New York Day 2

We bought a 7 day subway pass for $25.00 & made our way down to Battery Park which is where the ferries to Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island depart. Huge queue of people and maximum security like getting through NZ customs to even get on the ferry. Craig had to take off his belt & Tess had to take off her pink woolly hat in case there was a gun secreted underneath it! Bit OTT really (like the machine gun toting cop seeing us onto the New York train in Washington yesterday – & yes he even had his finger on the trigger). Freezing cold out in the harbour but was cool seeing the statue close up, they made it out of over 300 sheets of thin copper with a frame of steel underneath, was made in a kitset form in France & then bought over here. We had to have chilli cheese fries to warm us up – mmmmmm. Ellis Island felt a bit like Alcatraz, just sort of empty & peaceful, it was a bit hard to imagine all the poor old immigrants coming into the country there – was some Greenwoods on the list though.

After that we walked up to see the Bull in Wall Street and the NY stock exchange (heaps of cops outside in case of grumpy customers who had lost all their money in shares!). We then walked up to where ground zero happened – not much to see just a big hole in the ground which is now a big building site all fenced off. The surrounding buildings were remarkably untouched considering what happened. We found the Century 21 brand name discount shop & Tess bought some very nice baby clothes in pretty pink – Calvin Klein & DKNY.

We are becoming real new Yorkers and don’t wait for the cross signal at lights but go when there are no yellow cabs screaming towards you or on a red light. All the tooting we ignore now instead of turning around to see if they are honking at us. We discovered the joys of Macys (7 floors!) – Craig had to sit down by the time Tess discovered the chocolate & teddy department – he wished it was a tool store that big. The outside temperature feels like the carpark at Whakapapa ski field which is fine which is when you are rugged up like we are but all the shops have their temperatures set at about 20 degrees so you are alternately boiling & freezing which is not good for you – we have learnt the trick is to wear just a shirt under your huge jacket so you can regulate your temperature properly.

 

Thankyou very much to Trev & Kate for inspecting our new property, sounds like everything is fine & ready for us - with a new pig!!!!  Is it a pet for Tess or maybe Kate (although Craig thinks it would look nice on the table with an apple in it’s mouth).   Also thankyou to Amanda & Daniel for sending through some lovely shots of our wedding – we havn’t had a chance to look at them all yet as the internet is so slow here!  Pic of Formula Challenge Partners & their wives as below.

We popped into a couple of bike shops and everything here is more expensive that NZ – Craig bought his new heart rate monitor watch in Macy’s which was a more reasonable price.

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