012 - fri 12/05/2006 - new york

our last day in new york. the itinerary was simple, yet classic - statue of liberty in the morning, empire state building at night. we headed back down to castle clinton, this time with reservations, and boarded the ferry to liberty island. we, and a few hundred other tourists, got some great snaps of the statue. on liberty island we grabbed an audio tour and learnt some more of those pesky fun facts. eiffel designed the statue's interior. the book she's holding is two stories high. that sort of thing. actually it was interesting to hear just how strong relations were between france and the states - frenchmen fought in the american war for independence, and the statue was a symbol for liberty and freedom that the french gave to america kind of because they were envious, and wished maybe that france was more like america. things are different now obviously.

going up into the statue required a lot of security checks, another post 9-11 thing. also, you can only go up as far as the pedestal now, where you used to go into the statue, up to the crown. the statue was actually closed for a few years after 9-11. after the statue we headed over to ellis island on the ferry, to the immigration museum. ellis island used to process immigrants to the states at the turn of the century, when there was such a huge influx (great word that). i didn't take heaps in because i was pretty tired, but it was interesting - people were just asked like 'do you have $25' and as long as they didn't show too many signs of being completely insane, voila, they were americans. different now.

back on the island we had lunch at a french place and then headed up to the museum of modern art for the afternoon. like many museums in the states, moma has free admission on friday afternoons, thanks to, of all companies, target. i don't know how the connection between target and public art came about, but we weren't complaining. moma was pretty amazing, and i could have spent a couple of days there i reckon. a lot of contemporary stuff, which i often get into a bit more than looking at old saucers and busts and stuff. upstairs they had some picasso and monet. it would have been great to spend more time there. it got added to a long list we were making of things to do 'next time', if we're ever lucky enough to come back.

after the museum we headed for the empire state building, the top of which was lost in fog as we approached. it was completely freaky and weird actually, the scene looked like it belonged in ghostbusters. it was a ghostbusters moment - ghostbusters was set in new york, right? it came to mind a few times when we were in new york. we queued up to get to the top of the empire state, but just before we were to buy our tickets they started yelling out that it was zero visibility. we didn't figure there was much point, so we were disappointed. add it to the next time list.

we wandered down to times square so that we could take some photos of the square at night, which is pretty bewildering. and then we thought it felt right to head back to east village for dinner, because it was the part of town we'd kind of liked the most. so we went down to st marks place, a strip of bars and restaurants. we ate at a place called paprika. at home we packed our bags for a crazy early flight out of new york.

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