Advertisement
Published: April 22nd 2012
Edit Blog Post
April 19, 2012 – New York
We made it to New York! We didn't even see an iceberg!
We got into New York very early this morning – we were all up just before dawn, and out on deck to make sure we were able to see the entry into New York, see the Statue of Liberty in the early morning light. We caught some beautiful scenes at daybreak as the sun rose over the Bay, and were thrilled to watch the Statue of Liberty as we silently slid past her in the dawn of day. What a sight!
Docking in New York, we were all booked on tours for the morning – Don & Jocelyn went on the New York Harbour tour, whilst Damian & I went on the Downtown Manhattan & 911 Memorial Tour. We enjoyed our tour very much – we were treated to a Water Taxi ride down the Hudson River, past the site of the plane crash of a few years ago, and out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island for a closer look at those two iconic sites. It was a lovely opportunity to see the Statue of Liberty much
closer up, and as we didn't expect that as part of the tour it was a lovely surprise! The original dock where the Carpathia docked at after arriving with the survivors of the Titanic's sinking is still there, but is nothing more than rotting wooden stumps sticking out of the water. It's amazing that they haven't been pulled out to make way for something else, but New Yorkers have a strong sense of history and so many historic sites are preserved if not maintained.
After our river tour, we disembarked and walked into the Financial District - past the Statue of the Bull in Wall Street (I asked where the Statue of the Bear was, but all I got was a blank look from the tour guide!!) and we enjoyed seeing the iconic buildings such as the New York Stock Exchange. We walked for a while down Broadway, and eventually arrived at the 911 Memorial.
The 911 Memorial is an amazing place. Getting through the security to actually get in there was quite astonishing, but it's worth the effort and every staff member we dealt with during the process was friendly and very courteous. There are two massive
Memorial Pools – the North Pool and South Pool – which are in the footprints of the Twin Towers. The Pools are both edged with bronze, upon which are inscribed the names of all those people who were killed in the 911 attacks and also an attack which occurred in 1993 when extremists set off a bomb in the basement of one of the Trade Centre buildings. The names are not organised alphabetically, but arranged “adjacent” - which means that the names are grouped with people who worked together, who knew each other, as requested by many of the families of the victims. It's a beautiful personalisation of the Memorial – those who knew each other and died together are remembered like that. It was very thought-provoking to actually be at the site of the 911 attacks – it's actually difficult to envision what it would have been like at the time (even though we all saw it on TV as it happened) because it's so different now. It's a credit to the people of New York, to recover as they have.
After our visit to the Memorial, we loaded onto a bus and were treated to a tour
of some of the other areas of New York City – the traffic was horrendous and we were
very grateful to be sitting on a bus watch it all slide past … the bus driver got a big round of applause from all us yokels when we got back to the Cruise Terminal!
Tonight we are doing another organised tour – we are visiting the Empire State Building and seeing the City Lights. If there is time, I think the tour also takes us to Time Square – fingers crossed that we have time!
Later ... Okay, we've just got back from the Empire State & City Lights Tour. What fun! We enjoyed a bus tour of inner New York, down 5
th Avenue and past all the iconic buildings (Chrysler Centre, Empire State Building, Times Square etc). We stopped under the Brooklyn Bridge and spent half an hour or so taking in the New York skyline, had ice-cream at the Brooklyn Ice-Creamery (mmm butter pecan icecream) before heading to the Empire State Building. After going through the security procedures, and queuing for nearly an hour, we eventually made it to the 86
th Floor (Observation Floor) and took
in the lights of New York. Absolutely stunning!! The bus then took us to Times Square, and let us off to wander Times Square. By this time it was nearly midnight, and Times Square at midnight is fantastic – people everywhere, the lights, the shops. So much fun. We had to have a New York hotdog, and a pretzel. Twee, I know – but you gotta do it! We visited the M&M Shop, and we found the Bubba Gump Shrimp shop. Forrest Gump is our favourite movie of all time, so finding the Bubba Gump shop was great!!
I would like to dispel some myths about New York City:
The Home Security / Immigration people are not all cold, insensitive beings. The people we dealt with through Immigration as we disembarked the Balmoral this morning were all lovely people who were courteous, cheerful and chatty. It was an easy, pleasant and efficient process.
New Yorkers are not rude people. In fact, we were pleasantly astonished by the wonderful manners of every single person we spoke to or even bumped into in the street. Everyone we encountered had old world manners, saying 'please and thank you', 'excuse me'
and 'you're welcome' when thanked.
New York is not a danger zone. TV programs like Law & Order portray New York as a crime-ridden city, and there is no doubt that it has it's problems with crime. But that's no different to everywhere else. But at no time did we feel anxious about our personal safety. We had our passports and extra money secreted in a money belt, but actually found it a waste of time. All you need in New York is a very standard level of mindfulness. It is no different to what we do at home.
New York is a big city, but feels a lot like Sydney. Except people are more polite here than they are at home! If you ever have the opportunity to visit New York – do it. We came to New York with a slight feeling of anxiety because we didn't know what to expect, but within an hour we were enjoying the ambience of the city very much.
Tomorrow we have another day in the city, and we're hoping to get over to Central Park and visit some of the iconic shops in the city such as the
M&M Store and the Apple Store. However, we have left much of this holiday “up to the Universe” so tomorrow we will enjoy what comes, whatever comes.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.091s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 13; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0505s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jules
non-member comment
NY and UK
Loved the comment about where is the Bear? Hilarious. Can't wait to hear all about NYC and your tips on what to see and do. Spoke to a cousin in UK on Sat - predicted coldest May EVER. BRRRR. St Andrews should be brass monkeyville. Thanks for the blogs - I'm loving them.