New York Day 2

Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Wow, Monday was amazing!! We decided to take the train into the city (New York City!!) Monday morning, hoping the weather would be at least decent. Well, it was above and beyond what we could have expected based on Sunday's brilliant display of...gloom. Monday was beautiful! It was sunny and warm. The morning was brisk and chilly but the sun was shining and it was so gorgeous out. By the afternoon, I had shed my winter coat and was pretty warm in my sweater. (BTW, Mom, I took your advice on the thin tank underneath to add a layer and it made all the difference in the world!) Kris and I took the train into the city which was part of the adventure for me.

















Kris had friends in town from California for a wedding so we hung out with them for a little bit until they had to go to the airport.

We all went to Ground Zero which was a pretty moving experience. All I could think about was where I was that day when I saw the footage of the towers. And it's hard to believe that two buildings the size of the towers actually stood in that small space. There are buildings all around and I could only imagine what the people who lived/worked in those buildings experienced that horrible day. It was very sobering and it’s just not possible to fully explain the feeling you get when you stand there.


Kris's friends had to leave pretty soon after that so we said our good-byes and amazingly enough we just happened to be right across the street from a yarn store! It was my first LYS other than a big box store. I got some sock yarn in beautiful colors and a lecture on buying nice yarn. The lady was so funny. We chatted a little when Kris and I first walked in and she asked Kris if she'd been to Rhinebeck. Poor Kris, she knows almost nothing about knitting or crocheting and had no idea what the lady was talking about. Later she said, "Rhinebeck? I thought the lady was talking about a ski place or something." She called it a "knitter language." So we shopped around a little and I found some sock yarn to give me inspiration to stick with this boring learner sock pattern I'm on right now. I took it to the front and the owner was telling me that maybe I wanted to buy cheaper sock yarn since I was a newer knitter because I wouldn't want to use the stuff I picked out on my first pair since I'd probably be frogging a lot and that wears out the fiber. I'm holding my little selection and she's giving me some good info about using wooden needles and how that's what she prefers but she refused to sell her needles to someone one time because she was sure they weren't going to use them. I said, “Well, are you going to sell me this yarn?” I started to think that since I wasn't a tried and true sock knitter yet she wasn't going to let me buy her sock yarn. She did but it was touch and go for a minute. And thank goodness she did because it is yummy. It’s my first nice yarn and I just want to carry it with me everywhere and pet it.


After that we walked over to get tickets to ride the ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty. I just wanted to get some good pictures. I was still getting over the chest cold that tried to kill me so just thinking about walking up a gazillion stairs made my lungs wheeze. I sounded like a man for a couple days and lost the lung capacity to even laugh, which is a really awful thing for me. I love to laugh and I'm on vacation. Double whammy. So something funny would happen and I'd open my mouth to laugh and my lungs would squeeze shut and no sound would come out. Ugh. By Monday, I sounded like a girl again...a wheezy girl. Anyway, we made it through the ticket line and went to get in line to get on the ferry. We're walking to the back of the line...and we're walking...and we round a corner and we're walking...and we round another corner and...you get the idea. Kris, my patience-challenged friend kept saying, "Oh no, I'm not waiting in that line...oh, no. Look it keeps going!" But we found the back of the line (eventually) and stuck it out. The line was so long, we passed a couple different street performers...a man playing a steel drum and another man playing a trumpet.



It didn't take as long as we were afraid it would. The line moved very quickly. It took less than an hour to wind all the way around. We both had books (the train ride is about an hour) so we were shuffling through the line reading. You can see the line behind Kris and me in the picture…


And the line in front of us in this one. It was crazy.


It was an absolutely beautiful day. Have I said that before? :-) I just stood at the back of the boat looking at the Lady Liberty and soaking up the sun. It was absolutely wonderful.


I took no less than 20 pictures of her. She was standing there so beautifully.

I also got a great shot of the skyline from the boat.


We didn't get to see a Broadway show, the timing was just wrong, but we headed back home on the train and tried to crash early to be up early to head to Philly. The night owl in me comes out in the extreme on vacation so early didn't happen for me. But Philly is another post.