Going on school field trips is probably one of the best things when you’re younger.

You don’t care where you’re going; as long as it was with your friends and you didn’t have to be in a classroom, you were happy.

This love for going on trips has stayed with me throughout college. I was more than excited when Eric Johnson, director of Choral Activities, told the NIU Concert Choir–which I am a part of–that we would be taking a trip to New York City to perform at the Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Twenty students from the NIU Concert Choir attended the trip last week and performed as part of a Sunday afternoon concert under the direction of Johnson and a guest conductor from the University of Washington, Geoffrey Boers.

We began the trip on April 11 with a bus ride to Chicago Midway International Airport. The group arrived at New York City LaGuardia Airport later that afternoon. Despite my agitation with flying, the two-hour flight was actually pretty fun.

As soon as we arrived, we checked into our hotel, and then walked down to Times Square, where we took a group picture on the big, light-up red steps in the center. On Thursday evening, we were all able to spend the night in New York City and do as we pleased. Groups of students went to different places for dinner, and we also had the opportunity to explore and go sightseeing, and I walked around Times Square with my friend, Nicole Tolentino, freshman music education major. We went to dinner with some other friends from our group and our director joined us. Dining in NYC was much different than in DeKalb: The prices were more than I could have ever imagined, but the food was definitely worth it.

The choir group began work early Friday morning. That day, we had the chance to attend a rehearsal with the rest of our guest choir, which included students from a Los Angeles high school and McHenry High School of Illinois. The group rehearsed for about four hours, and then we had the entire night free to do whatever we wanted. I ended up at a small independent bookstore called Bluestockings, where I hosted my first book signing and discussion for my recently published novel, “Taking Chances,” which was released in March.

Saturday followed the same routine, with a rehearsal in the morning and then sightseeing and admiring the city at night. Personally, I spent my afternoon at a Broadway show “Annie,” with Tolentino, and then went out to shop in Times Square that night.

On Sunday, the choir group walked around downtown New York City in our concert attire until we were finally able to enter the Lincoln Center, which is located next to distinguished buildings like the Juilliard School, the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Ballet.

We performed in a concert featuring Christopher Tin, a two-time Grammy award-winning composer who specializes in composing music for video games. He is the composer of “Calling All Dawns,” and recently had his music featured in the game, “Civilization IV.” A female a capella quartet group, “Anonymous 4,” was featured in the concert.

We performed in act 1 of the performance and sang John Rutter’s “Gloria,” Mozart’s “Regina Coeli, K. 276” and Joseph Haydn’s “Te Deum (for Empress Marie Therese).” I really enjoyed hearing the compositions that Tin and his guest artists performed.

After the concert, we were treated to a dinner reception on 57th Avenue and we were able to enjoy the last night in New York doing whatever we wanted.

On Monday morning, the group flew back to Chicago and arrived at NIU at 3 p.m. Attending this trip was a great opportunity and was a lot of fun. It was great to see the concert choir in a different place. We all had a great time exploring the city and enjoying a weekend in New York City.