day two | new york city

Today we woke up early again for breakfast and saw a lady and her husband who were on the cruise with us yesterday.  Not only were they on the cruise but she had actually come over to us and asked if her husband could put his wheelchair next to us so he could see the Empire State Building.  Small world.

After breakfast we walked to the Rockefeller Centre passing Radio City Music Hall on our way.  Before we even got anywhere near the escalators to the viewing floors we had to go through security similar to that of an airport.  The view is pretty amazing but today was quite hazy so the photos aren't that spectacular.  I don't know if its a common thing in NYC because you don't really notice it when you're walking the streets but perhaps we'd never get better ones anyway.

After the Rockefeller Centre we headed to Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Quite an impressive church but too hard to get photos that do it justice. We had a man begging for money when we were there and it didn't seem right to say no especially when he was very curious what the words on Glen's shirt meant!  

From here it was down to the UN. It was quite disappointing actually.  I remember coming here when I was on exchange and have visions of all the flags and the building but today it was all fenced off (maybe a product of our times) and it looked dirty.  The building looked like it had been gutted and I don't know, we just weren't impressed at all.  We passed Trump Tower on the way though.  

Ok, now it was time to tackle the Subway.  And in a big way I might add - we started at Grand Central Station.  Very very busy, very very confusing.  The information men weren't that much help either but we found our way, got on a train and managed to get ourselves to City Hall without incident.  Nothing notable happened either.  Disappointing! 

City Hall was nice but there were either protests going on or election campaigning so we couldn't get close.  There is a pretty park out the front where we sat to rest our weary legs and I saw my first squirrel of the trip.  Now that was notable and exciting!

From here we walked around the corner to the WTC site. Its really hard to imagine what it was like from what's left. They're not rebuilding on the exact site out of respect for the victims but are building seven new towers surrounding it.  There were street sellers there flogging off 'souvenir' booklets and of course we got sucked in to not one but THREE.  But we got a great deal, all three for $20 bucks...how could we refuse right!! I'm sure we got ripped off but anyway, hopefully some of the money makes it to the right place. Anyway, there's a photo in one of the books of people walking away from the towers after they collapsed and there's a fence in that photo.  The fence is of a church cemetery right across the road from where we were so it was good to put that into perspective.

Back on the Subway home before we walked back into Times Square for lunch.  Planet Hollywood for burgers and half chickens.

Mechelle