The urban dwelling resembling the village of York in England (and SCIENCE!)

My title is a cryptogram.  Can you solve it?

(Hint: It means I went to New York City.)

Didja figure it out?  It means "New York City!"  You must be so smart.

It was pretty darn epic.  I mean, it was a school trip, to go to Columbia University for a publications conference. It was a school trip, and they basically gave us free reign to wander anywhere we wanted in Manhattan.  Crazy fun things went down.

However, as cool as it was to watch my English teachers sing karaoke to Lady Gaga, I doubt it interests you.  And I would like to keep you interested.  I think the most interesting thing is my Science Olympiad competition on Saturday.  I mean, New York is way too boring.  But science?  Now THAT'S exciting.


 I mean, you can even write "science" in a science-y way:

Sorry it's blurry; it's my friend's cell phone camera.  I wrote it.  I'll tell you what each letter is, because I'm REALLY proud of this thing.  Took me ages.
S - DNA strand
C - magnet
I - test tube
E - It says mc^2 because E=mc^2
N - a bunch of rulers
C - It says 3.0x10^8 because that's the speed of light, represented by "C"
E - Not sure what the name of this molecule is, my AP Chem friend made it

O - gear
L - fingers (you know, physiology!)
Y - inverted lungs.  Yes, inverted lungs.  Quit laughing, it was hard to draw lungs upside down.
M - triangles with angles
P - phosphorus
I - rad -1.  i
A - deathly hallows symbol.  This was an object of controversy, but my argument was that it related.  Harry Potter is geeky, science is geeky.  It works.
D - atom. In a D shape (I was running out of ideas by the end)

You'll notice that we had a chalkboard in our "home base" classroom, where we relaxed between rounds.  So what did we do? Play games!

First, chalkboard chess.  This was easy, we just made up symbols for each piece (pawn was circle, bishop was triangle, etc).  I was shaded, my friend's pieces were open.  And we erased each piece and redrew it to move.  Simple.  I won after an hour, when I cornered her king and she had no more moves.

Second, chalkboard Monopoly.  This was far more complicated.  First, we redrew the board and simplified the rent amounts and property prices.  We used the random integer function on the graphing calculator as dice, and kept track of money on the side.  It was really complicated.  For chance cards, we had a friend make up things to say.  That was how I ended up losing $2000 in one turn.  The chance cards were all mean.

Third, Pictionary.  This was exciting because I instituted the rule of "abstract Pictionary," stolen from the idea of Metaphysical I Spy in Paper Towns.  Basically, it had to be abstract.  No physical objects allowed.  That's how we ended up trying to draw things like "Neo-Confucianism," "schizophrenia," and a "Mongolian Death Worm."  Yes, we are awesomely nerdy like that.  Let's see YOU draw the "Harvard Sailing Team."