The Rundown: Even though we went to bed a little late, the combination of being excited and Nana's snoring woke me up at 5:30am. I got up and spent a peaceful hour watching the Hudson River roll by. It is really beautiful! That early in the morning there weren't any boats disturbing the water. It was so peaceful! After a little while I got my shower and got ready, which got everyone else moving, too. We went down and had breakfast at the hotel then talked to the concierge about the best way for us to get to the Statue of Liberty for a tour. Little was I to know, she was the devil in disguise! Keep in mind, I am seven months pregnant. VERY obviously pregnant. I have a three year old daughter, a nine year old daughter and my mom, who is fifty nine. The concierge was very helpful, and told me that the shortest way to get to Lady Liberty was to take a bit of a walk, catch a local ferry, then go to the larger ferry that would take us to the statue. Well, that BIT of a walk was TWO MILES!!! Mom and I, thinking the walk would be more like two or three blocks, wore flip flops. Big mistake! Mom's feet were shredded by the time we got there. My back felt like it was going to just quit working. It was awful! The kids were grumpy and tired, too, and we hadn't even made it to the statue!
Our first stop was at Ellis Island, which was pretty amazing. We strolled through the hallways that welcomed so many people to the USA. If only those walls could talk! We watched a thirty minute film that told us a bit about the immigration process at Ellis Island and even Katie found it interesting. Reese fell asleep, but no one was surprised at that! We got our first real taste of rude behavior immediately after that film. I bent over to pick up the stroller and the next thing I knew the older teenage boy sitting next to me was climbing over me in an effort to get out of the theater. Not only did HE climb over me, but the whole rest of his family, too! It was crazy! The whole other end of the aisle was empty. They could've easily gone that way, but he chose to climb over not only me, but mom (with Reese asleep in her lap) and Katie, too! It was so rude...
After the movie we decided that there really wasn't anything else for us to see at Ellis Island, so we got in line to catch the ferry to Lady Liberty's home.
We did eventually make it to see the famous landmark, and I was strangely disappointed. Somehow she was shorter than I expected! Mom said the same thing! We managed to find a ranger station that was willing to supply mom with some band-aids for her feet and we set off to explore. We were both surprised by the number of foreign languages we heard spoken around us. I guess I just expected most of the visitors to this US national landmark to be English speaking Americans. I know that was terribly silly of me, but that was my preconceived notion. I know that we heard French, Italian, several different Asian languages and some I didn't recognize at all! It was amazing!
We paid a crudely high amount of money for some burgers and hot dogs for lunch, but figured it was worth the money to keep the kids happy. We truly didn't expect it to take us three hours to actually get from our hotel to the Statue of Liberty. We honestly thought we'd be able to get over there, see everything, and get back to the city for lunch. Since our "little walk" took us so long, we ended up eating bad burgers and paying a lot for them, too. Ugh...
We hunted for a couple of geocaches while we were on the island, but it was so cloudy that the GPS on my iPhone wouldn't work very well. We did find a cache on the way home from the ferry station, so that was fun! Katie and I just love treasure hunting!
On the way home from Liberty Island we figured out that after we rode the small ferry back to Jersey City we could catch the light rail to a station within a block of our hotel. I wanted to scream! We could've ridden the light rail to get TO the ferry, too! If only our lovely concierge had told us THAT! We did make it back to the hotel in one piece, and I think that if our helpful concierge had been at her desk my mom would've ripped her to shreds!
After resting a bit and putting on our tennis shoes we set out on a quest for dinner. Katie wanted pizza (again), so we decided to try out the famous restaurant, Lombardi's. It took us a while, and a bit more walking to get there. My iPhone GPS is useless among all the tall buildings, so we had to depend on our paper map to get us to the correct subway station. We made it there by 10pm and had a FABULOUS pizza! We ordered one cheese and pepperoni pizza for the kids and one pizza with sweet red peppers, meatballs, mushrooms and cheese for mom and me. It was delicious and FAST! I would definitely recommend Lombardi's to anyone visiting NYC.
It was late when we headed back to the hotel, but we made it. We were all so exhausted that we just crashed when we got in. All in all, it was a good but busy and tiring day.
High Points of the Day:
Katie: Finding that geocache!
Reese: Riding on the ferry to Liberty Island.
Shannon: Seeing the Statue of Liberty, Lombardi's Pizza
Low Points of the Day:
Katie: Walking, and walking, and walking...
Reese: Not getting ice cream at dinner.
Shannon: Being exhausted from walking all day.
Photos of the Day:
On the ferry headed to see the Statue of Liberty!
The girls being silly at Ellis Island.
A view of Manhattan behind my favorite girls!
Reese cheesing it up in front of Lady Liberty.
The grand Lady herself!Miles: 5
Total miles: 2759
I'm still working on getting receipts together. Will post later!
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