Sunday, September 5, 2021

Summer Trip Part 6 - New York City

The next stop on our road trip was New York City. After visiting Plymouth, we drove the rest of the way to New York to city the Statue of Liberty. Our hotel was actually just outside of the city in New Jersey, so we decided to see the Statue of Liberty from the New Jersey side. They had a huge park and walking trail there to see it. The pictures are not that great, but it was really cool to see it from the park. We decided not to take the boat out to see it up close. Given the COVID-19 restrictions, there wasn't much that we would have been able to do by taking the ferry - just ride there and ride back. It was also pretty expensive, so we decided to just stay on shore.





Although we were in New York for two nights, we decided to pack all of our city sightseeing into one day. That way we would only have to deal with the hassle of getting in and out of the city once. And it was a big hassle. There was a bus that we planned to catch right outside our hotel to get into the city. While we were waiting, a couple private shuttles came by and stopped to pick us up, but we kept waiting for the public bus because it was cheaper. Then something that looked like the public bus came up. When the driver opened the door, I asked him if it was the public bus and what the charge was. He just said "yes" and that we could pay when we get off. However, once we tried to get off, he told us the amount was several dollars more than we were expecting. It was a private one after all. I told him that was all the money I had and we were not going to pay more. He complained a bit, but in the end was getting tired with me blocking the line and let us just pay the smaller amount. On the way home, I made sure we got the correct "public" bus before we got on.

Our first stop was the New York City temple. It was pretty cool to see, just because it was a different style and because it was right in the middle of the city.




Then we hung out in Central Park some. The children had fun playing on the rocks and some of the toys in the park. It was pretty hot and humid though.




While we were in the city we got to see some cool churches. If I am remembering right, this one was St. Patrick's Cathedral. It reminded me of some of the cool churches that Rebecca and I got to see when we went to Spain.










Seeing some of the iconic statues around Rockefeller center.




Here we are eating some snacks while Rebecca got Indian food from a food truck.



Later, the rest of us got a New York style 20 inch pizza. Asher got it with me while everyone else found a spot to sit in a small courtyard across the street. I let him carry it back and he had a huge grin on his face. Everyone else in the courtyard thought it was pretty cute and several people got up and brought us over chairs and a table and things like that. They loved the pizza. All of the children said that they liked the New York style pizza better than the Chicago one. I liked it better too, but I liked trying the Chicago one better on our trip since the New York style is pretty similar to what we often get back at home.



In the M&M store.



At Times Square.




Walking by the public library. I think it is the Chrysler building that we were trying to get in the background of the picture.




This is us at the Empire State Building. There really was no good way for us to get a picture of it. It was hard to get a view of it from far away because it was surrounded by other skyscrapers. But then, when we were close up to it, it was so tall that I couldn't get it all in. We all got pretty dizzy looking up at it while we were walking around.



This was at the 9/11 memorial.




The New York stock exchange. I don't know why, but this part of the city seemed kind of gloomy to me. It was a bit quieter and the buildings were so tall and the streets narrow that we were walking in the shadow of buildings most of the time.



The bull statue. There was a line almost a block long to get pictures with it, so we just stood across the street to get ours.



On the way to see the Brooklyn bridge we found this hammock park along the pier.



The Brooklyn bridge.



After that we caught the subway again to the main bus terminal. It took us a while to find and get on the correct bus, but eventually we got home. We were all exhausted by the long day of walking and sightseeing. Christian did say that New York City was his favorite city to visit on the trip. And although the weather was hot and humid, it wasn't too bad. And we heard that the next day huge rain storms came in and some of the subways even flooded. So we really lucked out with that.

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