Down by the Bays: New York Day 2

Okay, here's the thing. We did a lot of things while we were in New York. We documented those things. This is a blog about our lives. There are so many pictures, and instead of 45 posts, here are about a billion pictures in one post of one day. I'm not sorry.

We got up at about 7:45 our first day in New York and sort of lazily got ready for the day. We knew that we didn't want to get TOO early of a start because we wanted to miss a lot of the "rush hour" foot/subway traffic, so we took our time and it was nice. We left at about 8:30 in the morning.

The one thing we didn't plan to a T was where we were going to eat. On this particular morning, we were going to the Staten Island Ferry, and Carson wanted to get a bagel on the way. We googled "bagels near me" and the place with the most good reviews wasn't too far. Google maps is a little easier to navigate in a car than on foot, but we finally made it there.

We sat on stone benches, birds perching on nearby branches waiting for us to drop a crumb or two. The bagels were delicious.

We chose to go to the Staten Island Ferry instead of Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty for a few reasons: 1. it's free 2. we knew this trip was going to be more of a touristy overview of New York than an "explore everything in depth" trip, and the Staten Island Ferry would allow us to see the Statue of Liberty from afar, get the ferry experience, but also allow us to see lots of other things once we got off.

We got off the ferry and headed for Wall Street.

Museum of Indian American History

The famous bull statue. We opted not to get a picture with either of us in front of this because it was teaming with people and we really didn't want to wait that long.

Next, we went to Trinity Church. One thing we loved about the city was the neat architecture. Neither of us know a thing about architecture (I remember very little from my art history class in Jr High, only the difference between Ionic and Doric columns, and Carson knows maybe less) but we loved the detail in the buildings and how there was a blend of old and new in the city.

We walked down Wall Street next. I imagine that all the people in suits there who clearly have places to be are very annoyed by the tourists who clearly have nowhere to be and nothing to do but walk slowly and gawk and take pictures. I did my best to stay out of the way, but pictures definitely happened.

The New York Stock Exchange

Next, we walked to the 9/11 Memorial. It was very sobering to look down into the pools where the buildings once stood. When I came in 2001, there were chain link fences all around this area with posters and candles and stuffed animals and people praying and crying for those whose lives had been lost. I think these memorials are a beautiful way to honor those who lost their lives that day.

The Freedom Tower

We didn't have anything specific to see in these places, but we walked through Greenwich Village and SoHo.

We stopped and sat for a moment at the Hudson River Park.

Next, we went to Chinatown and Canal Street. Carson waited in line at this place for some spring rolls.

We sort of accidentally made our way to Little Italy next.

Carson suggested that I get a cannoli in Little Italy since he had just gotten a spring roll in Chinatown, and who am I to say no to a great suggestion like that?

There were lots of cafes lining the street where people were eating lunch, so we decided to join them, and chose a random one. This wasn't part of "the plan", but it was a terrific stop.

We made our way back and decided to reward ourselves for so much walking by taking the subway to our next stop: Times Square.

We had heard good things about finding deals on last minute Broadway tickets by stopping by the box offices so we tried it out. I think our real problem is that we specifically wanted to see Aladdin, which is not a cheap show to see. We still walked to multiple box offices and asked about different shows, but decided ultimately to save the money and see the show another time when we've budgeted for it. I think it would have been so fun, but we both felt better not spending that money this time, especially since we knew that we'd be spending money on tickets to Top of the Rock the next day.

So we were exhausted. When we saw these big rocks just inside Central Park, we decided to follow what we saw other people doing and sit on them. Central Park was on our list for the next day, so I didn't feel a need to actually walk around and explore, and we'd already walked about 8.5 miles that day.

I fell asleep on a rock for about 45 minutes so yeah, I guess you could say we were pretty tired. Carson says I even snored.

Hello Central Park horse!

We were tired and it began to rain (and it got COLD suddenly), so we popped into this little dinner for warm drinks. I'm pretty sure I had the most expensive hot chocolate ever, and I'm almost certain it was Swiss Miss. Either way it was warm and that was the point.

Tossing a penny into the fountain.

We walked past Radio City Music Hall. NYU had a graduation here that day, so we saw lots of caps and gowns.

We were walking and discovered that we were once again in Times Square, so we decided to walk around and sort of aimlessly shopped. We went into the most well-organized Forever21 ever and H&M, looking for a jacket because it actually was colder than it looks in the pictures, but we were out of luck. Carson hadn't been into an M&Ms store before, so that was a fun adventure. We also got free samples of Reeses at the Hershey store, another place he'd never visited. We didn't buy anything.