New York

New York! Since Josh's parents lived only a few hours away and the hotels were ridiculously expensive, we decided to make New York a day trip. All I really wanted to see was the Statue of Liberty and Occupy Wall street. I figure we'll come back and stay a few night in New York and see more then.

We parked at Liberty State Park and took the ferry to Ellis Island first. I loved the ferry! Here is Josh next to Miss New Jersey, the boat.

My first sight of Miss Liberty herself!! To the right is the Ellis Island museum.

Here is Josh on the ferry and Manhattan skyline in the background. Huge buildings! There were boats zipping up and down all around us. I'm amazed no one runs into each other.

Since we got there pretty early the Ellis Island museum wasn't too busy. It was really informative though. There were so many pictures and talked about all the history that was associated with the Statue of Liberty. Many people forget that she was there to welcome all the immigrants coming to America. If you ever get the chance to go to the Statue of Liberty make sure to give yourself lots of time to spend here. So many pictures and lots of stuff to read. You can even look up family members that might have come across on any one of the thousands of boats that brought immigrants here.

After we finished up at the museum we got back on a ferry to head to the statue. They say the park is free but you still have pay for a ticket for the ferry because you actually can't get to the park if you don't take the ferry. Unfortunately for us they are in the middle of doing a lot of reconstruction to the park. So half of Ellis Island was blocked off. You also can not go up into the Statue anymore. They have it all blocked for for the next year and a half.

There she is!!! I was so excited!

She is actually made of copper and the air has oxidized to turn her the shade of green she is today. They used to clean her regularly but then decided they liked the green color better. She was a gift from the French.

Since you can not go up in the statue for the next year and a half they now have sky cams that you can go online and look at. Not the same feeling but still pretty cool.

After the Statue of Liberty we headed to Manhattan to check out New York. So many people!! We also just happened to be there the day before they broke up the Occupy Wall street, so there were cops and swat teams all over the place. They wouldn't even let you stand on the street to take pictures, they just kept telling us to move along.

They had the stock exchange all blocked off with cops on horses guarding the building. It was crazy, but i snapped this picture as we walked past.

The buildings we ginormous!

We walked past the Occupy Wall street but were told not to take pictures or loiter. So sorry no pictures. It was pretty interesting to see in person. Josh and I have varying opinions on it so I'll just tell you we saw it and leave it at that.

We also tried to see the 9/11 memorial but it was surrounded by walls while they finished working on it. You can get in to see it but the lines were so long we didn't have time. We tried to sneak all around the walls to get a glance but it's pretty blocked off. When it's done you'll be able to go in right from the sidewalk to when we come back to explore more hopefully we can go then.

We walked all over down town Manhattan and decided we should head back before it got to dark because we still had to drive back to his parents.

The ferry back to Liberty State Park was also pretty fun. It was dark outside and no one was on the ferry. They wait a second then jet across from New York to New Jersey.

Here is one last view of the Statue of Liberty. We didn't get to see too much on this trip but it was still a pretty fun day. I really enjoyed everything that we did see. We will definitely have to come back and spend a lot more time.