Katie had mentioned there being a 9/11 memorial in Battery Park which I really wanted to see, but unfortunately we couldn't find it - it may have been on the other side of the ridiculously long line for the Ellis/Statue of Liberty Ferry (standing in line for 1-2 hours in the sweltering sun? Not gonna happen! It was 33C in the shade!). Anyway, we did manage to find quite a number of other interesting-looking memorials. The ones shown below are for marines who died in WW2 (only some of them though... Lars thinks the Atlantic, I think the Pacific) and for the Korean War.
Lars and I had long ago decided not to spend the time and money on going to Ellis Island / the Statue of Liberty, so instead we found our way back through Battery Park to the Staten Island ferry (or "Staten Island" - said in Danish - as Lars kept doing ;) ). The ferry to Staten Island took us fairly close to the Statue of Liberty - not as close as I would have liked (the photo below was taken with digital zoom), but what can you expect from a free ferry ;) I did very much enjoy seeing the Manhattan skyline from the sea side though, and both Lars and I went nuts with the camera ;)
There wasn't much on Staten Island itself we wanted to see, but it did have a train line. I'd come prepared and brought a book, so I told Lars, "Let's go nuts and take the train to the end station and back again." He looked at me. "You sure? I have the best wife!" Hehe :)
Once back on Manhattan we decided to make our way back up North via Wall street, as we figured that was a tourist must. We couldn't have been to NYC and NOT walk down Wall Street. And of course we had another movie-moment when we saw Trinity church at the very top of Wall Street ;) (National Treasure).
We were both done sight-seeing for the day, but neither of us felt ready to return to the hotel yet, so we decided to part ways, Lars went off train-spotting, and I went shopping! :) A friend had asked me to buy some Starbucks coffee for her, which for some reason resulted in me getting a drink on the house! I hadn't expected that, but certainly am not complaining ;) I realised I'm not a big fan of unsweetened green ice tea though, so just as well I didn't pay for it ;). I made my way back to the large B&N on 5th/46th and ended up spending 2 hours there!!! By then I'd found about a million books I wanted, limited myself to just 6 I actually bought, and gotten hold of gifts for all my nieces and nephews. A very productive day indeed :) Now I want to go back and get the other 999.994 books though! ;)
We were in the mood for steak for dinner, and I thought I'd found a steak house by Times Square, but ended up at what turned out to be a place that served steak-ala-fast-food! Very bizarre! Not that the food was bad, it just isn't something you'd ever encounter in Denmark. It's been the oddest things that have struck me as unusual cultural differences! (Another point in case - TV news reporters! They seemed almost like entertainers - even the ones in the studios.)
On our way back to the hotel we decided to visit the M&M store to see what that was like. O_O :-O WOW! The amount of M&M merchandise was just UNBELIEVABLE! Lars felt it was too tacky for words and very quickly had had enough, but I promised myself to return another day without him and just browse to my heart's content :)
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