Day Five Monday.
Up early and to the subway on the
downtown R train to Whitehall/South ferry for our pre-booked
SOL/Ellis Island trip, we could not have booked better weather for
this day had we tried, a bit of a wait for security which was very
thorough, not too much wait though as we had tickets and were early
and on the first boat of the day.
The Statue of Liberty was incredible up
close, and the audio tour was great, really set the tone for the day
and it was a nice walk around Liberty Island, the food did not look
great so we just had a muffin and drink, got some nice Christmas
Ornament souvenirs in the gift shop and a SOL messenger bag that was
on sale. Caught the boat to Ellis Island and again got the audio
tour, paused it to go watch the film that was showing to give our
feet a rest, it was a very poignant, interesting film and well made,
the audio tour and exhibits were very good, one comment about a lady
who had warts and only got in by turning her coat inside out at the
suggestion of another peron really struck me as I had warts when I
was a child, they were caused by stress but I had them over a year.
We spent a long time at Ellis Island,
got back to Manhattan at around 3.30pm, and I had printed a walking
tour of Lower Manhattan from Forum member Queens boulevard from Trip
Advisor for us to follow, we had a rest in Battery park first to
re-charge our feet, then looked at Bowling Green Park and lots of
buildings, saw Double Check, the World Trade Center, Trinity Church,
covered in scaffolding, had a quick look in Century 21 but hated the
place and got out asap. Got very cross with all the people trying to
sell us 9/11 picture books on the way past. Went to look in St
Paul's Chapel , very emotional here and struggled to look at all the
exhibits without blubbing too much, we had not got tickets to the
9/11 Memorial and I wanted to have a moment of silence here instead,
found the George Washington Pew and then got out of there, had to
stop at a Duane Reade for more tissues.
From there we walked along Fulton
Street towards the Woolworth building, rested for a while in City
Hall park and looked for black squirrels but did not see any, Carl
needed a new memory card for his camera so went into B&H to check
on prices, reasonable so got one then carried on along towards South
Street Seaport, got there and found a bench and had a bit of a
meltdown, the cold and emotional and tiring day caught up with me a
bit and Carl had to take over as tour guide for a while, found me
some rest rooms in the shopping centre and then a burrito meal in the
food court, not the best meal we had but not bad, I should have
researched more meal options in Lower Manhattan and also should have
stopped to eat a lot sooner than I did when I saw Georges which had
been recommended, I had forgotten that all we had eaten that day was
a muffin, it was no wonder I had run out of energy. Meal over we
looked around a Christmas shop in the Shopping centre, amazed at the
amount of green St Patrick's day ornaments and Coca-cola ones, very
expensive though so we did not buy any, we made our way home via the
Titanic lighthouse memorial and to the subway at Fulton Street.
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