Day 3

After lazily awaking (again) and checking our list, we decided to go take a ride to Ellis Island, as well as visit Wall Street, and Ground Zero. A good tip if you're planning to go to NYC in the future: arrive early. After a brief stint in a line for the ferry to Ellis Island, we discovered that we were about an hour away from the sign that read "two hour wait from this point." So we nixed that idea and decided to take the cheap ferry (free to be exact) to Staten Island and catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty as we sped by. We then took the ferry back and caught a great view of the city. Next, we took a pit stop to grab some lunch and then headed toward Ground Zero. After zigging and zagging and heading east, and then retracing our steps back to the west, we finally asked someone for directions (we were almost there). Seeing pictures of the two towers along the way, and then actually standing there, I couldn't even fathom just how enormous those buildings must have been. We then moved on to our next challenge....finding Wall Street. I have to give a big thank you to Susan again because she was the only one who thought to bring a map.

Even with the help of a map, we still had a hard time finding places, so I can imagine that without it, I'd be writing these posts from my new home somewhere in the Bronx, unable to find my way out. After stopping by the resting place of Alexander Hamilton and Robert Fulton, we finally made it to Wall Street, took some pictures, then hopped on the subway, and went to Queens. No, we weren't staying in Queens, we happened to miss our stop on the way back to Grand Central Terminal, and took a little detour.

With help from a nice cop, we avoided having to pay more subway fees, or worse spend the night in the subway.

That evening we took a trip back to Times Square for some dinner, and a visit to Toys R Us. We faced the giant animatronic T-Rex, gaped at Lego models of buildings New York City, and rode the indoor Ferris wheel before having to drag the kids and Jonathan and Chris out of the store. With a quick stop into Roxy's Delicatessen for a few slices of cheesecake to go, we were ready to get back to the hotel, get into some pj's and enjoy our midnight snack.

ND