Statue of Liberty, 9/11 Memorial & exploring Lower Manhattan

We've had such a great day again today in NYC. They finally managed to drag me unwillingly out of bed at about 9:30am, I'm really tired, we're walking a lot and staying up late so I'm not coping too well!

We set off south bound to explore Wall Street and see Statue of Liberty. It's great walking because you really get to see lots of the city. We walked passed the court house and through a little park. We missed Wall Street chatting and had to back up to walk down it. 

I think Mark was expecting more than just another business district street but it was busy with tourist and we got to walk past the Trump building. I was expecting so much more chaos around the election and his buildings but I wouldn't have really noticed it if no one had pointed it out.

We stopped off to sit in the sun and enjoy a coffee before heading to the dock for a ferry to Staten Island. The city provide a free ferry, I was so impressed I don't know why they don't charge. It's about a half hour journey over to Staten Island straight past the Statue of Liberty with an amazing view of Manhattan looking back over the water. We walked round all angles of the boat to see the views and then I had a few minutes inside to warm up before we arrived. 

It's so obvious who are tourist when you arrive because everyone gets off one ferry runs around the terminal end gets straight back on the next ferry to get the same journey back. I'm not sure if Staten Island is worth a visit but we had bigger priorities so we didn't stop long enough to even get out the ferry terminal. The journey home was quicker which was nice as the ferry didn't have outside decks and we could get shots of the view as well as we had on the way over.

Jason, the boys' friend from football who we had spent our first night in NYC with watching the baseball, had given us a pub tip. It had won the best bar in the world 2016  and to be honest it deserved its title. We couldn't find a seat on any of the three different floors but found a spot sat up at the bar for lunch. 

The boys found a few beers they haven't ticked off yet and I was over the moon with the menu. It was such a lovely cosy and warm bar, I had the most amazing chicken pot pie with mash and the boys had pork sliders and the other half of my pie. We could have sat there all day if we didn't have important touristing to do!

We finally left the warmth and comfort of the bar and wandered the streets up to ground zero and the 911 memorial. I had no idea what to expect but knew I want to see it. The memorial is two big, square, open wholes with water that runs into it from all angles. Around the edge are the names of almost 3000 people that died that day, the memorial add white roses to the names of any person who's birthday it would have been that day so there is the odd rose dotted around too which really highlights that these were all people.

I don't think I had prepared myself for what I was going to see in the museum, I think I was expecting lots of facts but hadn't considered the human and emotional side of what I was going to learn. We queued to get in and as we waited I said to Mark that I would be interesting to be reminded of what happened, I was 13 at the time and haven't really seen much since then about the towers going down. The first part of the museum was mainly about the building, the construction and the design of the buildings.

The first part of the museum had a bit of a weird layout as I wasn't really sure which way to go, I soon lost the boys and wandered around trying to work out if I was missing bit of if that was it. I found myself in a room with the faces of everyone that lost their life that day, you could look at a persons profile and it told you who they were, where they were on 911 and how old they were when they died. It suddenly hit home how it must have affected everyone in NYC and beyond so much.

One lady only worked a few days a week but had come in to cover a colleague who was off sick. There were so many of these sorts of stories.

I over heard a woman doing a tour who explained the structure of the building and how it collapsed, the interesting bit for me was that 99% of people in the second town survived if they were below the crash where the crash hit. The only saving grace from the day was that all this happened at 8:45am and Americans don't normally start work until 9/9:30 so actually there was an estimated 15,000 people in the building rather than 50,000 there would have been had it been mid morning.

We finally realised that the main exhibition was in the centre of the room and Edd and I joined the queue to get in. We found Mark just before we went in which was good so we could all start together. The centre bit was extremely well done and full of videos, interviews, artefacts and there was a big time line that went along one wall as the day progressed which was really interesting to read.

It started with photos of the twin towers that normal, beautifully clear day and continued through the day with recordings from the air hostess to ground control and the discussions that were had between emergency departments. Originally the first plane was thought to be an accident. For me the most harrowing part was listening to the phone calls from people on the plane that crashed in a field, those people were absolute heros, by the time their plane went down they knew what was happening and went down fighting.

We heard accounts from people on all different levels of the buildings, some from north tower and many from south who had been told to stay in their building as it wasn't safe to leave.

It was interesting and extremely sad to realise that it wasn't like more disasters, there weren't many survivors, once the towers came down that was it, the rescue team worked stupidly hard to try and find people but in total only 18 people were found.

There was a big section on how the terrorist had planned everything and it explained that they had all been to flight training in America. It showed videos of the men going through security and being searched the morning of 911 but in those days you were allowed a knife as long as the blade was no more than 4 inches.

There was so much information and so many interviews and recordings and stories, I cried through a lot of the exhibition and just couldn't believe what people went through. I totally lost Edd and Mark and was exhausted with emotion and concentration by the time I got a call from them to say they were waiting for me outside. I rushed through the last bit to catch up but to be honest I was so tired that I was happy to leave. There were still a few more rooms about how people coped afterwards and the memorials that have been put up in memory of everyone that day.

I found the boys in the pub and we talked for a while about where we had been on 911 and the exhibition and all the stories. The pub was on the edge of ground zero and had badges of all the police departments from around the country pinned to the bar.

We were keen to see NYC by night and get a view of the water with the lights so we found a rooftop bar. The drinks list wasn't quite the varied craft beers the boys have got used to so they both had a glass of wine and we sat overlooking the city and the water. It was pretty cold and I was very happy when the drinks were finished and we could move on to the next place. We got an uber back to near ours and found a bar with a long list of unique beers and a real good food menu too.

The boys had a couple of flights and I got to choose some of their beers for them, I reckon I'm now quite the expert on beers considering I don't drink! The food was delicious but it wasn't long before I was desperate for bed. They want me up at 8am tomorrow so I need to get some sleep. It's now 11:45 already, I have no idea where today has gone but it's been really brilliant.