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We were up early to head the couple of blocks to breakfast. It was better than expected with excellent muffins and pastries, coffee, cereals, good breads and some cold cuts. It's a nice change to not have to take my own protein :-)
We had a bit of whinge re the room probs, TV, door handles etc and Georgia said no probs, we will take care of that today and just don't pay for last night. I said it was a bit generous, things weren't that bad but she insisted so for 3 nights incl breakfast we paid $240, far cheaper than many places we've stayed
We checked if the pastor had steered us right re parking and she was surprised we had lasted the night without a ticket, where we are is no parking ever despite the signs. We did the same old shuffle, circling the neighbourhood looking for a park. We got one on 120th st, just along from where we go for breakfast. All good now til 8.30am Fri when the street sweeper comes through again.
We caught the metro down to Wall St and walked to the Staten Is ferry terminal. The plan was to grab a tour and go onto the island and go up in the crown of the Statue of Liberty. When we checked re tickets a few weeks ago there were none available, you have to get in well ahead it seems :-(. So in the absence of that option the free ferry that passes close by the statue seemed the sensible option. She was closed for reno's last time I was here so I did the same thing that time too. We simply went over and turned around again, checking her out each way.
Once back on Manhattan we had lunch in Battery Park, well in the edges if it. Most of the park is closed presumably due to damage from Sandy. While there a group of Marines arrived with a Freedom Bell. People were lining up to get their pic taken ringing it for a donation to the returned servicemen fund.
We then made our way to the old world trade centres site, now the Sept 11 Memorial. It was in complete shut down for memorial services. Cops were everywhere, all in full uniforms poor b*****s despite it bing 34 or so C. Any manhole covers had clearly been checked for a few blocks as they were all marked with red paint crosses. We visited the memorial shop, Pete bought a couple of memorial t shirts. He was still in the RAAF when it happened so was very aware of it having been placed on alert, ready to go if called on. In the end they weren't but there is always the brothers in arms thing for him.
As is usual here, along the way we came across all sorts of characters. Today there was a woman in jeans and a bra, no top just the bra and another one wearing just a sort of cat suit which was entirely slashed, it did nothing to cover her in any way shape or form lol Two from yesterday that I forgot about were an elderly man, long grey hair in a red dress and high heels and a very old lady in hot pants, cowboy boots and hat. Apart from that all she was wearing were star shaped pasties on her very long, very flat boobs lmao a guitar finished off her ensemble - very bizarre lol
Pete was keen to check out Central Park so we took the metro back up to Columbus Circle and got set to explore. As we were coming up to the street level a plain clothes cop was escorting a handcuffed black girl down into the station, no idea what that was about. As we emerged into the street there were numerous cop cars, lights on and cops all over the place including one dog handler.
We set off and essentially zig zagged our way from one end of the. Park to the other, it took hours with a stop to lie down and watch the squirrels along the way. There were a lot of sirens on and off and at one stage we saw a black guy in cuffs being led across one of the open areas toward a few cop cars. All very exciting lol
By the time we reached the other end we were stuffed and still had 13 blocks to go to get back to our room. The steep steps up to the door of our brownstone were almost the last straw lol
A hot shower helped and we hit the local laundry to get our washing done before heading to Applebee's for dinner.
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