I flew out 6 days before day one of the exams so that I could have enough time to get over jet lag and put in some last minute revision. The weeks leading up to the flight were pretty intense but the time had finally come.
I stayed in a predominantly Jewish area in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It's only in Brooklyn where I've personally encountered and communicated with orthodox Jews. You don't see them around where I live in the UK, but there's a Jewish community in London. I was quite intrigued to be honest and I personally found the Jewish people to be pleasantly polite. They are a close knit community and keep themselves to themselves.
During my one week stay in Crown Heights, I didn't feel unsafe at all. It's a quiet area with a consistent police presence. There was always police cars patrolling the area and at night time I saw why; the potential for others from neighboring communities to sell and deal drugs.
I came across a family (behind me in the picture at the top) outside the apartment block I was staying in, selling water to cars sat in traffic. Even the children, one as young as 6 years old, outside hustling with their parents.
There was a library less than 10 minutes walk. Brooklyn Public Library literally became my second home. I spent a lot of my time revising there. The library was always busy and full of different cultures and backgrounds.
I mostly spent my time in the African American library study room because it was also a quiet room. During one of my revision sessions, I noticed a number of kids doing different kinds of work in groups (see picture below). I spoke to one of the ladies who was tutoring the kids; a lovely retired teacher originally from the Caribbean who had studied in the UK before falling in love and moving to the US. She told me that she set up the study group a few years ago and runs these sessions in the evening during the week and at the weekends to help kids from disadvantaged backgrounds remain interested in education and improve their grades, so that they can graduate from school. A high proportion of young males, particularly in the black community drop out of high school.
I found it pretty awesome that on such a hot day like it was (it was around 30 degrees celsius) when those kids could have been spending the whole day playing outside, they took some hours of their day to attend the study session.
When I wasn't studying, I was going to the church services in Brooklyn, walking along Central Park or doing a bit and I mean - just a bit, of sight seeing.
I was very fortunate, in fact blessed, to have a fellow Bar Bri International student, Samantha, also staying in the Crown Heights area at the time of the exams. In fact I became close to Samantha as we were preparing for the bar exams. She had just moved to London from South Africa after getting married and started studying for the Bar the same time as I did.
Thanks to Facebook and WhatsApp we kept in touch and helped each other out whenever we had a question or was confused about something. Sometimes we were confused together LOL. It was also nice to see a friendly and familiar face before and after both days of the exams. After the exams, we kept in touch and our paths would also cross again in New York later :)
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