Sonya's Blog - Day 123 - Back to New York City

Sonya's Blog - Day 123 - October 23rd - Back to New York City

We caught the 9:40 train this morning. We got home late last night and didn't feel like hopping on the 8 AM train. We decided to get on the Brooklyn tour bus and also the tour boat (these are all a part of our hop on hop off bus tour). We took the train to Hoboken today and then caught the PATH subway over to Manhattan. This is the newest subway in New York and it goes straight to the World Trade Centre and then a few other stop after that. They are going to make this another Subway hub in New York, so it will grow every year with additional stops and lines being connected. It was the nicest subway train we had ever been on.

We went over to Battery Park to try and get on the Boat Tour first, we would then get off in Brooklyn and catch the tour bus there. We had impeccable timing! The boat was there and we just made it on board for the tour. The next stop was Brooklyn, so we were only on the boat for about 15 or 20 minutes. The tour guide was very good, so we learned some new things. We went under the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge and had a good view of the Williamsburg Bridge.

We hopped off at our stop in Brooklyn and set out to find the Bus Tour stop. There was not a stop right at the dock, which was unfortunate. We asked which way to go and set off in that general direction. Well, the stop was not well marked and we had a very hard time finding it. We were stopped by another couple that could not find the stop either, so it was very frustrating. We were on the wrong side of the road when one of the busses went by, so that was disappointing. We finally got to the right side of the street and waited in the area where we thought the bus would stop. The bus did stop for us, so that was good. Then, we went right by the pier for the boat, and they ended up stopping there anyhow because people wanted off for the boat!!! Ahhh! Well we were on the bus now, so off we went to enjoy the tour. The tour was good. The microphone system was not working properly, so the tour guide had to yell out the information. Brooklyn had lots of great architecture and things to look at. We saw Al Capone’s house, where he was raised. He was the block bully and was already in trouble with the law at 13. The tour operator also stopped the bus at the Brooklyn Library, so we got a chance to go in and have a look. The tour took about 2 hours and dropped us back off in Lower Manhattan.

We were not sure what to do after this as it was getting quite late in the day. We decided to walk over to see if we could get on the Ferry Boat for a tour of the Statue of Liberty. On the way we managed to find the famous Bull of Wall Street and snap a picture. When we got there, we were too late. The last tour had already left!

We decided to head over to the Boat Tour dock instead and finish up that boat tour because it took us beside the Statue of Liberty, we just couldn’t get off like you can on the Ferry Boat Tour. We had to hustle to make the last boat, but we made it and hopped on. The first part of the tour we had done in the morning, but then after that it was all new. They took the boat our to the Statue of Liberty and gave us some history about the area. We got some great pictures, so that was nice. The boat then took us back to Midtown and dropped us off. They had shuttle busses waiting to take us to Times Square, which was nice.

Once we got off the bus, we walked to Penn Station and bought our tickets for the train ride home. We had good timing again and a train was leaving pretty quickly to get us back to the campsite. We got on a 6:30 train, which got us back to camp at just before 9, so it was another long day.

The train schedule is a little different tomorrow because it is the weekend. There is a 9 AM train, instead of 8, so we will catch that one and go to the American Museum of Natural History to experience Night at the Museum (the movie). Well, I don’t think much will come to life since we will be there during the day, but we will see some neat exhibits.

Sonya