New Goals in mind

A big thank you shout out to my sister, Ariel, for posting this quote yesterday which was the kick in the pants I really needed! I've officially decided I need to take control of my eating habits. I've tried this many times before and just as I start to be successful something comes up to throw me off. This isn't about losing weight (but I wouldn't hate that), it's about being more conscious with what I'm eating and putting into my system. It's about feeling physically fit. I'm starting a new thing as of this moment and I've never really been as public about when I try new things as I'm being this time. Why the change? Because I need help from those around me. To those that see me regularly, please don't encourage me to fall adrift from my goal. If you invite me out, be aware this is a tough one and I need as much support as I can get. If I come visit don't be offended if I don't eat snacks that you have. Thank you all for any and all help with this!

I'm putting these on all my social media accounts so that anyone who knows me should see this. Wish me luck :)

Vacation Videos

I'm going to warn you now, these videos aren't super exciting and I also got a warning that the sound may not match up to the video (plus most don't even have real sound except the diner/singing one. It would probably be better to just turn down your volume anyways) but this is my blog and my record keeping so here they are:




Above are random Niagara Falls videos taken with the Go Pro. Just to give you an idea of the area. I absolutely loved being right next to the falls like that.




Cave of the winds was so awesome! That spot where the water is coming down and you can see a guy getting his picture taken, but he's not all the way back? Yeah, that's as far back as you wanted to get. The water was really cold and it was really windy. But I would go back in a heartbeat!


A good view of the Canada side with the Secret Gardens. The Canada side is a good one to get a view of the whole falls. But you can only get close to them on the U.S. side. Apart from the Hornblower (Canada's version of Maid of the Mist) that is.


It's unfortunate that the singing doesn't sounds as good on video as it did at the restaurant, but take it from me that they were amazing! They all ended their performances right here so we always got at least part of the show.


Not the best in that people were in my way, but I couldn't get enough of the Statue of Liberty. This was just my favorite video from there.

Warning, the below one is our whole Maid of the Mist ride, so it's a bit longer:

Dos and Dont's of our Vacation

So now that we are back and we've spent a lot of time away here are our takeaways from the trip:

• Do go to Niagara Falls! It's amazing! Also, do get a Discover Pass...it's really only worth it for the Cave of the Winds and Maid of the Mist, but you'll still save money by getting it. And when you do those attractions make sure to bring a Go Pro (or other waterproof camera). I can't tell you how many people we saw with their phones or real professional cameras...and I bet they weren't the same afterwards. You WILL get wet!
• Do plan to spend at least a whole day there. If you wanted to hike any trails at the Gorge Discover Center plan for more (we didn't do them so I couldn't tell you how much more).
• Do eat at the Top of the Falls Restaurant. It was amazing and the food is pretty good.
• Do go to the Canada side (so make sure to bring your passport). It's cooler to have a full view of the falls, plus there are plenty of pic opportunities on the way over.
• Don't do the theater at the main center...the only interesting stories are one you could probably find on the Wiki page...there aren't very many.
• Don't be surprised with how dirty New York City is.
• Don't plan more than, say, 4 days in the city though (9 days is REALLY long).
• Do get Statue of Liberty tickets at least 6 months in advance. And as long as you don't have knee issues or any sort of disability that prevents you from walking or going up steps definitely go up to the crown (it's not that much further and is worth the extra $2, or whatever it is)!
• Do make sure you start things earlier in the day as it helps to avoid crowds!
• If you can only go to one museum, make it The Met! It's amazing and has all the things the other ones have pretty much. But make sure to plan for at least half a day there.
• Do go see Central Park, either Rockefeller Center or Empire State Building (you get pretty much the same view. Rockefeller gives you a better view of the park though), Statue of Liberty, 9/11 memorial fountains (not the museum), and a Broadway play at the very least. The rest of the things are overrated in my opinion.
• Don't stay near Times Square...it's just a gross, busy area.
• Don't plan on driving. Either walk or take the subway everywhere...trust me things are really that close.
• Do watch where you walk...there's garbage everywhere.
• Don't be surprised by the tiny hotel rooms too...they have to cram a lot into a city so highly populated so it's not going to be very big no matter what.
• Do get a flash pass to Six Flags...doesn't matter the day or weather.
• Don't listen to the weather all the time...if we did we wouldn't have experienced everything that we did.
• Bring Sunscreen...and lots of it.
• Don't forget to take pictures and videos...the memories it brings back are amazing.

I'm definitely glad we did this trip. I'm glad we can get back to reality now, but I know in a couple weeks I'm going to miss being there haha. I hope you enjoyed my posts, pictures and videos. It was fun to do the "research".

New York Vacation Day 13 - Six Flags and an Anniversary

Well today couldn't have been a better day, especially for our anniversary! Like I said, last night the weather said we were supposed to get storms starting around 1 and then going for the rest of the day. The park opened at 10:30 so I was partly thinking we should just skip it and take a lounge day since that didn't leave us much time to do rides. Boy am I glad we didn't do that!

 

Once we got into the park we immediately went to the Flash Pass area (this was the first time we've gotten this, but what better day to use it than the day it may rain?). We were told repeatedly that they were expecting rain later in the day, the lines should be short since it was a Monday, if we decided to take the pass and don't use it we don't get our money back, and are we sure we didn't want to go look at the lines before deciding? It was annoying to hear over and over, but I knew no matter what I wanted to have it just in case it rained in the middle of the day and we wanted to finish up rides after that passed. So we finally got through the questioning, got our pass, and hurried to our first ride.

I told Larry I definitely wanted to ride the Kingda Ka again and to aim to go for the front of the line, but my main concern was getting to all the other big rides first so we didn't miss out on anything. Like the planner that I am we decided to start at one end of the park and make our way over to the other side doing just the big rides. There were also a couple of dark/indoor rides that we figured we'd save for last since those usually give me a headache (if I can't see the track I can't prepare myself for the way it will turn). We got so lucky because while the clouds looked iffy all morning, we did get all the big rides in before noon. We also got to ride Kingda Ka again, but we didn't get front row. There was a really long line for the front and we still had quite a few more big rides so we did the third row instead, but it was still so worth it!

Never happened to us, but
I was partly hoping it would've

Us after riding the Kingda Ka
The first time

We decided around 1 that we would get some lunch and then see if we felt like doing any other rides again (it still hadn't rained or even start to look like it was going to rain so we wanted to push our luck as long as we could). Luckily we found a place with air conditioning for lunch, but I'll tell you now that if I never have a gross cheap burger again I'll be happy. We've had so many on this trip I stopped counting my calories haha. After lunch we felt pretty fried and tired and Larry had quite a bit of school work to catch up on so we decided we'd get the indoor rides in and then head back to the hotel. Thankfully the rides weren't too dark so I never ended up getting a headache or sick, in fact I really liked them. It was nice because we had only been at the park for about 3 or 4 hours and we had gotten everything we wanted to do in. We did end up using our Flash Pass for a few rides, but we could've done without with how small all the lines where, it was mostly just to test it out.

 

When we got back to the room I decided to take a quick shower to wash all the sweat and sunscreen off and help get things packed back up quicker. While I was packing I happened to find this paper underneath a bed with a cute love poem:

 

At first I thought Larry had printed it off and didn't mean for me to find it (that has happened to us before), but when I read it more I realized someone must have left it behind on accident. But how fitting is it that I found it today? On our Anniversary of all days and in all hotel rooms?

I was telling Larry at one point today that this vacation really could not have gone better. It was supposed to rain the entire time we were here and we only got rain maybe one night in New York and then last night and tonight (it was raining crazily after dinner last night and then when we went to get dinner tonight). We only had a day to fit in Niagara Falls and Six Flags and yet we were able to fit everything we wanted in those days. We had a while in New York, but we never got robbed or hurt or lost anything (some of those were fears of Larry's). While it has been a long trip and I'm so very excited to see our kitties and home tomorrow, I'm also sad to think it's all over with now. Unfortunately we have a really long layover in Minnesota, but it's the cool airport so it should be fun :)

New York Vacation Day 12 - Liberty Bell, Atlantic City, and Six Flags, New Jersey (and Number 14)

So today was our last morning in New York and while I've had a lot of fun and gotten to see a lot of new things I'm so excited to move onto the third leg of this trip. We hurried and packed our stuff, ate a quick breakfast, and headed out the door by 8.

 

We got lucky with our rental car. We always rent compact cars since we've never needed anything bigger, but the shop didn't have any compact with gas in it as we reserved. They ended up upgraded us to a Kia Soul with little gas in it and said we wouldn't need to fill up before turning it in.  Score! We quickly made our way to a gas station to fill up (we still had a long drive ahead of us) and left the city.

 

Our last shots of the city.
Good bye New York!

 

I had decided a few weeks ago that our drive was only a couple hours, but we had to get our car early and we couldn't check in until 4 so we should stop somewhere on our way there. I really wanted to see the Liberty Bell and Larry really wanted to do Atlantic City. Well last night I was going over timing and our route and decided we had time for both (even though Larry said he would be okay if we only did the Bell, he would just have more fun at the casino. Since he's been so good with letting me call the shots so far on this whole trip I thought he deserved some fun too).

 

The Liberty Bell area was really pretty. The Bell itself was much smaller than I thought it would be, but it was so cool to see it. We didn't have a lot of time at this stop so we didn't walk through Independence Hall, but we got to walk right by it and see through it and everything so I figured it was close enough. In total I think we spent about  an hour in this area so it was enough time. We even got to see an old colonial marching band play in the courtyard area.

 

Liberty Bell

 

Independence Hall

After that we headed over to Atlantic City real quick. I felt like it was Father's Day so I made sure to send the following picture with a little note to my dads letting them know we were thinking of them, but I couldn't post anything on social media because I didn't want anything with our location posted while we were away:

I was then quickly informed Father's Day is next weekend (by the way I should mention I had their gifts delivered earlier in the week...whoops!).

So yes, we did stop at the Taj Mahal (again, you can't go to a place like this and not see a big site like this!). I decided I was hungry and Larry kept saying the buffet would be worth it. The only thing is he didn't realize I wanted to eat right when we got in there so we skipped the buffet (since he wasn't hungry enough to make it worth the money) and just eat some Panda. Then we went down and found a Black Jack table to play on. I lost my betting money real quick (and even some of Larry's). Larry ended up "winning $150 and taking it from Donald Trump" as he wanted me to state it haha. I will say the casino is a lot more like Vegas then Wendover only without smoking (I could still smell it, but there were signs all over saying you couldn't).

Finally we got on the road after a couple of hours there and headed to our hotel. Boy if anyone thinks New Jersey is dirty and gross they should really go see New York! This place is gorgeous! We had to take the long way to our hotel to avoid toll roads, but it was more than worth it. We spotted some deer and other wildlife just sitting on the side of the road (still alive, I promise) and the houses are on huge lots of land with trees everywhere lining the roads.

We drove past a street called Nugent Street (or road? I can't remember) and it had some pretty homes. I would totally live here if need be. The best part is our hotel had some iffy review on TripAdvisor, but it was the best one of all the options. It's so much better though! It's clean and big and so nice! My only issues are it's 10 miles from Six Flags (but still the closest hotel) and we accidentally ordered it with two twin bed so I'm not sure we'll be able to sleep in the same bed tonight...I guess we'll try it out.

I had bought tickets for Six Flags for tonight and the park still had quite a few more hours so we headed over. Unfortunately I accidentally grabbed the ticket for Monday so they couldn't let us in right away. We had to go to Guest Services for them to upgrade them, but that only cost $10 so it wasn't too bad. I could still kick myself for forgetting (luckily the Sunday one will work for Monday without any new fees). I decided we had to hurry and ride the Kingda Ka this first day so that we could get in any row and then tomorrow we could try for the front row. When we got in the line it said it had 90 minutes (the park closed in 3 so I figured it'd be safe, might be our only ride, but we should be good). Three hours later we finally got to ride on it, which means I have officially ridden the World's Tallest Roller Coaster to date!!!! I'm so happy, it's a quick ride, but I loved it! Oh and good news, it didn't make me sick :)

Still waiting in line after 2 hours!

I was right in assuming it would be our only ride, we got in JUST before the park closed so it was super lucky. On our way home we stopped at Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner (because yum and it was close). Once we were done there was this HUGE rainstorm just a coming down...good timing once again. Although I am really worried about the weather tomorrow. You see before we left I was checking the weather a lot and it said it was going to basically rain our whole trip. Well we hadn't seen any rain until today and when I checked a couple days ago today and Monday was super clear with barely a 10% chance of rain so I figured we'd be good. After the storm we got tonight I decided to check online and it says there are going to be scattered thunderstorms tomorrow, which means the park could close down. I'm still going to go just in case, but I really hope we get to ride more rides. It'd be pretty tragic to come all this way and not get to ride anything else (I hope they'll refund my tickets if so though).

Fingers crossed things go better, oh and my brother finally got us pics of our cats so I'm feeling SO much better now and ready to go have some fun tomorrow. Happy weekend ya'll! Our last one on vacation now.

New York Vacation Day 11 - Coney Island

Well today is our last full day in New York, which means we should have big plans right? Well we're going out with a bang and doing Coney Island! I thought it would be good to do a roller coaster park right before we spend two more days at a roller coaster park haha.

One thing that has surprised me on this trip is how much New Yorkers are okay with making out in public...It's so gross and so should be more private when you're in such a crowded city. We had a long subway route today so we saw quite a bit of it and it's just so weird. Nothing about the dirty, humid, hot subway screams make out session to me, but whatever I guess.

Coney Island is a really cool area, but one thing we learned is to go on a weekday during summer. I wanted to buy an unlimited wristband (which helps you get a locker), but apparently they don't do those during weekends, you have to buy a card with points on them and then each ride is so many points. The sales lady suggested doing a 75 point card for $60 so we did that. It was easy to use up. We did one called Power Surge (super fun!) and then decided doing the Sling Shot was a must! Lucky for us we got to ride it twice :) I had decided I needed video proof that we rode this to show some fellow roller coaster junkie family members (I'm sure you know who you are). Well after we got off I went to go buy the video and apparently their system didn't shut it off between riders and it was too big of a file to put on their tiny USB's. They asked us if we'd be willing to go on it again to get a new video since we had already purchased it. There was absolutely no hesitation in that decision haha. Unfortunately I hit my head a bunch the second time so it kind of knocked  me around a bit. I can handle roller coaster and fun things like this, but if my head gets hit too hard and I get a headache I'm usually done. Since this was only the second ride I told myself I had to push through. We ended up doing this other ride called the Luna 360 where you sit in a circle, which spins around, and then you swing back and forth (hard to explain, but hopefully you know the one I'm talking about). That one was really fun, but unfortunately I had to tap out at that point. I got so sick! I am really hoping this isn't a bad sign for Six Flags tomorrow and Monday. It was such a bummer to call it quits after only 4 rides. We thought if we ate it might help so we went and got some White Castle, but I could only eat two burgers and some fries before realizing my stomach was not going to forgive me anytime soon.

 

See? Packed beach

We were going to relax at the beach afterwards, but it was so crazy busy and the day felt like the hottest one yet. I was worried too much about burning again so after walking around the boardwalk a bit and people watching some more we called it quits (it sounds like a quick day, but it was practically 1 at this point). So we got back onto the subway to take us back, unfortunately someone spilled coffee all down our train so we had to watch where we stepped. Luckily I got a nice nap on the way back (Larry was awesome to lend me his shoulder). I'm not sure why, but I was just completely wiped out today.

We got back to the room and relaxed a bit until dinner time. We decided to go to the Times Square Diner (which was not very good at all). Once we got home we took our last shower in New York, and got all our stuff packed up ready to check out early tomorrow.

Awesome hotel treat on our last night

Crazy roof to Times Square Diner

I will say even though it sounds not as much fun it was a really good end day. I can't wait to head to New Jersey in the morning (although I've heard that's even dirtier than here so we'll see how it is). We get to see the kitties in a few days now so I've got that on my horizon :)

New York Vacation Day 10 - Wax Museum, Ripley's Museum, Washington Square Arch, and Meow Parlor

I actually slept until my alarm went off this morning...this is pretty huge. I'm not sure what it is here but most mornings I wake up at 7:30, go to the bathroom, and then I'm up until my alarm goes off. Usually I check Facebook or Instagram...something that doesn't get me moving too much. Our room is too small for me to get up and do something because I'd have to turn a light on, which lights up the whole room no matter which light it is.

So on the original agenda today was supposed to be Prospect Park (AKA The Brooklyn Zoo) and Washington Square Arch (the fountain from Friends was supposedly there). Turns out the zoo was another one like Central park where it was tiny and overpriced to get in. We decided to skip that and add in Madame Tussaud's and Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. Back story here, back when we did our California trip we stopped off at Madame Tussaud's Museum there. I also wanted to do Ripley's, but since we had just lost Larry's wallet we didn't get a chance to (the wax museum was already on the list and I ended up getting some discount tickets from our hotel anyways). I was happy to be able to compare the two wax museums and finally say I got to see Ripley's this time.

Madame Tussaud's was pretty cool, we also got to see an Avenger's 4D movie that was the most "4D" I've ever seen (the stab in the back I could've done without though haha). Plus we got a lot more pictures at this one (including one of me with the Spice Girls...eeesh!). I laugh because one of the coolest parts is we just saw how they make wax figures on the "How It's Made" show yesterday (I told you I wouldn't see things the same now) so when we got to that part of the museum we were like "we already know this part" haha.

The outside is pretty cool

 

I so wanted to get in and re-live
It, but there was a bit of a line.

#starstruck

I mostly had Larry stand close to show
A good size comparison

Our typical geeky 3- 4-D movie
Glasses picture

Ripley's had a ton of creepy and cool things. There were so many nifty items, not all were creepy and I was fascinated by everything. Larry actually (maybe accidentally) posed for some pics too! It was really funny when he scared the crap out of some lady! I was reading some plaque by some picture and he went off to this part where you could put your head in this plastic bubble and have cockroaches crawl over you. Well I guess this lady thought his head was fake for a while and then he moved it and she screamed so loudly. I didn't see her see him, I just heard her scream and then I laughed really hard when I saw what happened. She was a good sport about it and told him he scared her, but we all had a good laugh together and moved on. I think my favorite part was the X-Ray section where they talk about weird things that got lodged into people and yet they survived. One guy had a lead pipe thing go right through his head (literally into the front and out the back). They were able to do surgery and although he has some nerve damage that caused a limp, he has absolutely no brain damage whatsoever. There was one about a guy who was on a bike with his friend and they swerved to avoid some cars and impaled themselves with a thick pipe. It went through the chest of the front guy and through the armpit area of the second one. They actually had video of the guys in the ER and the pipe in them still...ouch! Oh and we found some real Hillerich and Bradsby bats from when Hall of Famers played with them, that was pretty exciting.

Crazy ceiling

Larry - the half man

Famous Hillerich & Bradsby bats

Washington Square Park and Arch was really beautiful. The Arch was definitely as big as I thought it would be, if not bigger. So that one lived up to it's reputation, but the Friends fountain was no where to be seen. There are fountains all over the city so I'm kind of surprised we haven't found it somewhere, but oh well. We did get to see a married couple taking some sort of bridals/wedding pictures so that was neat haha.

Very clearly not the Friends fountain

Pretty street near the park.
I'm pretty sure this is where they film.
I'd live here if I had to

The moment finally came when we'd get to go to the Meow Parlor, we checked in at the bakery and I got a chocolate macaron shaped like a kitty while Larry enjoyed their air conditioner haha.I was a bit disappointed though because when we finally got to go play with the kitties they were all pretty grumpy or tired (they have rules stating you can't wake a cat up if it's sleeping, you can just pet them). One did happen to take a liking to me called Cookie, but he hated all other cats so they didn't come near me. Larry got to play with one named Luke, a big orange furry one that loved to play with string. It was fun to play with the kitties, but they were nothing like ours (they were super skinny, ours have a bit more meat on their bones. They were more grumpy, while ours would love us no matter what. And I didn't get any head butts like Oscar gives us and that's really what I wanted). I'm thinking if you go in the morning it's probably better though.

Cookie laying down

Luke, where he stayed the whole time

Silly kitty (not sure the name)

Haha!

For dinner I gave in a little bit. I was trying to stay away from any place we'd have back home (because we could have that at anytime), but there was the three story Olive Garden that was really close to us (Kimmy Schmidt fans anyone?) so I figured let's just try that. It was good, but our server wasn't very friendly and the food was more pricey than the home version ($15 appetizers is a bit extreme if you ask me).

Today was really fun, but we officially decided that two week vacations are a long time for us to be away from the cats (but maybe that's because we've yet to get a picture from my brother). At least we saw a lot of cool things today that we know how they were made because of that show haha.

New York Vacation Day 9 - Relaxer Day and a fancy Steakhouse dinner

Oh man was today so needed! I was able to get a reservation at the Meow Parlor they have, but not until Friday at 7:30 PM. The only thing I had originally planned for today was the Brooklyn Bridge and 9/11 Memorial, but since we knocked those out yesterday I was more than happy to just call it a nothing day.

Woo hoo...reservation complete

I knew we could've chosen to go to the MoMA, but like I said before, I wasn't too upset if we never actually saw it and I knew Larry really needed a day off his feet and out of the sun. Having the room at 65 degrees all the time didn't hurt either haha.

We ended up watching a ton of "How It's Made" on the Science channel today, it was pretty interesting. Now I'm not going to see a lot of things the same, I just know it haha.

I did decide around lunch time that we should go to this restaurant down the block called Carve, they served pizza slices there and I wanted to give those another shot. This time they had olives for me, but I think it was a little bit too much cheese for my tastes...I think I'm off pizza again.

I also decided we should do dinner at a New York Steakhouse at some point so why not tonight? I found one online that didn't need reservations and had a decent review called City Lobster and Steakhouse.

Unfortunately on the way over I ended up tripping over the curb and took a bad tumble in front of a lot of people. I've been so clumsy the last couple of days, it's been awful, but this is the first time I've fully fallen. Everyone tried to help me up, but I just had to pick up my pride and walk on (I will not be going near that corner anytime soon). We also saw on a sign nearby that it was 91 degrees tonight...it just gets hotter and hotter as the days go by here.

Kind of hard to see, but I have a bruise forming on my knee
From the fall

The restaurant was pretty fancy, but had the saddest lobster tank in front. The poor guys were stacked on top of each other and every time I watched them move I kept thinking how they all probably wanted to be on the bottom so that they wouldn't be taken. Needless to say we couldn't order any of those.

Larry got some oysters and we had a nice debate about where pearls really came from (he wanted me to try one of them, but I told him we just watched how they make pearls a couple of days ago so there's no way I could eat one. He was convinced it was actually clams that pearls came from. We Googled it and I won! Haha) It was cool because they had a dish called "Oscar" and I thought so much of how much I missed the kitties today. I'm happy to be on vacation, but another part of me wants to hurry to the next part so we can hurry home (I think it's mostly because we've finished all the big things now so we're just wasting days we could be relaxing with them). Hopefully the cat café helps mash those feelings down for another few days at least.

The Oscar Meal..that we didn't order haha

So relaxing was good, food was good, watching TV in our cool room and comfy bed was good, dinner was good (plus the most expensive meal yet!). Nothing to report, nothing to complain about :)

Sorry it's kind of a boring post.

New York Vacation Day 8 - Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Brooklyn Bridge, and 9/11 Memorial

Wow you guys! Today was one of my favorites for one reason, but one of my least favorites so far for another reason. Let me warn you this was a big day, it will be a huge post, and will have lots of pictures. I'll start from the beginning...

We had to get up super early...like earlier than we would if we were back home even. Our tickets to the Statue were for 8 AM, it takes about 30-45 minutes to get down to Battery Park from the Subway, I need about an hour to get up, ready, un-pack and repack (to find our outfits for the day), and wake Larry up, therefore we had to be up by 6...yeesh. We were also going to fit in Ellis Island and any catch-up activities today. I was really nervous about the morning because, like I said, our tickets were for 8 and when I looked online at the ferry before we left it said the first one didn't leave until 8:30 so I wasn't sure how we'd be able to get this figured out, but luckily we weren't the only ones to get an early start and we were able to figure our way to where we needed to be. Here's one thing I didn't know: there is an airport-like security area to get onto the Ferry...I didn't realize they'd be like that, and I feel they took it a little too seriously (I don't even think the airport does that much...but maybe that's why they have a 95% failure rate).

The Ferry to Liberty Island was pretty cool, most people rushed to the top, but I liked the bottom best. For one you aren't in the sun so you don't get as hot as quickly and for another you get off quicker to go up to the Statue faster...that's what I came for. Now I knew this day was coming, but for the last couple of days I really started to get nervous about the stairs. I mean I take the stairs to work (and we're on the top/4th floor), but that's only about 100 stairs, this would be closer to 400, but I told myself it wasn't a race and I'd get to the top when I got there and to just enjoy it. Very first impression of the Statue though was that she is much tinier than I thought she'd be, still magnificent, but tiny. There's only about 80 or so stairs from the pedestal to the top so if you can make it to that point you might as well go all the way up. The only issue is after the Pedestal the stairs get steep and very enclosed and turn into a circular patter rather than a square one. I also felt weird because when I got to the top I was all alone with two workers.  This might be more ideal for some, but I felt weird, like I had intruded on their conversation. So I quickly got up to the windows, took my pictures, looked out at the view, and then headed back down to meet Larry (I could only get one ticket to the top and one to the pedestal). Once back down I decided I wanted to walk around more and take more pictures. Larry was definitely done since it was such an early start, but I wanted to soak it in as much as possible.

Very distant picture from the Ferry

See how small? The Pedestal section is
The one RIGHT below her feet

View from the Pedestal

Kind of captures how steep the
Stairs are, but only a little bit.

All the way up to the top

 

Inside of the crown...it was very stuffy and the windows are
Smaller than they appear

I wish I could've seen her torch
From the Top, but this was as
Close as I could get

Look how monstrous those bolts are!

I'm in awe!

Total stairs to each section

One of my favorite shots...Manhattan Skyline with
The Statue of Liberty

After that part we went over to the ferry station to find it was just finishing boarding to go to Ellis Island so we lucked out in that we didn't have to wait to get on. Ellis Island was so amazing! I didn't realize there would be so much history and awesome things to see there. They had pictures of how it looked when immigrants came over and what they went through to become a citizen. I remember they played that "Proud to Be An American" song over at Liberty Island, but I felt it was better suited for this area. I've never been so proud to be born here when so many people had to fight and give up so much to have that same right. I think my favorite part was going through the Psychological tests they gave them. There was this diamond test where they had them draw a diamond, but they had it separated into sections of those who had never even held a pencil before, some that had held a pencil, but had no education, and the third section of those who had held a pencil and had some education...it was crazy. They also had these chalk marks for their clothes based on any diseases or disabilities they had. There were a bunch of quotes of people who experienced it as well. One lady said her sister had warts and they thought it was a fatal disease so they marked her with an X to say she wasn't healthy enough, but then her sister lied to the place telling them she got it on the boat or something that explained them better and she was able to come through. There was also a quote about a boy who had no money and he was afraid because he heard this officer asking others if they had $0.25. This boy got up to the officer and told them he had the money, even though he didn't, but he was afraid of what would happen if he said he didn't. The officer ended up letting him go through and never asked to see the money. I had no idea it was such an ordeal or how the island had been used over time. I guess during WWII they used it as an "enemy alien jail" sort of thing and they kept people there that had no papers. At the end of the war they went through everyone who was on the island as though they were new citizens and made them go through all the steps to become one again. If they were illegal and somehow got lucky before and made it through they were caught this time and sent back. I guess the very last guy to be let free was a sailor who was here on some sort of leave that got stuck there...needless to say they let him go through just fine, but can you imagine how mad his military leaders must have been when he didn't report back? Oh and the very first person who had come through Ellis Island was just a 10 year-old girl who received $10 for the occasion. She died really early though, at 47 for an infection of some sort. Sorry I'm going on and on, but I found this to be so fascinating and I don't want to forget these details.

Ellis Island!

Herded like cattle with only
What they could carry

How it used to look...

 

...How it looks now

Old beds they used.

The markings for disabilities
And diseases

The chalk markings on the clothes

The steps to get through the Island

After Ellis Island we found our way to the ferry dock and luckily got right on once again to be sent back to Battery Park. By this time it was really early in the day still. I mentioned to Larry that since we were in the area we could always go over to the Brooklyn Bridge and the 9/11 Memorial since there was time and if we did that we could skip them tomorrow and have a relaxer day then. He was very much in favor of that haha.

Brooklyn Bridge...this way

My best shot of the bridge

Please ignore hair and red faces
It was really hot by this point and
I'd just climbed 377 stairs

Brooklyn Bridge was interesting to see, but nothing too special...it was a bridge after all. It was really crowded so we only walked it halfway to take our pictures and then turn around. I did end up getting some street art for us and my grandma because I found it to be really fascinating. It may not seem like much, but I was obsessed with it and thought it would be a good way to say Thank You to her for driving us. This was when it got really warm and it was close to 2 (our City Passes wouldn't let us get into the 9/11 Museum until 2 so we had to wait) so we decided to head over to the 9/11 Memorial Pools to look around a bit.

The South Pool

Plaque at the South Pool. Bottom left is Renee

The new World Trade Center

Here's where the day took a turn. The pools were really spectacular, I wasn't expecting them to be so moving. They have these plaques surrounding them with names of anyone and everyone who was involved/effected by the 9/11 happenings. It started to get really sad though when I realized the pools where were the buildings stood and in one of my pictures I saw one of the names said a Renee something and her unborn child (queue the start of tearing up). I started to look around at the other buildings and think how close they are to where these stood and yet they look as if they were untouched. They obviously weren't newly remodeled or cleaned up so it's as if nothing happened near them...it was almost eerie. I also started to think about the day this all happened. I will never forget I was in 8th grade and was at my friend Christie's house, her mom used to take me to school with her. She had the news on, but was doing her makeup. I used to be so weird and would just stand in her room waiting for her, I felt weird watching her so I watched the news this time. That's when I saw the one building was smoking. Right then the second plane hit the second building and I thought "what did I just see? Did that pilot just fly right into that building? Is he blind or did the smoke block his view? It's not on fire so maybe I just saw something...what is going on right now?" I had NO idea how big of a deal this was, how many people were effected, or that it was even remotely related to terrorism (I did know I wouldn't ever forget what I saw though). All day long we watched the news at school to hear new developments. Being there that day it really started to hit me a little how scary this must have been. After sitting under a tree for a bit to rest our feet we finally decided to go to the museum (plus some bagpipers were starting to play and those will get my crying almost right away and I didn't want to cry).


The fire truck that melted



Part of one of the buildings

Again the museum has an airport-like security, which I found to be almost ironic in a way, but they weren't as serious as the Statue of Liberty security was. You still have to take off belts, shoes, Fitbits, jewelry, purses, and phones, but I'm pretty sure they weren't even watching my stuff as it went through. The museum had an odd layout, we went to the gift shop first because we thought that's where it started, then we realized you have to go down the stairs that's on the other side to start. They had a few mementos from the day, but not enough to fill how big the building was. I think the coolest thing was this fire truck that was a responder to the fires...it was partially melted on the back because of everything. There was this thing that was like an extra museum in the museum so we decided to walk through that. Let me tell you, I'm now referring to this as the torture chamber. You walk through this thing that has way more memorabilia in it, but some of it is really random, like Yankee tickets from that night's game or a school calendar from September 2001 (with no notations on it so it really could've been any calendar) or a backpack from a school nearby. I wasn't sure why any of those were really relevant, but then later you get to some Firemen's gear and some pictures and webcam videos. There was one that showed the first plane hitting (I'm kind of suspicious as to why that guy had his webcam pointing right at the twin towers that morning). Then as you go through you start to hear interviews of people who helped out, some news reports from that morning, voicemails from some people who were trapped in the building, quotes are on the walls from people who called loved ones from the planes...ugh it was so heart wrenching, it was like living the day all over again, only this time I fully understood how devastating it really was. Then was the worst part, a section that had pictures of people actually jumping from the building...I completely lost it there! All I kept thinking is those people had no idea when they went to work what was to come. The terrorists on those planes knew something that no one else knew, that they would die soon. No one saw it coming until it was too late and all they could do was panic and call their loved ones. Luckily they had a tissue stand nearby because I needed it. Poor Larry had no idea what to do with me, I don't think he expected that reaction. I ended up getting so nauseous from it and had to hurry out. I'm sorry, but I couldn't ever go back to that museum again, it was way too emotional. We ended up missing a lot because I just couldn't handle being in it anymore...so be prepared for all that if you do go (if it helps, the room with the jumpers is blocked off and has a warning sign outside of it so it's not one you'd just stumble upon if you go)

Luckily after this we could head back to our hotel and relax...I really needed it. Plus we had our Serendipity reservations tonight and I was excited to get all dressed up again. Although I did learn my shoes for dressing up weren't made for walking so we had to take the subway again, but now we had our own Metro Cards to it made it easier. Oh my gosh, dinner was so yummy! I was going to wait until after I ate to order a frozen hot chocolate (because you can't go there and NOT get one) but decided halfway through that it was now or never haha. Unfortunately, since Larry has his chocolate intolerance issue he couldn't share, but he did get a strawberry drink that seemed to be as close to my treat as you could get. I ended up getting the raviolis there and they were pretty yummy. I read some reviews that said it's so touristy it's not really worth going to, but I argue that one! It was some of the yummier food we've had so far (minus that Italian Restaurant we went to) and it was such a cute place. My only issue is we drank a lot so I had to go to the bathroom really badly and I didn't see where there's were so we had to hurry back to the hotel after dinner.

Overall it was a good day with some bumps, but I'm glad we got to see it all and now we can relax a bit more tomorrow. I think I'm going to make reservations at the Cat Café they have here...I almost forgot they had it again. Hopefully they have some openings in the few days we have left (I can't believe we're past the halfway point now!).