The Big Apple and More!

Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site.

As Jami said, Tuesday was such a whirlwind day!

We drove in to the NYC area on Monday night all the way from Lubec, ME. The drive was incredibly diverse. We went from winding curvy roads hopping along coastal towns, to wide open freeways in the hills of Massachusetts and Connecticut, to the intense expressways leading in to New York City. We learned yet again that Google Maps is as good at navigating the through the city as we are without a map. We finally made enough U-turns to get to our hotel and crashed for the evening. We stayed in Newark, NJ and took the train from the Newark Penn Station into New York City on Tuesday morning, which only takes about 20 mins. The train dropped us off at the World Trade Center site where it's still under what looks like a lot of construction. You can still see the large hole in the ground from some vantage points and the new Freedom Tower is already one of the tallest buildings in the skyline and they're still working on it. A side note if you're ever traveling to NYC and want to visit the World Trade Center memorial, reserve your tickets in advance, we learned that the hard way. It was still quite the scene to see considering the events that happened there and how it has impacted our country.

We walked from the WTC down to Battery Park where we were to board the 9:30AM ferry to the Statue of Liberty. After a quick walk to get some coffee we made it on our ferry just in time. Chris made the great discovery that if we bought tickets online the night before we could get into the "reserved" line and not have to wait hardly at all. The non-reserved line was a mile long so it really saved us some time. The ferry ride over was great because you could see the skyline in one direction and the Statue in the other. We took a walk around the Statue of Liberty taking many photos and standing in awe at the magnitude and grandeur of it. It's amazing to think that it was assembled piece by piece on top of that pedestal and also what it must've looked like to arriving immigrants.

Amy and Jami doing their best pose.

The Registry Room, Ellis Island

The ferry was really a two-part trip, stopping at the Statue of Liberty first before going on to Ellis Island. Ellis Island has been restored and there's many exhibits to walk around and see. We walked around and saw all of the dormitories and the famous Registry Room. For you Godfather II fans out there, the Registry Room is where Don Corleone arrives and gets inspected and the dormitory is where he is shown sitting looking towards the Statue of Liberty. After touring the complex, we went to the historical archives and did a search to try to find some of our relatives. Amy actually found her great grandma who came over from Norway, and could view the actual ship registry with her name on it & a picture of the ship she came over on. Very cool.

Times Square.

We took the ferry back into the city and basically just walked around taking in the sites. For lunch we stopped at an authentic NYC style pizza place. After that we took the subway up to Times Square. What a place, how do you know what to look at?? There are giant flashing billboards everywhere! It was a bit much for this country kid, but I still liked it. We walked through Times Square and down Broadway, again just taking in the scenery. We ended up walking all the way to Central Park and walked around for a bit. Central Park was much like Boston Common but on a far bigger scale. We hung out there for a little while then headed across the street to catch the subway to New York Penn Station. We then took the train back to Newark Penn Station and walked back to our hotel and hit the road for Washington, D.C.

As we set to depart from Newark we got to looking at the map and decided that since Philadelphia was more or less on the way to D.C....why not stop? So we did. We hopped off of the Jersey Turnpike and drove into the center of Philadelphia, PA. As we drove into the city we approached City Hall, which was one of the most impressive buildings we have seen on the trip thus far. The intricate architecture and height of the building stood out among many of the other modern buildings in the city. Next, we stopped at the Independence Mall, where the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall are located. We quickly snapped some shots of the Liberty Bell, and got yelled at by security guards for unintentionally crossing a no-visitor zone near Independence Hall. After taking in all of that U.S. history we stopped at a local establishment to have some authentic Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches. We all had the "Wit" which means it was topped with cheese wiz. Sounds gross, tastes awesome...trust me. We felt like that was enough to check Philly off the list and then piled in the van and continued our trip south to D.C.

The Liberty Bell.

Enjoying a Philly "wit"

We arrived in the D.C. suburbs at around 10:30PM at the home of our gracious host, Justin Litz. He welcomed us weary travelers with open arms. Next up was our Nation's Capitol!