I'm Back

Hi Everyone,

I had a really great trip to New York City!  I flew up on Friday evening.  Apparently, the only way to get to JFK airport from Richmond is through Charlottesville, NC?  I must say that Charlottesville's airport is very nice, though.

As we were landing, I glimpsed the Empire State Building out of the window of the plane. 

On Saturday, we got up early and took the subway into Manhattan.  I had booked us on a one-day tour of the city and I was sure glad !  We saw all the highlights, did a lot of walking, and went on two boats.  It was a long day.

The first thing that I did after I bought the plane ticket was to go online for Statue of Liberty tickets.  I booked them for Sunday.  In case you don't know, you can visit Liberty Island from either Battery Park (Manhattan) or Liberty State Park (New Jersey).  Either location means a ferry ride to Liberty Island.  Visiting the statue is free, however, the ferry costs $17 per person.  There are three different tickets:  Crown, Pedestal, or Island.  The Crown tickets (enabling one to go all the way up into the crown) were booked solid for months.  There were only Pedestal tickets available from New Jersey.  They let you climb up into the pedestal.  The Island tickets just let you get to the island and then you can walk around, but not go into the statue.  I wanted Crown tickets, but had to content myself with the Pedestal ones, instead, but that meant that we had to drive over to New Jersey, but it wasn't too bad.  We had Sunday morning tickets, so the traffic was light.  (It just cost us an additional $25 in tolls!)  If you ever go, the biggest tip I can give is to buy your tickets in advance, online.  The lines to buy tickets were really long!

 

Isn't she gorgeous!  I had the reaction that most people have when they first see her--that she is much smaller than they expect.  I think it has to do more with the fact that she is such a huge American symbol--so we expect her to be bigger than she is.  I also hoped for a pretty blue sky, however, this gray sky helped the torch show up nice and bright.

Liberty Island just reopened on the 4th of July since the visit from hurricane Sandy last fall.  Ellis Island is still closed.  You have to go through security to get onto the ferry, and then once more to go into the statue.

I'll be back tomorrow with more from the trip.  From the ferry, we had a good view of the Verrazano Bridge.  This will figure into tomorrow's post. 

For now, enjoy one more photo of Liberty Enlightening the World.

Have a great day!
JoAnne