We're known as the quality store

ETA: Pictures for the post I put up on Friday night--

We just got in from the city and it's already midnight, so this may be a brief wrap-up of our second day in New York!

J had three goals for this trip--a trip to Momofuku, an asian place he heard about on NPR (apparently famous for their steamed pork buns); a visit to Ground Zero; and to see Central Park. As you know, we saw Central Park yesterday (and tackled my goals--the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Rockettes), so today we needed to check the other two off the list.

We started the day in Grand Central Station again, this time with pictures:

and had breakfast in a diner after picking up our tour passes. From there, we jumped on the GrayLine Downtown Loop (for anyone planning a trip to NYC, I highly recommend this tour company for their All Loops tour package--four tours of the city, with three being of the hop-on, hop-off variety) and headed off for Ground Zero (via Broadway, so we passed Macy's and Madison Square Garden on the way). Before visiting the actual site, we stopped at St. Paul's Chapel. This is the Episcopal Chapel where George Washington led the audience to pray after he was sworn in as our first President a few blocks down on Wall Street. St. Paul's better known by most, now, as the chapel adjacent to the World Trade Center site, where thousands of rescuers sought and received shelter, food, and comfort in the months after 9/11. The site is now a sort of memorial to the tragedy--a blessing since any actual memorial or museum has yet to be built.

After we left the World Trade Center site, we wandered around the Financial District before making our way to Battery Park and the incredibly long lines for the Statue of Liberty ferry. J and I decided that the lines would be better received if they were renamed "The Ellis Island Experience" and included signs about what immigrants experienced upon arrival in the U.S. They could even give you cards detailing various immigrant stories ("Sara--You're found to have TB and die without ever setting foot on the mainland." or "Alan--We can't understand your last name, so your new last name will be Smith." for a couple of examples.)

Anyhow, we finally made it to Lady Liberty, where we got a kick out of the number of people attempting to 'lift/hold up' the statue, or pose in various other ways with her. She's decidedly the best statue to do this with, it seems.


We (well, I) also got a kick out of the back of the statue. I've never seen a picture from the back before, and it turns out she's got her right foot kind of kicked back a bit. Looks rather like she's cheering for the home team...or the band, and has just acheived "Woo girl" status...

The day was getting away from us, and we realized that neither of our families actually came through Ellis Island, so we headed back to Battery Park to re-join the tour.

This seems like a good place to stop, and it's not getting any earlier, so I'm going to leave the story for now. I promise to add the pictures and 'the rest of the story' tomorrow...er...later today?

Title: Macy's Commercial (Everything's better at Macy's; we're known as the quality store!--I love this commercial!!)