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Published: September 7th 2005
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Statue of Liberty
The photo isn't grainy thats the smog! So after a greuling 12 hour overnight, freezing cold bus ride we made it to New York City!!! The city was amazing, not everything we expected it to be but it was still a good 2 weeks we spent there.
We did all the touristy things such as Staten Island ferry so we could see the statue of liberty. I think we did this on the worst possible day as it was so smoggy!!! we caught the ferry on a sunday so you wouldn't expect there to be so much smog but unfortunately there was 😞 We also had a look aroung ground zero, wall street and the financial district including the first governent building, New york stock exchange, St peters church which was the church accross the street from the 2 towers, it was a major place for resting and feeding the crews who were looking for survivors. It was kind of surreal being at ground zero. looking at it now you would have no idea what happened 4 years ago as the place just looks like a big construction site.
After exploring the financial district we made our way up to Greenwich village, into washington square park,
then from there we went to China town and little Italy. Both were located next to each other and were cool. They had streets blocked off for performers, the restaurants all had tables set up out side so people could eat and drink while watching and listening to the music.
Greenwich village is great it is so different to most parts of New York, it is so green, clean and it doesn't smell!!! (Most of New York has this really weird smell to it) You can tell that the well to do live in the area since most buildings have door men and there are a lot of nice expensive cars in the area. Greenwich village lead us to Union station where they have fresh food markets on Saturdays - they weren't as impressive as the markets in Ottawa but it was still nice to see fresh fruit, veggies and breads.
We discovered a sweet deal for Atlantic city where you buy your bus ticket from greyhound for $29.00 return, choose which casino you want to visit and catch the bus straight there - yeah so what you say.... pick your casino right and they give you up
to $20.00 back that can be swapped for cash or chips, plus the Hilton casino gives you an $8.00 food voucher to be used on the Buffett or casual dinning restaurant!!! Sweet, naturally we went for the buffett option!!! My second stomache got a work out the day we went to Atlantic City! - there were more desserts there than seafood or meat!
Coney Island was as tacky as we thought it would be, rides, skill games and food stands that sold the normal greasy food. Everything looked as though it hadn't been painted since the 70's, same goes for the maintenance program.... but now we can say that we have been there. The thing we found funniest was that the beach had been 'groomed' nothing can be left natural in New York - the sand had been brushed dead flat at some stage during the morning, didn't make the beach look very exciting!
Other touristy things we did included 42nd street and Times Square - boy oh boy were these places full of people and neon lights!! it would have been quite eerie to see it when the huge blackout happened a few years back. We also
managed to find the United Nations buildings, ride the subway lots and see real subway bums, eat pizza by the slice and White castle does really exist! there is one on 8th street that we just had to eat at. They serve the smallest hamburgers we have ever seen, to give you an idea you can fit 2 on your palm and the meals come with at least 2 burgers in them!!!
Madison Square Garden was on our list of things we visited and this place is huge. We couldn't go inside but the outside is gigantic. We saw the Empire State building as well as the Chrysler building. Of the 2 we preffered the Chrysler building - it had a lot more character to it and was a lot more impressive to look at too. We didn't manage to get to the top of the Empire State building as the lines were huge everytime we were near there. We did manage to walk around Central Park and not get shot at or mugged and we went to a comedy club one night too.
We managed to master the subway and see a real subway bum sleeping in
St Peters Church
This is the church accross from the World Trade Centre site used by the rescuers to rest and eat at. the carrige. We caught the subway all the way to Yankee stadium which would be impressive to see a game inside, we don't don't know how many people it seats but the walls are so big - they are tallet than the subway which is elevated off street level.
All in all we had a good time but wouldn't be able to live there, way to many people and not enough trees!!!
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