NY Day One: We Survived!

Yesterday was a driving day. We left wonderful, quiet, contemplative Maine, and began the second and opposite part of our vacation. We drove almost 8 hours yesterday, but broke up the drive with a brief stop in Boston to see the USS Constitution. The best part of that visit was that while we were taking pictures of the ship, some fresh-from-training sailors struck up a conversation with us - all for the sake of giving us some extra info about the flags being flown on the Consititution. They were so young and so proud to be in uniform and to be serving our country. I asked what ship they would be shipping out on, and found out they were assigned to a submarine. The day or so before there had been a nuclear submarine that had a fire while in dock, and one of sailors them said that the news reports of the fire had "freaked out" his parents. As they wandered off, it was hard not to think of all the very young soldiers and sailors who have served our country over our history, and of their parents, waiting at home.

Our day today started with a drive into New York. Once again, our GPS took us an interesting route - through a state park. We weren't far from the city, but you never couldn't have proven it by our surroundings. I'm used to California, where Los Angeles is surrounded by door to door people, rolling out as far as the eye can see. By contrast, NYC seemed to us to be hiding. Finally, the forest gave way, and we had proof the city existed.

Our route had us going down through Manhattan and then going through the Holland Tunnel. Mark successfully navigated this route while Amy and I oohed and ahhed over the first glimpses of the city. Our goal was to park in New Jersey at Liberty State Park and begin our tour of Ellis Island from there. We arrived without incident, found this memorial to the World Trade Center.

Once we entered the old train station to purchase our Ellis Island tickets, we immediately wished we had been able to purchase and printout tickets online. It would not be the first time we would feel the sting of our last minute planning. The line was a little long, and security was tight - it took about 90 minutes. We were in line with modern immigrants and visitors from all over the world. There were a lot of families, and it was fun to people watch all the cute kids. You couldn't help but think of the interminable lines the original immigrants must have waded through. The building we were in was an original ferry and train station where immigrants who had been though the process at Ellis Island were able to purchase tickets to go on to their destinations. The train lines are no longer active, but they keep them as a (decaying) memory to those days.

The LINE. Fortunately it was cool, with the breeze blowing through the open but shaded area. One had the feeling that the process could have been streamlined just a bit.

Abandoned railway station.

I have quite a few more pics of these areas that need cropping or photoshopping, and no energy or time to do it, so these few pictures will have to do. I kind of liked the train station lost to weeds - it gave it a ghostly appearance. Both Mark and Amy thought it just looked uncared for.

After the first line, we went out into the sun to wait for our ferry. It was only about 15 minutes and we had views of the city to look at while we waited.

We had decided not to do the Statue of Liberty since it is down for repairs so our main excursion was Ellis Island. It is a huge place! The bottom floor begins with the story of immigration in general - what areas of the world immigrants came from and what the reasons were they wanted to leave. This was eye opening. the sheer numbers of immigrants that came in such a short amount of time makes me wonder that the country did not implode under the financial strain of the influx. There are thousands upon thousands of heartbreaking stories but there were even more stories of impossible successes. Astonishing, really. Young people who set out on their own to brave the new world, young families that worked together to find their slice of freedom. Men and women who wanted freedom badly enough to leave everything behind and work every hour to make it happen - many with the belief that their children would benefit. I think we were in line with a few of their descendants today, and as photos were taken and glimpses of conversation overheard, you could tell that those early sacrifices have paid off. We spent a couple of hours here, and could have done more.

 Lost luggage. Can you imagine after all they went through? Losing your luggage? For us it's just a matter of buying a few new clothes. For them it was everything they owned in the world. One exhibit had a display of items brought to remember home by. One was a coconut!

Ellis Island

Soft Pretzels! There was a small cafe and a snack bar with indoor and outdoor seating. It was pleasant to eat with the view of the Statue of Liberty and views of the city.

We did not get very close to the Lady, so all we have is a side view.

After Ellis Island we made our fateful error of the day. We decided to go to New York. Our tickets were for NJ to Ellis Island and back, but you could take a NY bound ferry if you wished. The problem is that you'd have to purchase another ticket or take a train or water taxi to get back to your car in NJ. Having read up on this the night before, we felt confident we knew what we were doing (ominous music should be playing in the background here . . . .)

We exited the ferry at Battery Park, and walked towards Ground Zero. We had hoped to go to the  Ground Zero Memorial and knew that we needed a timed ticket to be able to go to see it up close, but hadn't been able to get one online the night before. So we thought we'd just go, and see as much as we could. Unfortunately, it is all blocked off. We did sneak a couple of peaks through barriers at the construction process. Since it is Memorial Day weekend, the free passes to the memorial are hard to find and we are not sure we will make it to the actual memorial, which is kind of sad. But again, this trip was very last minute.

 Gound zero. I still cannot fathom the loss of those towers. The empty sky where they stood, even after 10 years, is still difficult to take in. Even outside the barriers, the mood of the crowd was somber here. The new tower, Freedom Tower, is rising taller and taller.

I had not been feeling well so we decided to get back to NJ and find our hotel. It was about 5pm when we headed back to Pier 6, where we had been assured there was a water tax back to Liberty State Park. Not only was there not a NJ water taxi, but there was an extremely rude water taxi employee who gave us NO help at all and did little more than grunt in response to our questions. I have a very good friend who, in spite of her petite looks, deals with this kind of person very well. She is always threatening to "rip the face off" of rude and unhelpful people. She always has the choicest comebacks. However, she wasn't with us, so we were forced to just be really irritated. The taxi worker had pointed to pier 11, so off we went to Pier 11. This is NOT a short walk. But, we checked out smart phones and it sure looked to us like we'd find the water taxi we needed there. The short answer is that no, there was no water taxi to NJ at Pier 11. So it was time for our secret weapon: AMY! Amy's trip to London this year was a boot camp of big city navigating. She helped us get to the PATH station for a subway ride under the river, and then to grab a light rail line out toward Liberty State Park. Brilliant! Why we didn't put this part of the planning in her hands to begin with I'll never know. Without her, I would be sleeping on a park bench in NY.

Buying our PATH tickets. We liked how it said to "dip" your credit card.

In the end, Mark still had to go about a mile to the car. And, even after a long day walking all over Ellis Island and NYC, he was not only a gentleman and offered to go get the car while we waited, but he jogged to it! That's right, my 51 year old husband jogged to get the car. I am incredibly impressed. I may be a broken down wreck at 50, but he is lookin' good and pretty darn sweet, too!

We were bone tired when we finally got to our hotel. Our GPS again routed us the most interesting way to our hotel, which was only about 9 miles away. I think that somewhere in its setup, these boxes are checked:

• all directions must never go more than two blocks in any direction without a turn
• must go through the worst parts of town
• if at all possible, include 38th street. 

Fortunately, even our crazed GPS could not work in Indianapolis' 38th street on this one, but it did manage the first two.

Needless to say, we do not want a repeat of our transportation failings tomorrow, so Amy has generously spent an hour this evening planning our trip tomorrow along with all the associated train stops. Our hotel has a bus stop right out front that will take us straight to Time Square to start our day. On the docket for tomorrow are: Central Park, Grand Central Station, The Empire State Building, and Times Square. If it rains we can always spend the day in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had intended to go to the NY Public Library, but it is closed on Monday. I am very sad about that. Also, when we went to their website this evening, a splash page appeared talking about branches closing and budget cuts. Somehow NYC isn't as much of an escape from real life as Heavenly Days . . .