Monday April 22, New York

Well, I find it hard to believe that I am actually in the Big Apple. As I said yesterday, it is so much larger than life and soooo busy! The hotel has free breakfast and it has cooked food as well as the usual continental offerings. After breakfast I set out to find the tour bus. I had checked which way I should go but was sent in the opposite direction! However, it did not take me too long to wonder so I asked a security guard and got put on the right lines, phew! Finally, into Times Square and it is so much smaller than I imagined also it is not really a square just four blocks. My tour bus was parked outside the Winter Garden Theatre, Mamma Mia was playing! So strange as years ago when I was a kid I used to sometimes visit the Winter Garden Theatre in my own town in England!

Our driver was Karen and our guide was Jim so we set off on our five and a half hour exploration of the city.
The weather was sunny but still quite cool, it seems Spring is late this year in many parts of the USA. Manhattan Island is only 12 miles long and yet very congested!! I noticed that the street signs had changed from green to brown so asked Jim about this. A brown street sign signifies that the buildings are protected and cannot be pulled down for redevelopment, nice one! Our first stop was Central Park, at 800 acres the fifth largest in New York. We entered into the area called Strawberry Fields, so no guesses as to what this area is about.We also saw the building where he used to live and where Yoko still lives, nothing special about it from the outside but they must have had a great view out over the park. Eighty percent of the cost of running the park comes from private donations, very impressive!

We travelled further along Fifth Avenue and stopped at the Rockefeller Centre, what a spectacular sight. We then drove through the Diamond district where Jim said they sell M$50 per day, this does seem rather a lot!! Then on past the New York Library, second largest in the USA behind Washington, and like that one is a for research. Then on past Macy's department store where there is 45 acres of shopping inside!! In New York, there is Uptown, Downtown, East side, West side and finally Midtown!! Confused?? Well, that is my normal state so no problems for me, although it is usually about when I am not where I am! the Downtown area was the original New York (New Amsterdam) and the rest was all towns and villages. Over the years they have all been developed and have now joined up to form the modern day city.

Our next stop was Madison Square Garden/Park. Here we saw the Flat Iron Building, it looks like the prow of a ship, as well as the building that in the early 1900s was the tallest building in the World. I love all the little areas they have set up for dogs!! Wonder what they do for cats??

We continued right down Fifth Avenue and then onto Broadway and so through Chinatown which also houses Little Italy! We were reminded as we saw the Brooklyn bridge that Brooklyn is actually on Long Island!! The onto Pier 16 for our boat trip!

This was an hour's trip out to see the Statue of Liberty and of course we saw plenty of other sites as well. The statue was a gift from the people of France to celebrate 100 years of Independence and was actually built in France. It was then dismantled, put into boxes and shipped to the USA. It was made of thin sheets of copper, less than the width of two pennies put together and attached to a skeleton framework. The skeleton was designed by a guy called Eiffel!! When it arrived they had to wait for the pedestal to be completed before they could reconstruct the statue. She holds the Declaration of Independence in her left hand and was actually named "Liberty Enlightening the World"!

I sat on the top deck and the breeze made it seem very cold but it was worth it for the views. turns out it was only 45 degrees! Brrrrrrrrr, this would be a very cold winter's day back home!! As we returned towards the Pier we got a good view of three bridges one behind each other, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williams. We went under the Brooklyn bridge and were told the story of how the fellow who built it got very sick and his wife completed the management of the project, this at a time when women were considered not discerning enough to vote!!

So back to the Pier after a cold but enjoyable boat trip. Back on the bus and we headed to Wall Street. Somehow, for something that is so well known it is very unimpressive! It was originally the site of an 18 mile wall that was built to keep the native Americans out but they just went round the outside so eventually it was pulled down. From the end of Wall Street we saw the Woolworth Building one of the more impressive skyscrapers around. At the end of Manhattan Island there is more than 90 acres of landfill.

Our next stop was the World Finance Centre. From here we could look across that the site of the Twin Towers and see what rebuilding is going on. The lobby of the centre as totally blown out and 5 other buildings also went down that day. Every thing is so close together that it is surprising more people were not killed. It s not difficult to imagine the horror of that day and the funnel effect the streets of skyscrapers must have created, The videos of the day do not do it justice I am sure! Only five buildings have been planned to replace those lost and financial issues have meant that at least one has been halted. Tower number one is scheduled to be opened in 2014. There is also a museum that is not far away from opening, this looks on a slant, deliberately so, and has artifacts from that day housed inside. The rubble has all been taken to Staten Island and they are still sifting through and discovering items. As with most people, I remember that day so vividly and it certainly meant a lot to see the site. I was surprised at how small an area it is in reality.

We were close to the end of our tour and we were given a bonus stop at to see the aircraft carrier Intrepid and some of the planes that have been used. The Intrepid was used to pick up many Apollo Space capsules when they returned to earth. However, the REAL bonus was the fact that the Space Shuttle Enterprise was housed on the forward deck. To see one of the shuttles was unexpected and I was grateful for the opportunity granted to us. I walked towards the front and managed to get some fairly good views of it. Again, it is so much smaller than I had imagined.

I wandered back through Times Square, purchased a few souvenirs and back down Fifth Avenue to my hotel. As I walked, I contemplated the tour and my new knowledge of New York to go alongside that of Washington DC. I still find it hard to believe that I have actually visited these two famous cities, one day I might wake up!! Again, after all the walking and information uploading, I was too tired to go out so headed for my bedroom and connected with chat to catch up with people.