Alastair was confronted with the task of leaving Washington
DC at 11 at night and driving straight through the night to get to a city north
of New York City. Connor did a great job staying up all night and keeping
Alastair awake. We arrived to Lain’s cousin’s house, Jill, as the sun was
coming up. We rested for a few hours, and got ready to take the train to New
York City.
The train took us right to Grand Central Station. Our first
sight we wanted to see was the Statue of Liberty. To soak it all in, we decided
to walk all of 5th Avenue. It took a couple of hours, but we enjoyed
just walking around and seeing all the buildings and all the people. While
walking, we saw the Empire State Building, Flat Iron Building, and NYU. While walking,
we imagined living in the city. (This is something we always do when we visit
major cities.)
We ended up in the Financial District and spent a little bit
of time at Ground Zero. It was a powerful experience to reflect on what had
happened twelve years ago, when we were only children. We talked about that day
and spent a few moments soaking it all in. It’s good to see the construction of
the new World Trade Center and the memorial area, that has yet to be completed.
After visiting the World Trade Center, Alastair checked his
phone to see when the next boat will go out, and realized we were two hours too
late. We decided to navigate through the ridiculously complicated subway system
and find our way to Times Square.
Alastair
loves being around a big crowd of people, so he was in for a treat! There were
people everywhere! While we were there, we stood in line to get on one of the
big advertisement screens. For an attraction that is free, it was well worth
it. We had fun just standing there and making faces, for all to see! I went to
a couple of stores while Alastair and Connor went “photo-bombing” on other
tourists.
On the train ride home, Alastair fell into a deep slumber
due to the many days of driving. As we were sitting there, Connor noticed that
he became an artist’s subject, and we called the girl out on it. We shared a
few laughs and had a good conversation. We arrived at the house and were glad
to have a comfy bed to sleep on for the night to rest our tired feet.
We were still determined to see the Statue of Liberty, so we
drove into NYC in the Wall Street area. We couldn’t find good parking on the
streets, so we went into one of the parking garages, once again. Not as
expensive as Chicago, but definitely not as cheap as Washington DC.
We bought our tickets and hopped onto the ferry to take us
to Lady Liberty. Unfortunately, tickets had been sold out until September to go
into the statue, so we were only able to walk around it. It was also
unfortunate that we were unable to go to Ellis Island. Just another reason to
go back to NYC in the future!
It was an amazing experience being surrounded by people from
all over. We heard many different languages and saw many people from other
cultures. One unfortunate, but amusing, experience occurred while we were
waiting to leave. A Jewish man, with his family was standing in line, when a
gust of wind blew his kippah off his head and into the water. Everyone looked
helplessly as it floated farther and farther away. All he could do was laugh
along with his family, at his misfortune.
After paying another billion dollars in tolls, we were on
our way to upstate New York, towards Alastair’s mission.
