An AMERICAN Day

The Statue of Liberty and 9/11 were on the agenda for Thursday!  We left plenty early knowing we would hit traffic going into Manhattan and Teri found the subway in no time!!  We bought subway tickets and waited impatiently for the subway to arrive - it was SO HOT down in the subway that we were sweating!!

It was a quick ride down to Battery Park and then a walk to where we needed to be!  We decided we had time to grab a quick bite at Starbucks so grabbed breakfast sandwiches and coffee before we headed down to the building to pick up our tickets!

Picking up the tickets was easy - I had ordered Crown tickets (which were special tickets to walk all the way up to the crown and these MUST be ordered in advance as they are limited) that needed to be picked up by 8:00am.  Our time to go into the Crown was at 10 so we thought we could go over early on the ferry and get all our pictures taken of the Statue before we walked up. But we weren't allowed to get on the ferry yet!  The guy taking the tickets said we had to wait till the 9:15 ferry!!

We walked back over twice trying to get on earlier but each time he said to come back at 9:15!!  Teri and I ended up walking around Battery Park to kill the time and found this cute merry go round!!

We finally got let through to head to the ferry!  Security is like going to the airport - very thorough - but the ride over was nice and we made it to the Statue of Liberty in no time!!  We had to rent a locker to put our purses in and were only allowed to carry up our phones (for our camera use).

We took the elevator the first phase that took us up to the pedestal - there the security guard told us to get a drink of water and some fresh air outside before we started up the steps!  They do warn you before you ever purchase your tickets, that you must be in good physical health to attempt the steps - they are very narrow and wrap around just like a spiral staircase - claustrophobic people are not advised to go up - right!!  Guess who's claustrophobic!!  But I was going to climb those steps no matter what!

The 3 of us headed up and what they said was true - you are constantly going in a circle and you use the railing to kind of do a hand over hand pulling to help you get up!  We took a couple of breaks on the way up and we all did great climbing those 146 steps!

It's actually quite small at the top!!  There were 2 security guards up there along with one other family that were just ready to head down!

We were all proud of ourselves for making the journey up, knowing we will probably never do it again!!  The way down was almost harder than going up and it's sure hard on the knees!

And then it was down to the front of the statue to take a few more photos!

We got back on the ferry and went over to Ellis Island - very interesting to walk through the main building and see where the immigrants came through!!  There were a lot of different rooms that showed the process of their paperwork, getting checked out by the doctor, tests that were given to the children and lots of photos and memorabilia.  We walked around for over an hour and then headed back on the ferry to Battery Park so we could head towards the 9/11 monuments.

Along the way we ate at a restaurant that played an important part on 9/11 - the restaurant was used as an emergency first aid station - there were several photos that depicted that day!

9/11 was a very somber and emotional experience - we had no idea what to expect - but the museum was well done!

This beautiful wall of blue is explained in the next picture.

These steps withstood the collapse of one of the buildings.

Can you imagine the force of the plane that hit the building, bending this steel beam?

The flag with pictures of those that lost their lives on 9/11.

There were many videos to watch, recordings you could listen to and so much to see that it was just overwhelming.......................we finally got to the point where we just had to leave the museum and go outside to the reflecting pools which stand where the twin towers used to be.  All the names of the ones that lost their lives that day are etched into the border all the way around each pool.  Note the reflections of the buildings on the edge of the pool.

And finally The Survivor Tree - the only tree left standing after the buildings fell that day.

We were all glad that we still had one more day in NYC because we were totally drained after seeing the museum and the pools - it's amazing the emotions that surface from that horrible day!

What better way to boost our spirits than to go have dessert and coffee!!  More on that next...........