mybigadventures.com

Today, we had a reservation to visit the Statue of Liberty at 10 AM, so we had to get up early to get there on time. Remarkably, we managed to negotiate the subway and, perhaps through luck rather than actual understanding, we took the right train to South Ferry. Were a little confused about where to go when we came out of the train station, however, due to the lack of signs - no surprise there really! We took, what appeared to be, a plausible route, which turned out to be the right one (we later noticed that if you were a pedestrian going in the opposite direction, there were actually quite effective signs - typical!). 

We walked through Battery Park to the ticket office, where we went straight up to an assistant, who printed our tickets out, got on the ferry and got ourselves a prime spot for viewing. Once settled, I went to the ferry snack bar (as we had missed breakfast) and I got a hot pretzel and a hot dog for breakfast. When I got back up to the deck, Ben suggested we move to the other side of the boat – looking at New York – as there was a strong chance that the boat would turn around en route – and it turned out to be fact. So, we ended up with uber-prime spots and admired Liberty as we passed her by.

Getting off the ferry, we picked up our audio guide and nipped into the gift shop to get a sew-on badge for our collection. It wasn’t something they stocked, however. So, a bit disgruntled, we went out, via the other gift shop and – guess what? – sew-on badges! Who knew? Clearly, a more tasteful shop.

We walked up to the entrance to go up into the statue itself. We found out that to go up to the Crown - which we had paid for - we had to leave all our belongings, except for a camera each, in a locker, which we had to pay for - it all seemed to be a bit unfair.

Anyway, snapped out of being grumpy and went on into the museum. You went in past the original flame from the statue, which was replaced in the 80s, as it was corroding badly. Originally, it had little tiny panes of yellow glass – a bit like leaded lights – and it was lit from within. But, it still didn’t light up powerfully enough, so, when it was replaced, the restorers went back to the original plans and made one to be gilded instead, rather than lit.

From there, we went up inside the statue. You could see the structure that supports the copper exterior – apparently, the actual molded sheets of copper are only the width of two pennies. It took a lot of different pieces to make the whole statue – it was a gift from France during Napoleon 3rd’s reign, as an emblem of liberty and democracy.

We went up to the first layer – the top of the granite base - and had a little look around and then joined the short queue to go up into the Crown itself. We only waited for a few minutes and then went up a very, very narrow spiral staircase for a few hundred steps. It was good job it was cloudy today – otherwise, we would have been very hot, sweaty masses when we finally arrived at the top! It was much smaller than we expected. Only about six people would fit. Some of the little windows (openings in the crown) were open for air, and you could see fantastic views out. And the people on the lower levels looked tiny! The view of downtown Manhattan was lovely – all the skyscrapers nestling together. We spent some time up there and then made our way down. One of the Park Rangers ‘guarding’ up there told us to look back up, about 10 steps down, from where you can see her face, so we did – and we could! It was quite strange to see her from behind the mask, as it were – and amazing to think she is sculpted from metal.

When we got down to the lower level, we wandered around and took photos, then we headed towards the cafe for some lunch. We both had panini’s – I had mozzarella and tomato and Ben had chicken fajita – both came with a vast pile of lettuce and tomato – by way of a side salad! Vast portions again!

We went back into the statue to look at the museum, to find out more about the designers – one of whom was Gustave Eiffel. Fancy that! Made some purchases in the gift shop and collected our free certificate for visiting, and then joined the queue for the ferry back. It did try and rain a bit again – as earlier – but it didn’t come to much. Both ferry crossings were very calm and smooth as well, so happy days all round.

Once off the ferry, we made our way into the Financial District to have a look round. We saw the big bull – like the one in the bullring, in Birmingham – near Wall Street. Then we walked up to the site of the World Trade Center. It’s currently a big building site, as the World Trade Center is being rebuilt around a memorial park. We queued briefly for free passes and then went into the park. It was beautifully laid out - a really peaceful contrast to the buildings and bustle around us. They’ve created two huge square fountains at the site of each of the two former towers and they are designed so the water falls into seemingly endless holes, with the names of the victims inscribed all around the edge, so it all seems quite endless – an endless tribute.

We went to get the subway – we’re becoming pros at this! – and headed back to 7th Avenue. We popped into Macy’s, so Ben could get the toilet bag he’d admired. We managed to get 10% off, as it had little mark on it and it was the only one. Then we went to K-Mart to buy the small wheelie case we had seen earlier in the week. We also got another Lego set!

We headed back to the hotel and dumped our stuff, heading back out again for tea. We got some pizza from a local place – they sell by the slice – and we went back to the hotel to scoff. While catching up on some journal and writing some postcards, we rented a film – The Internship, about two middle-aged men who become Google interns - and stayed up quite late, watching films and scoffing.