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.

I started off my birthday by opening my cards. I had opened one late last night, from my bean, and he had drawn a picture of a horse and carriage – one of today’s birthday activities. I had a lovely little Scottie dog brooch from mum and dad and some spending money from Rhi and Rachel. Slothed about for a bit before getting showered and dressed. We left the hotel at about midday.

We went to Penn Station to get the subway, buying some breakfast at a cafe. I bought a lemon and poppy seed muffin and Ben got a half-dipped cookie, and we took them with this. We got on the ‘A’ line – the express, as it turned out. It went to 59th Street and we are expecting to get off at 72nd, however, the train hurtled on to 125th without stopping – just about 50 blocks too far! We then had to get the ‘C’ local line back. So that was an exciting start!

Eventually got off at 72nd. This took us into Central Park, by the lake, as our first birthday activity was ‘messing about on the lake’ in a rowing boat! Walked through Strawberry Fields, where there is a tribute to the Beatles – a stone circle on the floor with ‘Imagine’ engraved in the middle. Apparently, Yoko Ono’s apartment overlooks this part of the park and she contributed to its landscaping. Strawberry Fields is a ‘quiet’ zone, so it was quite peaceful walking through. From there we walked around the lake, trying to find the boathouse. It turned out we were going slightly in the wrong direction, so we had to walk back and round.

Made it to the boathouse, and join the shortish queue for the boats. We had to queue for about 10 minutes and then paid ($12 an hour and a $20 deposit) before we were in the boat, and we were off!

Ben did the rowing, so I was the official photographer and ‘crash averter’. We were just rowing along, when Ben spotted what he thought was a turtle on a tree root, sticking out of the water. We went closer and it turned out to actually be a turtle! A real turtle! In the wild! Awesome. I took lots of photos. We then saw a few more turtles as we made our way around the lake. We also got a bit wet – there was a mini-island which had a water spray on it, and it got us on our way round! As we rowed, we saw more turtles and we explored the lake thoroughly, even nearly getting grounded twice! We also managed to see a few key sites from the boat – the Bethesda Fountain, one of the biggest fountains in the Park. We also stopped by the bank to listen to a busker, who was entertaining the crowd on the grass. He did quite a range of songs and even got another boat actively involved as they did the drum solo on their boat. There was also a wedding taking place so the busker performed an impromptu first dance for them, which was really sweet.

We were getting close to our time, so Ben started to do super-speedy rowing back to the boathouse. We very nearly had a collision with a gondola – we were both going in the same direction and, as it was near the boathouse, there were loads of other boats wiggling all over the place and often veering out of control! But we made it back safely – a little late, so we paid an extra $3 for the extra 15 min we had. Not exactly breaking the bank!

From the boats, we went to find a horse and carriage for a ride. We had seen some earlier, but there didn’t seem to be any available, so we strolled down to 59th Street where they congregated, according to a helpful lady.

As we walked, we had a lollipop each from a stand. The park was really busy and there were also a couple of baseball games going on. People were sunbathing and playing frisbee – a typical day in Central Park!

We made it to 59th Street by about 4:30 PM and enquired about prices for the horse and carriage rides. There were two options – a long ride for about $100, plus tip ($120) or a short ride for $50, plus tip ($60). Obviously, they kept trying to sell the long ride by telling us all about the sights we’d see – but we’d already seen them by walking around, so we stuck to the short ride. It was more the experience that we wanted anyway, as I’d never been on one before. It lasted about 20 min and the driver told us a few bits about the places around us. It was very enjoyable and the horse made very satisfying clippy-cloppy noises!From there, we headed for the subway, to go back to the hotel to change before dinner. Ben had made a reservation at a place called ‘Robert’ in the Museum of Art and Design, which has magnificent views over Central Park. He had booked it a month ago to secure a window table.

Having showered and changed, we headed back to the subway at about 6:45 PM, arriving near the restaurant by 7:10 PM. We had a bit of time before our table at 7:30 PM so we wandered in the Park for a while. When we did go up to the restaurant, we were shown to our window table, with lovely views over Central Park and the surrounding area. We overlooked Columbus Circle and it gradually dawned on us that it was a memorial to Christopher Columbus.

We had iced water while we perused the menu and then I had an Olmsted cocktail – Hendricks gin, with sprigs of rosemary and thyme - while Ben had a Heineken. We were then bought a bread basket, with some warm mini breads – a rosemary one, a white one and a rye one. We were then brought small portions of shrimp cocktail, ‘compliments of the chef’ – a very refreshing, fresh tomato and pepper-based sauce with prawn pieces. We then shared an appetiser of burrata (a very soft mozzarella-type cheese) with big chunks of tomato, baby figs and balsamic dressing. As the main, I had roasted duck breast with cherries and a really nice fruit and wine jus. I had mashed potatoes as a side – and it was good mashed potato – and we shared sauteed ‘snow peas’ (mangetout). Ben had a pork chop, that seemed to be as big as his head, with red pepper mash and a mango garnish. It was all absolutely delicious. It made a great change from burgers, chips and pizza. In celebration of this (and also my birthday!) we decided to go all out, and have dessert too – so, in keeping with the cherry theme, I had cherry clafouti with ricotta ice-cream and Ben had a scoop of cherry, and candied walnut ice-cream (they didn’t have his favourite chocolate). Finally, by way of a fifth course, I suppose, I was presented with some little blueberry shortbread biscuits, with a candle and ‘happy birthday’ inscribed in chocolate on one side. It was really sweet and they have a good pastry chef as the biscuits were lovely. $190 later, we were a lot fuller, our wallets were a lot lighter, and it was probably the best meal of the trip yet!

To walk it off a bit, we walked in the park for a while. It was very quiet – almost eerie in parts – and Ben took quite a few pictures of the skyline from amongst the trees, capturing the shadows and the lights. From there, we went catch the subway home.