New York round 1: the financial district

Today we went to catch the train for New York, but got there last minute and there were no more parking spots left.  We decided to drive towards it and see what happened.  After all of the ones we avoided, we finally paid a toll $2.15.  We weren't sure what would happen because I think James said the toll to go in the tunnel to NY was like $15, plus an expensive parking to add.  The train was going to be $14 each, each way though so it still might work out better, plus you pay to park at the train station.

As you can see it was wet.  Warm, but very wet. We drove until we saw a sign for liberty park (or something like that) and decided to pop over to get a good view of the statue of liberty.  The short-term parking was free so we went into the old train station to get some info.  On our way, we had an awesome view of Manhattan, as well as a great display in memory of all the people from New Jersey that died in the 9/11 attack.

The old train station from the outside

My mom talked to the guy inside and he told us that they weren't checking the free parking lot that day to make sure you only stay 2 hours, so we could stay all day for free instead of moving to the $7 lot.  He also told us that for $13 each, we would get a ferry ride not only to NY, but first to Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty! That was cheaper than the train and we got to add awesome attractions.  The ride back would only be $5 if we took their water taxi back.  What a good deal!

First we hopped on the ferry and rode over to the statue of liberty.

You can see the brooklyn bridge back there

My completely soaked feet.  You can see on my left foot, to the right of the v notch what color they are supposed to be!  I taped my feet before so I think that saved me from blisters!

Next, we stopped at Ellis Island to see where all the immigrants had to go back in the day.  I was just thinking of what that sight that we were seeing would have meant to them!  Many of them couldn't even afford to bring their family all at once.

After we were done, we hopped back on the ferry and headed to New York!  It was overwhelming!  I think the reason I don't like cities is because skyscrapers make me feel claustrophobic and I always feel like they are going to tip over on me or collapse.  We walked around and saw famous sites like wall street, the stock exchange, and trump tower.  We even stopped to get a hot dog off a cart and it was de-lic-ious.

This is in Battery Park.  It was displayed in the plaza of the WTC and  they took what was left and displayed it here with the "eternal flame" in memory of the people that died

The NYPD in action

One of many subway entrances

Wall street

New York Stock Exchange

Getting hot dogs

Mom by a news stand

Next we went to see the World Trade Center.  They are re-building some towers and have a memorial of a waterfall pool for each tower with the names around them.

This was a memorial people left by a fire station

One of the pools, the waterfalls looked awesome in person

It is a double waterfall, there was a second as the water went down the middle

The survivor tree.  It is the only tree the survived the attack but was severed up to where you see the new branches growing out.  It was also later uprooted by a severe storm in 2010 but again, survived

This was right outside of the WTC zone, like across the street

After that we had seen all we wanted to in the financial district so we headed to the water taxi as it started to downpour.

We headed back and decided to stop in Hoboken since I had heard so much about it and it was right there.  It was completely Jersey like you see on TV.  The streets were crowded with people in their 20's-early 30's.  The girls were all dressed up, the guys were all muscly with the jersey hair and look on their face, and they all talked in that awful accent.  Our first stop was Carlo's bakery, where Cake Boss is filmed!  We ordered cupcakes, canolis, and cream filled pastries.  We held off on eating them though. We went next door to a typical NY style pizza place.  Best pizza ever!  I had 2 slices of margherita.  Thin floppy crust mmm-mmm.

Right out open on the street corner

We finally made it back after a very eventful day and got to skype with Sawyer again.  We also ate our desserts- so good!

It is late but we don't have any plans tomorrow until the wedding...except to go eat at Chilis :) There is one in our parking lot and we were willing to travel a lot farther than that to find one lol.