Rio to New York in 6 Months

After nearly two months we arrived at our final destination of New York. It was sad to have to drop the car off at the rental place but we had driven over 7000 miles in 54 days which was pretty good going. I am glad I dropped the car off because after seeing the traffic in New York there wouldn’t have been much point driving around the city. I could have walked faster.

We couldn’t afford to stay in the city so we had to stay in a place called Weehawken in New Jersey that was just across the Hudson river. It was really close to New York but in a different state. Here is a picture of New York city from across the river.

Here is a similar view as the sun was setting.

One of the first things we did in New York was to visit Central Park. It was pretty cool to be able to walk through a park right in the middle of the city. The park is massive.

Here is a picture of Kelly standing in the park.

Here is one of me in the park with some of the citys building’s in the background.

Here is Kelly standing at the start of the mall.

Part of the park next to the Dakota building (where John Lennon was shot) has been landscaped into a tear shape and it is called “Strawberry Fields”. When we went there there was a guy sitting on a bench playing “Imagine”. Here is a picture of the mosaic in the middle of the area. People put flowers down every day.

On the first night we went to a comedy club which was cool. Their were five comedians and three of them were really funny. The club was right on Times Square.

I thought that the lights in Trafalgar Square were bright but it is nothing compared with Times Square. There are huge TV’s everywhere and all the light that comes from them make it seem like it is daytime.

Here are a couple of pics.

The next day we met up with my parents who had flown up from Florida. We were looking forward to seeing them as we had not seen them for nearly six months.

We thought it would be cool to go up the Empire State Building and we timed it just right because we got there just before the sun set so we got to see the city by day and night. We went up to the 86th floor.

Here is a photo of what we saw when we went into the building.

Here is one of me standing next to a model of the building.

Here are some photos of the view from the top.

Here is one of Kelly and my mum.

The bright light in the middle of the next picture is coming from Times Sqaure.

The next day we went to visit ground zero. There were lots of photos on display and it was quite sad. They have started construction now on the new “Freedom” tower which will be the tallest building in the world once it has been completed in 2008. Here are a couple of photos of the site.

Over 300 firemen died on S11 and there was a firestation right opposite the site of the construction site with a plaque on the wall with the names of the officers who had died from that station. Here is a picture of the fire truck.

Later that day we went to check out the Metropolitan Museum of Art or “The Met” as trendy people like to call it. It was funny because they are not allowed to charge an admission fee but you do have to get a ticket for a suggested donation. The sign suggests that each person pays $20 but we payed $20 for all four of us.

Here is a picture of Kelly outside the museum.

Here is one of me standing behind an old egyptian statue.

The museum was good but it was pretty big so we were not able to see it all.

The next day we went to see the Staue of Liberty on Liberty Island. It is not possible to go to the crown anymore due to safety concerns but we did get to go inside the base which was pretty cool.

I took this picture from the boat as we were heading towards the island.

Did you know that the shell of the statue is only 2 penny widths thick and the whole thing is like a skin and it is held up by steel scaffolding in the middle that looks like the eiffel tower. (Mr Eiffel designed it)

Here is one of my mum and dad on the boat with the statue in the background.

Finally here is one of the city from the base of the statue.

That evening we went for a lovely italian meal in Little Italy before heading back to the hotel to pack all our stuff. We had to buy 2 cases to fit all the stuff in that we had bought in the USA. We felt sad that the six months was almost over and in 3 days I would be back in work. How depressing.

Thats it for New York and probably the blog. 🙁

I may add another post to reflect back once I start back at work.

James

Tags: New York, Travel, USA

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.