders of so many countries, I couldn’t really tell you who’s who. There’s someone called Car Guy, I think, who’s from Afghanistan and Talabani from Iraq or maybe it was the Taliban from Afghanistan although I don’t think so because I’m pretty sure they’re one of the bad guys.

We met guys from India and Ukraine and even Georgia. You know, I guess I’ve lived in Alaska so long that I didn’t know how diverse the lower forty-eight really are. That guy from Geogia had what I’m assuming was a very strong Southern accent. Anyway, I couldn’t understand a word he said.

I just want to conclude by thanking Mr. McCain for organizing this field trip. Although it was kind of short, it was jam-packed with interesting stuff. It would have been nice to have a little R&R time to go shopping at Barneys or check out some of those fancy Mont Blanc eyeglasses. But Mr. McCain says that, if we do well, next year we may get to visit New York City as often as we want.

I asked Mr. McCain if there was going to be a pop quiz on all the stuff we learned on our trip. He said not to worry about that although he did suggest I memorize all the major countries and their leaders by the end of next week. He said Mr. Biden might have a test and apparently he’s a real strict marker.