[We got so busy being on vacation that I stopped getting posts done from vacation - this is Aug 26th]
We decided to do the touristy thing in New York today. Now just Central Park or the American Museum of Natural History, but the really touristy stuff. We thought after yesterday’s laying about the kids would be ready to go. They actually fell asleep in the car on the drive in – before 10:30 in the morning! Guess it’s been a long couple of days . . .
We drove down to Battery Park at the south tip of Manhattan. We decided to start with the Statue of Liberty. While we walked to where we could see it, we passed a statue of immigrants which started off our discussion nicely. We saw the Statue of Liberty in the distance but it was pretty far and the day was very overcast. We wondered off to see the statue of the bull in the Financial District. On the way, we passed the sculpture that had stood in the plaza between the building in the World Trade Center. It is dented and battered, with holes and tears, but dad was happy to see it. He passed that sculpture on the way to and from work for years. From there we some great architecture; the kids really liked all the decorations on the buildings.
We caught the subway to Grand Central from there. To put it in some perspective for the kids, we went upstairs to see the main floor rather than just switching subway lines. That let us show them where daddy used to catch the train but it is also where all the animals go in Madagascar. Kid’s really liked riding the subway. It’s so different from anything they are used to – it’s a train, it’s underground, it’s so cool. We headed over to Times Square – bright lights, flashy stuff, tons of colors, lots of fun. That was fun to wonder around; definitely no your usual hometown neighborhood.
Lunch and then we decided to catch a tour bus. Kids were dragging and we were exhausted as well. We rode up-top on one of the double decker buses and did the lower loop of Manhattan. Lots of great architecture (D 
liked to guess if buildings were old or not based to how decorated they were) in the old areas of the city. We rode through the funky boutique areas of SoHo and Greenwich Village, past the Financial District and Battery Park we had just left and headed to the South Street Seaport. Kids liked the old ships and it has a great view of the Brooklyn Bridge. We were on the bus for hours and now I can only remember the UN building, the Empire State building and other big things. We spent more time looking at the arches and columns and sculptures we past. We did hop off the bus in Chinatown to walk over to Little Italy to have dessert at Ferrara’s. A sweet end to any day.
