My Mom & Me in NYC: Sunday

Sunday morning we slept in, which was much needed after the many miles we had walked the day before. After a relaxing morning we took the subway down to the financial district. (side note: the U-bahn in Munich never really bothered me, but the subways in NYC make me claustrophobic, go figure.) We walked over to ground zero, which honestly if you were naive about what had happened on 9/11, you'd think it was just a giant construction site. There's a visitor's center across the street that does guided tours around the site, so we decided to do that.

This is a plane window they found at ground zero, I think its really chilling... There's a firehouse directly across from ground zero, this is the memorial to the 6 firefighters that died from that house.

The lady in the white scarf & the gentleman in the baseball cap were the couple that did our tour. Tours are guided by survivors from 9/11 or people that lost love ones that day. This wonderful couple lost their son, Christopher, who was a firefighter at the house on 8th & 47th streets. At first it must seem like a really hard thing for these two to do, to re-live this tragedy, but I think they really just wanted to tell their son's story & to honor his life and what a great man he was. I know it was an honor to hear about their experiences.

This is the memorial for all the fallen firefighters on the side of the firehouse. It was donated because there was a man in one of the towers who was in one of the law offices & when it happened he rushed down to the fire house & told them he was a fire fighter from another town & offered his services. He later died that day. This memorial depicts what the firefighters saw that day & has all the names of the firefighters that died.

A picture of ground zero.

The staircase you see is called "the survivor staircase." The tower plaza was on a platform raised above street level, & the only way one could get down to the street and away from the buildings was to go down this staircase. Its now to be part of the memorial they're building there.

This is the memorial for the 11 people that worked for American Express in tower 1. When they rebuilt this building for AE, they added this memorial to remember these people. Its called the 11 tear drops because water drips from the ceiling like tears on each of the 11 sides of the pool of water.

I really appreciated the tour, it was one of the best things we did all weekend.

We had lunch at a place in the World Financial Buildings, then we walked outside and down Battery Park to the Statten Island Ferry. If you're in NYC and want to get on the water to see the Statue of Liberty, I highly recommend the Statten Island Ferry. First off, its free, which is a bonus. Then its a 25 min. ride across the water and it takes you right by Ellis Island & the Statue of Liberty. I took a ton of pictures off the ferry, here are just a couple.

Mom & I on the trip there.

The Statue of Liberty

Me on the way back. When the ferry docks, you have to get off, but its pretty easy to walk around and get right back on. On the way back we went one level up and sat outside. It was only 43 degrees outside, but it still felt nice & warm (compared to here, its practically hot!)

I turned around and got this shot as the sun set, pretty sweet, huh?

After the ferry we took the subway back up to Broadway, picked up some last minute souvenirs, and took these pictures in front of the Ed Sullivan Theater. If we had been there on a weekday, we probably would've tried to get tickets to Letterman or Good Morning America...

At this point it was really only 6:30pm, but I was hobbling around like an old lady with broken ankles, so we got some take out Chinese (really good take out Chinese!) and went back to the hotel to watch the Super Bowl & get ready to leave the next day. :)

One more little post & that's all folks!