New York, New York.....Part 1

We visited New York with Jeannie and Sophie and really loved the buzz that the city has. Non-stop people, non-stop activity and non-stop noise! Even our little townhouse creaked and groaned non-stop at night thanks to its steam heating system. It took us a day to work out how to tame it so that we could finally get some peace!

I will let our photos tell the story of the days we had there.

Friday, November 26
Our townhouse was on West 48th Street, which was only a few blocks away from Times Square. So this is where we headed on our first afternoon in New York. The lights, noise and crowds were huge. The girls loved looking in the huge Toys R Us store, which even had its own ferris wheel inside the shop!





Saturday, November 27
The next morning we headed out to see the Statue of Liberty. Little did we realise, being the Thanksgiving weekend, we had chosen one of the busiest weekends to visit. So after waiting in a (freezing cold!) queue for over 2 hours (!!) we finally passed security and made it onto the ferry to take us over to Liberty Island.

The view of the financial district taken from the ferry.

The Statue of Liberty is actually made of copper. She started off the colour of a shiny nickel, or US one cent coin. Over the course of about 30 years, the copper slowly turned to the green colour that it is today. This patina now protects the metal.


While James braved a 30 minute outdoor tour with a park ranger in the freezing and windy conditions, the girls and I and Jeannie did a quick walk around the base of the statue and admired the view of Manhattan (before rushing back inside!).

Sunday, November 28

Jeannie and Sophie had a shopping day today, so James and I and the girls started the day with a walk around the nearby area. We saw the Rockefeller Center, complete with huge Christmas tree and ice skating rink.




Then we walked along 5th Avenue, which is the main fashion and shopping area. Many of the major stores already had their Christmas windows up and we enjoyed looking at these. We also went to the beautiful St. Patrick's Cathedral.



Next we headed into Central Park. Although it was cold, it was a beautiful place to walk around and we had lunch there.


Pia and Ella loved the huge kids playground and especially this tyre swing, which reminded them of Wollombi and(grandad)Bernie's tyre swing. They made sure they left enough room for Eva and Matilda (their cousins back in Australia) to fit on the swing as well. So they enjoyed a swing with them, in spirit!
Below are some other views of Central Park.









We finished off the day at the Natural History Museum, site of the first Night at the Museum movie, which the girls loved. Among many other things we saw...

the dinosaur in the foyer, which comes to life in the movie


the Easter island 'talking' statue...


and the museum's Christmas tree. The decorations are all origami animals.

That completes our first 3 days in New York. In my next blog I'll cover the next 3 days.