We had breakfast in our room and a bit of a slow morning. We were watching the Today Show and as it was the first day of Wimbledon, they had Monica Seles playing tennis down in Rockefeller Square. Harry is a huge sports fanatic so I told him to hurry up and get ready and run downstairs to try to meet her. By the time he and Daddy got going though, Monica Seles was gone. They did get to watch a bit of Wimbledon on the big screen though.
By the time they got back, I'd manage to rouse the other two and we were ready to go see the Statue of Liberty. The kids were very excited as this was something they'd really been looking forward to. We caught the subway and followed the crowds headed for the Statten Island ferry. As we were going through security, one of the police officers asked where we were going. I said "the Statue of Liberty" and he said you're in the wrong place! The last time I was in NYC, I caught the Statten Island Ferry to see Lady Liberty and just took photos of her as we went past, but this time we were going to the actual island so we were at the wrong pier. They laughed at us and said that any time they see someone with a big camera they check where they want to go because they are normally on the wrong ferry!
We walked over to Battery Park and the right pier only to find hundreds of other people doing the same thing. It was hot and the lines were long and I thought oh no, this is going to be a disaster. We had tickets already with our NYCityPass so I got on the shorter line for prepaid tickets. I wasn't sure if that was the right line as I saw plenty of people with the CityPass booklets in the other longer line, but we went with it and it turned out to be okay. The line moved pretty quickly and once through security, we were straight onto a ferry and off to see the Statue.
I had tried to book tickets to walk up to the crown but missed out so our plan was to just walk around and take a few pictures.
With a statue of Gustav Eiffel
We couldn't get anywhere near the statue without a ticket to climb, so we hopped on the next ferry back.
We didn't bother getting off at Ellis Island as that doesn't hold any interest for us, so we just returned to Battery Park where Sam immediately joined all the other kids in the fountains!
It looked like fun, so Harry joined in too.
It was hot enough that they were dry after a few minutes. We walked up to Wall St to find some lunch, passing this monument on the way
It used to be in the World Trade Centre as a symbol of peace. How ironic. It now holds an eternal flame in honour of all who died on September 11. It was quite moving to see the damage to it. It made it very real.
We had some lunch at Subway on Wall St and once again I was reminded how inadequate I am at ordering! They don't give you any time to read the menu and decide what you want, the minute you walk in the door they are yelling at you to place your order and all the other customers are getting frustrated with you! It was very stressful!
After lunch we walked over to Ground Zero.
We decided to do the tour and visit the museum as I felt it was important for the kids to see and hear about it. The tour started outside the museum where there is a memorial wall, mainly a tribute to the firefighters who lost their lives.
We then walked across to the Winter Garden building which has views of the site and was a nice place to sit and listen to the tour guide speak as it was airconditioned!
The flags have been at half-mast since 9/11
This memorial was erected by American Express in honour of their staff members who were lost. It was really beautiful
The tour was really just two tour guides talking about the day and their experiences. It wasn't ghoulish or tacky or anything, it was very moving and quite sad. They were really lovely people (we found the majority of New Yorkers to be lovely) and kept thanking us for coming and for being interested in their story.
We then had a look around the museum which was very emotional. I tried not to look too hard at a lot of the exhibits as it was too heartbreaking.
I didn't take any other photos as I felt it was a little disrespectful. However, we were approached by a staff member who asked if I'd taken photos of the kids with the pylon from one of the towers that was on display. I thought she was accusing me at first so I said no, of course I didn't and then she said "well you must, it's a very important part of history and they need to show their friends that they were here and saw it". So she took us back upstairs and had all the kids pose with the pylon
After the heaviness of Ground Zero, we needed a little light relief so the boys went across to the square to watch the men playing chess while Emily and I hit Century 21 for a bit of shopping. We didn't stay long but did pick up a few bargains and I promised her that we would come back later in the week. We met up with the boys again and hopped on the subway back to the hotel for a rest.
After a rest, we wandered down to 9th Ave to find something for dinner. We stopped at a little pizza place with great staff and really yummy pizza. Afterwards we wandered back up to Times Square in search of ESPN Zone as we wanted to make reservations for dinner there another night. Along the way we saw Madame Tussauds and the kids begged to go in. They had wanted to visit the Hollywood one but we didn't have enough time so I promised we'd go in New York. So we went in but I was shocked when it came to $190 for the 5 of us. I said no way, I'm not paying that and started to leave so the girl said hold on, I'll see what discount I can give you and she came back with $150. Still a huge amount of money but we all wanted to go in, so I sucked it up and paid. I'm so glad we did because we had so much fun and it turned out to be one of our favourite things of the trip! I have so many photos, here are some of my favourites.
When we left we finally found the ESPN Zone but it was shut with a tiny note on the window saying it had closed down. We were very disappointed because we still had $20 in credits that we bought at Anaheim and now had no way to use them.
It was quite late by that stage so we headed back to the hotel and hit the pillows.
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