Tuesday in New York City- 2010/11 World Tour

We are still adapting to time changes and woke up late again. The whole week that we were in NYC we did not make it out of the hotel once before noon. I thought that this was pretty pathetic but Darren and Dax did not have a problem with it. Darren would be happy living in a dark cave, no lies and Daxtin takes forever to get ready to leave the house. I could have used a cattle prod and a firecracker to rouse the troops. Dax was pretty excited to take the subway; we had not been on one since Singapore. The NYC subway is pretty grouse and tight. The platforms are very tiny and dirty and ancient looking. The Asian subways are so much nicer to look at and ride. We grabbed the subway and went downtown to Wall Street. We saw the New York Stock Exchange building and in my naiveté, I thought that we could actually go in and I was wrong, you can’t. Wall Street is closed down to cars probably to accommodate all of the tourists that visit there. At the end of Wall Street is Trinity Church and we ducked in there for a couple of seconds, I loved the old solid bronze doors. We walked up to Cortland Street which is adjacent to Ground Zero. Ground Zero is fenced off so you can’t actually see the ground not that it would look like it did after the disaster but it looks nothing like you would imagine. There are about 10 building cranes on site and you can go into the place that has the plans for what is going to be there once it is complete. Also, there is a little museum set up in memory of all of the people who were murdered there. If you walk up towards Brooklyn Bridge there is a cross that was constructed entirely of debris from the site after 911 cooled down a bit. Obviously, an artist had a hand in the making of it, it is artistically beautiful and horrible at the same time. The site and area are very solemn and depressing just like it is when you go to Auschwitz, Poland. It truly is devastating and confusing what human beings can do to each other when one dehumanizes another human being. Whether you were a Jew or an Infidel, the results were the same – tragic.



After that, I was ready for a pick me up and I don’t mean a drink. I mean shopping. Century 21 Department Store sits directly beside Ground Zero. I know it is kind of a sacrilegious placement of a store, but maybe it was there before 911, I don’t know. I also know it is a stupid name for an amazing department store. If you have been to Nordstrom Rack or Nordstrom Last Chance or even a TJMaxx then you will recognize a good bargain when you see one. It was nuts in there, very crowded and not just by women there were just as many men in there, and the man’s department was huge. I needed a purse and the purse section was huge but I scoped one out for myself at a good deal. Darren is not a shopper so he did not venture into the man’s area, the coward. The boy’s department was not that big but I did find some really good bargains for our son. I picked up 4 pairs of winter pyjamas for him; one pair was 49 cents and the others were $7.49 each. In Canada, I would pay $14.00 dollars for the same quality. I also got him a great lined rain jacket which he needed here in NYC because it rained 6 out of the 7 days that we were here. I also got him some really cute Volcam shorts which have an adjustable waist because he is so tiny. Seriously when I come back to NYC in the future I would have to spend a minimum of 6 hours in Century 21 just to do it justice. I did not even make it to the shoe area and that really is unforgivable to a shoey like me (yes, I made that up).

We walked out of the financial area and trotted north to see the Brooklyn Bridge which everyone but my husband has heard of. My mission was to walk the bridge and take pictures of the Manhattan skyline. Apparently, every tourist had the same idea and it was jam-packed but at least the bridge has a walking area that is elevated above the traffic of the cars so it was a nice walk with a steep incline up. The boys decided that they did not want to walk the Brooklyn Bridge with me so they stopped and sat down on some of the benches and waited for me. The bridge was built in 1857 and still seems quite sturdy. Once you get up a way over the top of the buildings and almost to the point when you are over the East River the walkway turns into a wooden walkway which looks to be wood 2 X 4 s. There are spaces in-between each 2 X 4 and you can see straight down and this was a bit unnerving for me. The bridge was really kind of creepy but an architectural wonder and it provided some much-needed exercise. Once I got halfway across, the weather had become extremely socked in with clouds so the pictures turned out very gloomy but I am still glad that I walked the bridge. Why can’t Saskatoon build a bridge that lasts as long as the Brooklyn Bridge which is still going strong?

We kept walking north through Tribeca where many celebrities have homes. Justin Timberlake has one in Tribeca but we did not see any celebs in NYC the whole time we were there. We went through Chinatown and made it to Little Italy and chose a restaurant. I had heard the food was great anywhere in this area. We picked the wrong one apparently; however, Dax loved his pizza. We continued through SoHo and I wanted to make it to Greenwich Village and Dax was fading fast. We hopped on the subway back to our area of Manhattan. A subway fare is $2.50 or you can buy a 7 day pass for $29.00.