Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

On our third day of our visit we wanted to get tickets to see the inside of the Statue of Liberty, you can book them over the internet or make reservation via the phone, but we only found out the day before you could do this so we had to change it and get to the office early in the morning.

So at six we left Saddlebrook on the 161 line into New York, it was cold outside and the sun was not even up yet. The journey into town went very fast, after that we took the underground to Chambers St. and from there the bus to South Ferry. We arrived first in line at the Castle Clinton, but soon after we arrived at 7:30 in the morning the line behind us started growing fast. Lots of people had all ready made reservations so they were handed out their ticket and could line up at the ferry. We and a bunch of other people had to wait until 8:30 before we could buy our tickets and get the Free Time Pass. After that we were ready to line up at the ferry. We still had to wait almost an hour before the ferry would leave. But there was a guy playing a guitar and singing songs just outside the line, he had a mad streak and it was fun watching his performance. He was really good at it and he involved the people in the line, so before we knew we had to get on board the ferry, he made my day!

But before we could get on board our bags had to be x-rayed and we had to go through a metal detector. After that we were allowed on board. The weather was absolutely lovely; the boat ride was way too short for my liking. On the Island we had to line up yet again, we had to leave our camera bags in a state of the art safe with fingerprint ID. This line took a while because they were only letting three people at the time inside the building, little did we know. Finally we were allowed in and we had to line up again. This time for a state of the art Puffing Machine, where they scan you for chemicals, Wahid had to take his shoes of as usual. I had no problems. Then we had to line up again outside and then we were allowed to go inside the building. A ranger was telling the history about the Statue of Liberty and after that we were allowed to go to the museum and after that we had to line up again to get to the elevator that would take us to the base of the statue. From there you can see into the statue. Once up on a time you could actually go into the statue itself, but not anymore. We did a quick run around the base and walked back via the stairs. Took a couple of pictures outside and then went to line up for the boat. This day was all about lining up, which I detest so much….! It was a very short ride on the ferry to Ellis Island; this is the place where 13 million immigrants came into the US. It is a very fascinating part of history and the museum is very big and we did not have enough time to see it all. We did attend a ranger walk through the building; the ranger was very passionate about the history.

By 3:00 or so we left the island and took the ferry back, we had a quick look at the Culturefest and then took the bus back to the underground station. We went to Union Square, hoping to find a nice restaurant, but all we could find were fast food joints. Both feeling a tat tired we went for a pizza, but it tasted horrible. After that we ended up in one of the big electronic store on the Square, I found myself a nice big seat at sat there for a while, while Wahid was looking for gadgets. The both started to feel knackered around seven or so and we headed back to 42nd street to catch the bus back to the motor home. We dove into bed the moment we got back, watched some TV and then fell asleep.