We slept in a wee bit after our long night at the theater, but we still got up at 6 am. We took our time getting ready while we recharged our phones and my battery pack. We seem to be having a bit of trouble keeping our phones charged with all of this navigation and photo-taking! We stopped by Gastro Market and got some breakfast then swung by the room to get gloves and pick up our phones from the chargers before heading out to the subway.
We got going to the metro around 8 am, plenty of time to commute on the subway. We got to the 50th street station and go onto (what I thought) was the correct platform for the 1 train. The 1 train with South Ferry on the board came almost as soon as we tapped through the turnstiles and we hopped on. However, I quickly realized that the station numbers were going up instead of down (great going, Erin...) and got us off on the 72nd street stop and crossed over to the other platform. A genuine New York City rat was playfully meandering under the rails as we waited. I helpfully explained the scale of the New York City rat problem to Mom, despite the horrified expression on her face. The 1 going towards South Ferry and Brooklyn arrived a few minutes later and we got onto the relatively full train. The rat stayed at the station.
However, a couple of minutes later the driver announced that we were held at the station until police could remove someone who had brought a weapon onto the train. Super. Most of the train emptied while folks found alternative routes, but we needed to be on that train. So after debating a bit, we decided to stay on the train along with a few other folks, and about 5-10 minutes later they announced that we were heading out of the station and skipping stops to keep on time! Just it was just a slight delay, and we ended up catching up on time anyway.
We got to the South Ferry station a little after 9 and hustled through Battery Park to the end of (what felt like) a quarter mile of metal line barricades to get into the security check. We got through security with no trouble, got in line for the next ferry at 9:20 and were boarding a couple of minutes later.
Big ferry. Holds lots of people. Very thankful we aren't attempting this during peak season because that would be a bit...much.
Perfect timing! We got seats on the ferry inside to stay warm since it was very windy and cold!
We will progressively be getting colder and more windblown throughout this journey. We look really warm on the ferry right now though...
We did a loop through the gift shop to scope out Christmas ornaments and then a passing Brit got some great shots of us in front of the statue before we headed to security to go up in the pedestal.
So the statue is both larger than any statue has any right to be, and a lot smaller than I had built it up to be in my head. Extremely impressive feat of engineering, artistry, and sheer determination on all counts though.
Breezed through security again and walked through the exhibit in the base of the statue before we started the climb up to the top of the pedestal.
Look at that postcard view of Manhattan. So cool.
It was a bit cold and very windy so we headed back down and went to the main museum next. Very well done movies and full scale versions of parts of the statue to get an idea of the size. We found a very knowledgeable ranger next to the original torch and got an interesting history of the design of the torch and how the statue was built.
Giant toes, giant nose, and did y'all know that they replaced this torch with a 24 caret gold-leafed version in the 80s?
It was getting closer to noon so we swung by the gift shop to get our Christmas ornaments and then I snagged a black and white cookie and a bag of chips for lunch.
Mom wanted us to pose with the traditional foam Liberty crowns. I resisted.
But doesn't she look cute!
We found a bench overlooking the ferry dock and the next ferry arrived right as we were finishing our snack. The ferry to Ellis Island only took a few minutes and we got some beautiful pictures of the Statue of Liberty Awakened (official name!) from the boat.
Y'all the French are super cool to have built us this amazing statue and planted it in the New York Harbor for us. Eiffel even built the structure inside! Exquisite workmanship.
We stopped at Ellis Island next and got to go through the huge museum they have inside the arrivals building. They have a really great public history display of the American immigration story and include oral histories from immigrants that arrived through Ellis Island.
It's a beautiful building that they have been painstakingly renovating and preserving.
Mom still hadn't really eaten anything for lunch so we went to the cafeteria and she got a bowl of soup and we got to sit at the tables that are replicas of the original tables that they had at the facility. We had a few more minutes to wait before the next showing of the Ellis Island documentary started, so we went through the upper floors where the immigration desks had been originally.
Beautiful space and it's amazing to think of how many thousands of people passed through here, and how many millions of Americans are related to someone that immigrated to the U.S. through Ellis Island.
We took a 30 minute break from the din in the arrivals hall to watch the documentary about Ellis Island which was very informative, and then we headed back to the ferry for Battery Park. We got back to Battery Park around 2 pm and decided to do a bit of shopping on the way back to the hotel. We popped on the subway and got off at 23rd street to pick up some Essential Craft Items at Michaels (beads for our friendship bracelets for our Eras Tour Movie experience on Saturday night).
I had to take a picture of the inside of this Michael's. It was insane.
Mom is still on a quest for winter white slacks so we located the TJ Maxx a few blocks away and made a loop through TJ Maxx and Marshalls. TJ Maxx didn't have the slacks but...Marshall's did! Yes!
Yes, we took photos. Mom was very excited to find a TJ Maxx. It's her happy place.
My feet were about to give out so we headed back to the subway, successfully navigated back to 50th street, walked back to the hotel and flopped onto the bed to rest up a bit before heading back out to see Six.
Around 6 pm we left the hotel and headed down Broadway to the Lena Horne theater to see Six. Very long lines start up about an hour before the shows so we had to get in the queue and wait until 6:30 until they started letting us into the theater to be seated.
In the queue to get in!
We got to our seats and (unlike last night) had completely unobstructed views of the stage.
Everything is PURPLE! Also, we had gotten up close photos of the costumes when we were at the Museum of Broadway yesterday!
The show was phenomenal. The music and costumes were so much fun and mom and I were both hyped up when we got out of the show. We started to walk back to the hotel when the pastry display windows at the Italian bakery, Angelina, caught our eye. We stopped in and got a slice of pizza and a piece of strawberry shortcake to share as a late night snack.
Not shown: Pizza and strawberry shortcake. We demolished both of them in record time.
We got back to the hotel a short while later and crashed a little earlier than last night. We have an early morning tour to meet at 8:15 so we need to make sure we're ready to go for that in the morning.