NYC Recap Day 2

Saturday morning we were up bright & early to catch one of those super touristy bus tours. Thankfully, ours wasn't one of those double decker busses. Instead, it was a former party bus converted into a tour bus. We were able to see so many things, I didn't mind looking like an absolute tourist for a couple of hours.

Our first stop was Central Park & Strawberry Fields...

There was artist doing an exhibition of these naked men. He put most of them on the tops of buildings. The first week they were there, 911 was flooded with calls from people saying that there were jumpers on top of buildings. The strangest part of the statue, though, was that they all had a hotdog, but nothing else... none of the other accessories that are usually found there! :-X

Our next stop was 5th Avenue and then we were off to Pier 17...

We hopped on a boat & took a tour of the harbor & the tip of Manhattan:

I think this picture of Brooklyn was my favorite of the entire trip.

Ellis Island

We were inundated with a certain group of people who had no interest in the Statue of Liberty (US & France) and it was really frustrating. I don't know if their culture just doesn't have any idea of personal space or what. In the above picture, about 5 minutes prior, we were all sitting about 2' back from the railing, my mom, sister, & I, and there was no one around. All the tour guide had to do was say "If you'll look to your right.." and they came running. It was obnoxious. I almost pushed some people overboard...

Then it was on to the financial district. It was crazy packed down there and it was a Saturday!

They have hardly any cemeteries in the city - this was one of the few & it was tiny.

And then we visited the World Trade Center site:

This is the first new tower going up. There are going to be seven of them total, but none that look like to old WTC towers. There will only be one tall tower, and it's going to be 1776 feet high. That's pretty cool.

We had dinner at a place called Havana Central, and I had my first experience with Cuban food. (I think I forgot to mention that we had dinner at Junior's the first night.)

She was excited about the sugar cane in her drink.

Shrimp ceviche

To round out the night, we picked another Broadway show: Memphis. It was really good. We didn't know what it was really about when we picked it, other than rock & roll in the 1950s. It was about a goofy white guy that wandered into an all black underground club on Beale Street in 1952, and fell in love with the music and culture. He discovered a singer and promised her he'd get her on the radio. At the time it was completely unheard of to have that kind of music on the radio, and a lot of people shunned it, but a lot of younger people loved it. He fell in love with the girl he discovered and they had to hide their relationship for years until it was acceptable for them to be together. The entire storyline spanned a ten year period, and there was a lot more to it than I summarized, but you get the idea.

Next up, Day 3.