Day 2 - To Liberty and beyond...

After staying up pretty much all night last night, it was pretty difficult to get going this morning.  We were on such a high after the fantastic first day that New York had given us so there was no chance that we were ready for bed at a reasonable hour.  Back to the trusty deli on the corner for a few beers and then spend a few hours with our friends the Paracites :-) Inevitably, with that sort of behaviour, we didn't end up going to bed until something like 5am.

As a result, breakfast was a necessity this morning to get us going.  Although for future reference to anyone playing at home, I don't mind a lumberjack but clearly neither Stu or myself are capable of eating a whole one.  No we didn't attempt to eat a man wearing a check shirt and carrying an axe, it was actually a couple of massive wedges of french toast with eggs, bacon, ham, sausage & fries.  One between two would have been more than enough.  Anyway, with full bellies and reluctant heads we hit the streets of New York again and jumped in a taxi to head to Battery Park.  It didn't take long for us to start feeling better.  The Big Apple has certainly turned on some gorgeous weather for us and today was no exception. Blue skies, sunshine and just the slightest of breezes were the conditions as we boarded the Statue Tour Boat and headed out to Liberty Island.

After cruising around the bay for a while and taking far too many pictures of Lady Liberty, Ellis Island and anything else that looked cool we headed back to sure and went in search of something to eat.  Stu got his much sought after New York hotdog stand dog and I opted for a cheese pretzel. 

I wont do that again in a hurry.  Sounds like an awesome concept but is very poorly executed.  Never mind though, it's all part of the fun.









Battery Park was wonderful with all sorts of things for sale and stuff to do and see including a guy playing Axel F on a steel drum and these guys...

After watching a brief show, we wandered off again and made a few small purchases including a nice pink hat to make it even more obvious to passers by that I'm not from around here.  Equipped with said hat, I then laid eyes on the first squirrel I had ever seen in real life and proceeded to chase it all around Battery Park trying to get a good photo of it.  We later discovered a whole bunch of the buggers, along with many a pigeon and Stu contemplated doing a Tom Lehrer.  Finding squirrels and pigeons in Battery Park wasn't really that much of a surprise, but seeing this?

Well that was completely unexpected.  So was running into a whole camera crew and a bunch of guys dressed up in police uniforms and filming and episode of CSI New York.  Neither Stu or myself were "discovered" and thrust into a life of stardom and fame so we decided it was time to wander off.

UPDATE: The turkey in question is apparently named "Zelda" and has been living in Battery Park since 2003. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelda_%28turkey%29

The original plan was to check out some more of New York but we stumbled across a subway station and decided to just get on it and head back to the hotel.

As this picture reveals, at least one of us was feeling pretty tired by this stage and didn't really need too much convincing to head back.

All in all we are feeling very content and have had an amazing time in New York. I'm not sure what our plans are for dinner tonight but we also have to pack up our stuff and get ready to head to Washington tomorrow.  Our train leaves Penn Station at 7:05am.

Also, Stu mentioned earlier that we stumbled across a market on our way to see Wicked, but realised that he never mentioned the fact that we actually made it to the Gershwin Theatre.  Well we did make it and the show was excellent.  Just thought it was worth mentioning in case anyone was worried we'd missed the show.

Stay tuned...