Summer Vacation 2009: New York, Part 2

On July 2 we woke up nice and early to head off to see the Statue of Liberty. We had purchased flex passes (passes where you have a 3 day time period to go) a few weeks earlier, but they don't include being able to go up to the monument. Jeff really wanted to go IN the monument, so we went to hopefully get tickets to go inside. We were able to get them, and then went to get on the boat. Jeff realized that he had brought his pocketknife, and didn't have anywhere to put it since you can't take it with you. Since we had gotten there so early and the park was pretty empty, he went and hid it in the park and hoped no one saw him. (Fortunately for him, it was still there when we got back!)

Lady Liberty

While we were in line to go inside the monument we had someone take a picture of us together from behind the Statue. It was pretty neat to see the musuem inside. It is too bad that you have to have a special ticket and wait in a line to get into see it (Too long of a line in my opinion. We waited for an hour and 15 minutes! I don't know if I would wait that long again.).
This is the original torch of the Statue of Liberty. They have done many renovations and upgrades to keep her looking good. When this torch began to fall apart, they redid it in the way the architect origianlly intended. The current torch is copper covered with gold leaf and the light source is lights positioned outside of it reflecting off of the gold.
After going to Liberty Island, we went to Ellis Island. I think Ellis Island is such an interesting place. I really like the museum that you can go through and see and learn about what the immigrants that came through the island experienced. I sometimes wonder what it must have been like to come to a new country, not knowing the language. And what if you were one of those people who had to go to the hospital? or your child was in the hospital? or deal with intelligence tests? These people must have had a strong will and determination to get to America!
One thing that is cool about Ellis Island is that my maternal grandmother's biological father came through Ellis Island with his parents. Outside of the main building of Ellis Island is a memorial. You have to pay to have the names of your family that came through put on this memorial, but I thought that I would look anyway. I am not sure if the spelling is correct, but we found Elsie M. Schmidt, who might possibly be the name of my grandmother's grandmother. I am not even sure if the spelling is correct, but it was close enough that we took a picture of it! I don't know a great deal about this side of my family, but maybe I'll be able to learn more one day.
Our time at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island was much longer than we had anticipated, but we continued to see parts of the city that were Downtown since that is where we were. Jeff wanted to say that we had been to Wall St, so here is proof.
We walked down Wall St. a little and were able to see Federal Hall National Memorial, which is where George Washington took the oath of office as our first president, and where the first Congress, Supreme Court, and Executive Branch offices were.
Jeff was also interested to see the NY Stock Exchange. He would have gone in if he could, but they have barricades and police stationed outside.
One thing that I really wanted to see was Ground Zero. September 11, 2001 had a large impact on my life, and I wanted to go and see it. I was a little suprised when I saw the whole area was a construction pit. They are building a transportation hub beneath the memorial, so right now, it is a pit. I hope later to go back and see it all done.
Directly across the street from the WTC site is FD no. 10. They were the first ones to respond, and do have a memorial to the firefighters that they lost. Below is a part of it, where it chronicles the events of September 11. There was also a man outside the fire department showing pictures of what the surrounding buildings looked like after the planes hit and how the city has rebuilt some things. It was sombering to see some of what went on and how scary it must have been for the people right there in the city.
After all of our adventures Downtown, we went back to the hotel so Jeff could go to some of the conference. I must admit. He probably saw more of New York than he did the conference, but he was able to attend the conference and learn of some neat things going on in the computer world. While Jeff was gone I hung out at the hotel, and relaxed. It was nice to be able to do that!

After Jeff got back from the conference, we went to dinner at Carnegie Deli. I wasn't feeling that hungry, so decided I would just order a salad. Imagine my suprise when they brought me a salad the size of my head! There was a father with his sons sitting next to us, and one of the boys commented that I would have enough leftover to eat for breakfast the next day. Jeff enjoyed a corned beef sandwich, and then we headed off to see our show on Broadway!!

We had the immense pleasure to see Blithe Spirit. When Jeff and I were trying to decide what to see, I really wanted to see a musical (we already had tickets to see Wicked back here in Arizona, or else we would have seen it in NY), but then Jeff came across this one. We saw that it had Angela Lansbury in it, and that was one reason that I thought it would be worth seeing. We quite enjoyed ourselves. Angela Lansbury did an amazing job, and the other performers went right along with it. The next day I learned that Angela Lansbury won a Tony award for her role in the play. An even better reason to have seen it!!
After the show Junior's was just across the way and we enjoyed slices of cheesecake! Yum!! A wonderful way to end our evening.

The next day, July 3rd, was the day Jeff was to present at the Conference. He spent the morning and afternoon at the conference, and I was free to do what I wanted to. I slept in (something that does not happen at home!) and got ready for my day. I was able to meet up with my former roommate Julie Mack, who is now living in NY. We were going to go to the library, however, it was closed for the holiday. We then walked parts of the city and Julie showed me some parts of Central Park that I had not seen. The fountain below is featured in several movies, and the only one that I can remember it being in now is Enchanted.

It was fun to see her and catch up. We couldn't remember how long it had been since we had seen each other, but it is always nice to catch up with old friends. Thanks for a fun visit Julie! (If you read my blog and live in NY or close to it, I apologize for not being able to catch up with you too. I sometimes forget how close the states on the East Coast are!)
After meeting up with Julie I still had some time. I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself, and was trying to think of something to do that I can't do at home. I ended up going to Bryant Park and sitting and thinking and reading. It was so nice to just relax and have some time to read and be outside. Below is a view from one angle I sat at. The building to the left is the back of the library I believe.
While walking to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (where Jeff's conference was, but not where we stayed), I ended up at Grand Central Terminal to catch the subway.
After meeting up with Jeff, we went back to our hotel and changed so that we could attend the temple in Manhattan. We took the subway up, and decided to stop once more at Central Park because Jeff wanted to throw the frisbee around in the park. We then headed over to the temple.

It was so neat to see the temple in the middle of the city! I almost didn't realize that it had a steeple on it at first. It was such a beautiful building in the middle of such chaos.

We very much enjoyed the peace felt in the temple, and were glad that we were able to go. It is fun to be able to see different temples and the way they build them and operate, yet nice to know that the blessings of the temple are the same no matter which temple you go to!
After attending the temple we were going to go to dinner at a BBQ place Jeff found, but it just was too late and their wait was too long. We ended up going around Times Square again and found the last few souveniors that we wanted to get. We ate dinner at a place that was okay, but it at least fed us! We then headed back to our hotel. We had intended to go to the Empire State Building, but everything seemed to take longer than we thought it would that evening! Oh well, now we have something to do the next time we go (and who knows when that will be!).

Jeff got this fun picture of the subway on our last subway ride. It was pretty late, so not many people were there.
The morning of July 4th began nice and early for us. We had to get up at 4am so that we could catch a taxi to the airport for a 6am flight. We probably could have slept maybe another 15 minutes because everything went so much faster than we anticipated! The flight seemed so much longer than on the way out, but maybe that was because we were actually awake for most of this flight. Below is a picture of Manhattan Harbor with Brooklyn (bottom) and Manhattan (middle) and New Jersey (top) from the airplane.

Jeff's mom picked us up in Seattle and then took us back to my parent's house, and we got to see our girls!! We had a wonderful trip in NY, but were definitely glad to see our children. It made us appreciate them so much more. The girls were very excited to see us. Claire was so happy she just kept walking around and smiling and laughing. Lydia was happy, and I was suprised at how observant she was because the first thing she said to me was, "Mommy, you have a new shirt!" They both gave hugs and kisses, and were a little clingy for the rest of our vacation. Thanks Mom and Dad (and Andrew), for keeping the girls for us. It helped knowing they were in good hands!