On Friday, January 5th, we woke up to SUNSHINE! It was nice to not have to worry about getting soaking wet from the snow......but it was still COLD!
After we got up and around, we hopped on the subway to head to the 9/11 museum. Funny side note: we had bought subway passes that were good for unlimited rides for one week. My mom had the hardest time keeping track of her pass. On this morning, Brooke and I went through the gate first and then were waiting for mom to find her pass. She searched and searched for that thing and could NOT find it. So she had to go to one of the machines to get a new subway card. Brooke and I were having to yell instructions to her of how to use it and load money on the card. Funniest thing ever! She finally got it figured out and made it through the gate.
We tried to go to the St. Paul church where a lot of the firefighters and 9/11 family and friends went after 9/11. It was closed for some reason, so we decided to grab some breakfast at a deli nearby. Brooke was too cool for the camera....
After we ate, we headed over to the 9/11 museum and to see the One World Center and the monuments. All of it was so beautiful! It was amazing to see how tall the One World Center was. And sobering to see all of the names on the monuments of the people who died.
We started the 9/11 museum with a few movies that they were showing. They were really good and informative and helped to show the point of view of the government officials while 9/11 was happening.
Everything in the museum was super informative and interesting. There was SO much to see. I feel like I could go there every day for a week and still not have seen it all.
The museum is actually underground and this wall was one of the original walls they put in to retain water from the Hudson river from seeping into the foundation of the World Trade Center.
This flag had the face of every 9/11 victim on it.
I think the thing I liked the best at the museum was this room they had that was completely darkened and lined with benches. You could sit in there and watch while they announced a person's name and then showed a paragraph about their life. Sometimes, it included voice clips of their family members saying things about them. It was a beautiful tribute, but incredibly sad at the same time.
There was also a story that really stuck with me. A lady that worked at the World Trade Center had been an employee there when the bombing in 1993 happened. She managed to escape, but was really hesitant and scare to go back. But she loved her job and her employer, so as an incentive and reward for herself for going back, she bought a gold and sapphire ring for herself. She was there working on 9/11 and lost her life. I'm not sure why that one particular story sticks out so much to me. Maybe because of her bravery of going back after 1 tragedy. Maybe because she just seemed so normal and I could picture myself doing the same thing. But it's a story that I think will stick with me forever.
The only thing I didn't love about the museum was that it was so full that it was hard to read some of the plaques or to really take the time to appreciate all the exhibits. I almost wish they only had guided tours with groups allotting a specific amount of time at each exhibit so it didn't get too overwhelmed.
After the museum, we headed to the Oculus. It's a really cool train station right across from the museum. There's all kinds of shops and places to eat. We just walked through it to get to our next subway stop, but it was cool to see. Mom couldn't remember what it was called, so for the rest of the day, she called it the Octapula. Close, mom. Close.
We took the subway to the Staten Island Ferry. All I remember about the walk from the subway to the ferry was that it was SO cold and SO slick. The sidewalks had mostly been cleared, but there were some places that hadn't and I was still having a shoeware malfunction drama, so I was getting super frustrated. But once we actually got ON the ferry, it was great!
The spots on the picture below are because the window I took the picture from was SUPER dirty.
We passed the Statue of Liberty so I got to see that up close. So pretty and neat!
A selfie with Lady Liberty waaaaaaaaaay in the background.
Once we got to Staten Island, we walked up Mount Everest (Brooke says it's just a tiny hill....but it felt like Mount Everest to me) to a restaurant called Enoteca Maria. It was the cutest little restaurant and the cooks are all grandma's! Most of them are from Italy and the food was SO delicious.
They served bread with a zuchinni and squash relish and a beet relish, both of which I surprisingly liked.
I had vegetable lasagna with bechamel sauce that was to DIE for. Highly recommend it if you're traveling to that area any time soon.
We relaxed after dinner for a few minutes and then headed back to our hotel. The New York City skyline was so pretty at night. Obviously, the picture doesn't do it justice. We tried to go to the outside portion of the ferry to get a good picture, but it was SO incredibly windy and cold that we could only stand out there for a few seconds before I got nervous we'd be knocked overboard.
After we got back to the hotel, Mom decided to stay in the room and rest and Brooke and I went to see Jumanji 2. It was really funny, but the best part of the night happened after the movie. We'd gotten a large popcorn because it had free refills. Our mom LOVES popcorn, so we decided to refill it as we left the movie to take it back to our hotel room. So we walked 3-4 blocks through Times Square with a huge bucket of popcorn. But it was SO windy that night that it kept picking up the popcorn out of the bucket and tossing it down wind of us! We were crossing a road once and I looked behind us to see a huge trail of popcorn pelting the people behind us--it was the best!
And mom was so excited to get her popcorn :)
No comments:
Post a Comment