NYC Trip #1

My cousin, Erica, (pictured below: eating her first Philly Cheese Steak)

is here visiting this week. It is so great to have her here. Well, we went to New York yesterday and had quite an adventure. We drove

about an hour and twenty minutes (btw I have my own city)

to Liberty State Park

and took a Ferry to Ellis Island

and the Statue of Liberty

After we did the Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty thing, we took our last ferry to NYC. First stop, Ground zero. It was just so surreal. It put it all in perspective.

After eating some calzones in a place right by Ground Zero (which gave me heartburn. How old am I?) we headed to Times Square. We caught our first cab, where we found out our cab driver was a self proclaimed philosopher. He parked the car when we got to Times Square and continued to preach to us as we were drooling over the sites of Times Square through the cab windows. FINALLY, he stopped preaching and we jumped out at the first chance we got. Time Square, here we come

Here is a piece of the WTC.

So around 5:00pm we all decided that we would head back to Liberty State Park where we parked and took the ferry. We still had about an hour and twenty minutes left to drive home. We took a taxi from Times Square and made it to Battery Park to catch a water taxi back to Liberty State Park. We had all this planned out the night before. Erica called to get info about getting a taxi home, but they failed to tell her about their Sunday hours, which meant no taxi after 5pm. So we asked a cop where we could go and he sent us to Pier 11, which was about a twenty minute walk. So we began our walk and finally made it and we saw taxis going to Liberty Harbor. So we sit and wait for a taxi to come and when it did the guy said a place that was definitely not Liberty State Park. I went out and asked him which taxi would take us to New Jersey. When I heard his answer, I didn't wanna go back in and tell Cam and Erica what he said. He told me that none of their taxis went there and that people always mistake them for taxis that go to N.J. After he finished telling me this bad news, I saw Erica and Cam walk out and they automatically knew we weren't in the right place. We went and woke the security guard up to ask him where we needed to go and he told us to go back to Battery Park and get a water taxi. We told him that that is where we just came from and they sent us here. So then he said we needed to go on a subway and ask someone how to get to 34th and Penn. So we walked like four blocks to the subway and the man told us we might as well walk to another station and take a train. Off we were again walking in the 25 degree weather to another station. Once we found one, we went down there and looked for someone to ask, but instead we got a map. Didn't help us one bit. We asked random people all over, but every answer was different. We walked to another subway and Erica saw a sign that said Jersey City. So we figured what the hell and bought a metro card. When we got back to the sign that Erica saw, I noticed it said "Jersey City Ferry". We already knew the ferries weren't running. Not knowing what in the heck to do, we all sat on a bench until Cam said, "Screw it, let's just get on and see where it takes us." So we jumped on the train and were just so lucky to be sitting next to a guy who was sound asleep snoring away. No clue how he stayed asleep with as loud as that subway was. Miraculously, we stopped at 34th and Penn. We all jumped off and just stood there looking around thinking where now? A man saw us all looking like we were in a foreign place and said, "Ok where do ya'll need to go?" We told him and he was very specific about where to go and what we need to look for. Well, we go to where he told us to go and we stood in line for a train ticket. When we got to the front of the line, we told her where we needed to go and I just knew by her face that we were in the wrong place. Then she says, "Oh you can't get there from here, you have to go to the other station and get a ticket from there." We all looked at each other and just laughed, well me and Erica did, Cam didn't find it so humourous. Off we went and found the next station. Once again we stood in line, asked where to go and were of course told we were in the wrong place. We needed to find another station. We found one and bought another metro ticket and jumped on. We really had no clue where we were gonna wind up, but we had the smallest sign to follow. There was a picture from like the 1940's with a sign in the picture that said Hoboken/Jersey City. Cam made the decision that we were going to get off at Hoboken because the sign said it was by Jersey City. We made it to Hoboken. We got off and were lucky to have the conductor hanging out of his window. Who else would be able to give us the right directions? He started off by saying, "Well, you need to go up those stairs and take..." Then he says, "Ok, well since ya'll paid to get down on here already, just get on here, get off at Grove, get on the other subway to go toward WTC then go toward Exchange Place. (Or something like that) We made a lot of guesses along the way and finally made it to Exchange Place, which was very close to Liberty State Park according to the map. Once we made it to Jersey we just started walking, cuz what else was there to do. We walked and walked and finally could see our car in the far distance. One lil problem though, there was a body of water between us and the car. We found some guy outside (it was a ghost town!) and he said, "Oh yea, it's about 4 or 5 miles to Liberty State Park." By this time we had been on our feet for over 12 hours and of that time, 3 of those hours we spent lost. Erica and I couldn't help but laugh as Cam stayed his stern self. We went into an apartment complex and surprisingly there was a guy who let us in. He told us that we need to catch a train and we would make it there. Here we went looking for another train. Found one, jumped on and made it to Liberty State Park, but no car in site. We then found a security guard who told us we were the 3rd group of people who were looking for our car. He sent us down a dark road where we walked for about another mile and evenutally we found the CAR!!!!!!! Needless to say, we slept like babies that night.

I know this blog is long, but it was a long night, but so much fun!!