Today was a busy day.
We took our first 'subway' ride - which was an adventure all in itself. I can imagine that in the midst of winter the subway would almost be a warm 'escape' from the snow and cold outside - but when it is 30+ degrees and the subway is another 5 or 6 degrees warmer - the feeling of actually being 'roasted' inside a metal tube under the ground isn't that pleasant.
But it gets you downtown and around town really quickly and efficiently so there will be no more complaints (apart from how crowded the subway is - I thought London and Japan trains were busy but they are nothing compared to New York. Although the photo below was taken right at the end of the line when most people had gotten off.
Anyway - we made it downtown and got on the Staten Island ferry which took us past the Statue of Liberty and gave us a great view back to the business district of New York.
The Statue of Liberty is beautiful - smaller than I imagined but I am sure if you get up close (which we didn't do - apparently the line to get on the island that the statue is on is several hours long) it would be much bigger....
The city actually doesn't look that big from this angle - but this is really only the 'tip' of New York...it goes back from here for miles! The building that you can see being constructed in the middle of the shot (with the cranes on top of it) is one of the new 'twin towers' that are being constructed the other ones were destroyed on September 11, 2001. We will visit the memorial site for this tomorrow.
Neve (of course) made friends with a local on the ferry and we learnt a lot about New York and taught her and her Mum a lot about Australia.
After some lunch, we walked uptown (New York has 'downtown' which is to the south and 'uptown' which is north) and saw Wall St and the New York Stock Exchange. This was the first time I had seen people actually dressed in suits and business clothes - even in New York the dress is far more casual than I thought it would be. You can't actually go in the stock exchange - it is all roped off - not sure if this is normal or whether there was something happening.
Catching another subway train uptown we found the Plaza Hotel (where "Eloise" the book/movie/story takes place). The girls were VERY excited about this (particularly Eloise) and we HAD to go inside and take a look. It was VERY fancy but Eloise found a familiar face on the wall.
Across the road from the Plaza is the famous FAO Schwarz toy store. There were quite a few dilemmas with the girls not being able to decide what doll they liked best....eventually they chose one each....although we did spy a doll with a freakishly familiar face on the box.....
Who does this look like????????
Hello year 1. This is Neve. I am missing you all very much. I hope you are enjoying this blog. We will try and post updates every day. Please leave a comment if you can.
Thank you.
