They Say What They Say

We woke up to snow!

yes, I know you folk who live with snow every winter think our excitement of a sprinkling of snow is silly, but we really don't get much of a chance to experience snow in Melbourne so even a couple of centimeters overnight is thrilling.

It's also bloody cold, as I discovered when I ran across the road to drop my boots in at the shoe repair shop for stretching.

Today's adventure was the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island so after breakfast we jumped on the subway and headed downtown.

Once we got to Battery Park we phaffed around for a while taking photos of snow covered trees and park benches, but then we decided that we'd better get our act together and went to find the ticket office for the ferry and Liberty Island. Due to recent events getting on to the ferry included a lot of standing around and a trip through airport style security, but once on board it takes hardly any time at all the make the trip across harbour. I have to say, the first time the statue really comes into focus is pretty damn amazing. Like, really amazing. Neither Helen or myself could quite believe we were actually staring it in the face, so to speak, and yet there it was!

We disembarked and decided that we needed to eat before we had a look around, so we found hot dogs and fries in the visitors centre. Yes, we are all class. After that we wandered around outside for a while taking more photos of the snow, and then we decided to go into the museum, which involved yet another lot of airport style security. I got very good at divesting myself of anything that would set an alarm off while I was away.

We both spent ages in the museum looking at the displays and reading the history of how it all came to be. Then we set about the task of climbing the stairs up through the statue its self. My god there are a lot of stairs! And it didn't help that neither of us were fond of heights. We didn't have tickets for the crown, only the monument, but I have to say, once we'd gotten as far as we were allowed to go, I was pretty glad to stop. More photos ensued and once we descended we spent some time rummaging around the gift shop before the jumped on the next ferry to Ellis Island.

Unfortunately for us, on Ellis Island we were more interested in the buildings we couldn't go into the the one we could! Both Helen and I would have loved to have explored the old hospitals or New Ferry House, but that side of the island was inaccessible, so we only spent about an hour there. Once we'd wandered around outside, gone to the loo and did our thing in the gift shop we'd had enough and so headed back to Manhattan.

We were both starving once we got off the ferry, so I bought a soft pretzel and Helen got some nuts. We wandering through Battery Park toward the subway station, when I saw a squirrel! Well, my love of squirrels has already been established, so I whipped out my camera to take a photo and all of a sudden a turkey appeared! At least I think it was a turkey. It certainly looked like one, although what a turkey was doing wandering around Battery Park is anyone's guess. I tried to take a photo, but it won the battle against the pigeons for the remains of my pretzel and scurried off to eat it before my semi-frozen fingers could snap a decent picture. But trust me, it was turkey. I think.

Anyhoo, we stated walking again and and that's when some guy try to sell us a Prada bag off the back of a s shopping trolley. Yeah, no, wasn't having any of that, but hey, have a nice day!

One of Helen's main ambitions for the trip was walking across Brooklyn Bridge. I had never considered it, but I was game and so we worked out which train to get and headed over to City Hall. And it was amazing. really, Really amazing. It was late after noon, the sky was clear and the sun was just starting to go down over the East River. Once again, not so good with the heights, or the cars rushing by, the scale of the structure just takes your breath away.

Once on the other side we decided to try and find pizza, but it was getting dark, we had no idea where we were or what to do and in the end it was all too hard. So we just ended up wandering around Brooklyn Heights for a while and then got the train back across the river for a quick visit to Wall Street and Ground Zero.

Ground Zero is mostly a building site at the moment, so there's not much to see, and by that time I was also starving and had to eat before I bit Helen's head off. So we found this Chinese place right across the road and I ate the best prawn dumpling noodle soup I'd had in a long time and Helen ate the best Singapore noodles she'd ever had!

After that I'm not quite sure what happened. We started following the crowd through the World Financial Center, expecting them to lead us somewhere tangible, but somehow we got all turned around and ended up wandering around Battery Park City with little idea of where we were. Helen says she wasn't alarmed, but I sure was, and if it wasn't for the fact that I remembered there was a subway station on Rector street god knows where we would have ended up. Probably huddling for warmth with a turkey in Battery Park!