Day Thirteen
The day of incessant queuing.
The day dawned bright and sunny and I was woken by 633
Squadron blaring from J’s phone ( J; Humph , Aces High march from the Battle of
Britain actually!) as we had to set the alarm for 6.30 to get ourselves
organised in time. Not the best way to
be woken from a deep sleep!
So we got organised and caught the subway to South Ferry,
stopping to buy breakfast on the way.
The purpose of booking online the night before was to spend as little
time as possible queuing for the trip to Liberty Island. There is only one ferry service that is
allowed to land on the Island, so demand is high. We’d booked for a 9am departure, however that
is a bit of a fib and that’s actually the check-in time, the ferry doesn’t
depart until 9.30am. So we eventually
got to the “will call” booth to collect our tickets, and joined the queue to
get our tickets. Typically our idiot magnet
was working efficiently and we got stuck behind some git who didn’t have his
booking reference with him, and the credit card he’d booked with had been
compromised and replaced. So after much
faffing, the poor suffering attendant found his booking and issued his
tickets. Then we collected ours and
headed out to join the queue for the ferry itself. It’s about 8.30am by this time. So we stood in the queue, and stood and
stood, and eventually they herded everyone through security. Yep, you have to go through airport-like
security to visit the Statue of Liberty.
Except that you can take some knives, Swiss-army knives and the
like. So you have to take off belts, boots
(if they have metal in the sole like J’s ones), watches & empty your
pockets of coins/phones to go through the scanner. And yes, there was someone in front of us who
patted the wallet in his pocket five times before walking thru the metal
detector and setting it off, only to have to come back through and he held up
the entire queue while he dug his wallet out and put that through the x-ray
machine separately ……. as if he’s never had to do this in his life before.
Then we joined another queue to actually board the
boat. A ferry that can transport about a
thousand people (rough guess) but only has one entry and exit point that is two
people wide. So much delay and subtle
shifting of position to get a slight advantage over the person next to you, or
in my case, to block the person trying to edge past you when they think you won’t
notice. We claimed a two people wide portion
of the railing so we could take photos as we sailed past the statue, but of
course the French next to us encroached to the point where we ended up with
half the space than what we started with.
It’s one of those really obvious things you notice when you travel, we
Kiwi’s expect to have personal space, and those from much more crowded
countries (i.e. the rest of the world) knows this and uses it to their
advantage. Their theory seems to be “pick
a Kiwi to latch on to, that’ll double our space cos they can’t stand being
touched or jostled”.
And my decision to graciously move aside so a couple of old
dears could get to the rail and take photos was rewarded when they then took
eons to pull out the instruction manual, work out how to power it on, select
the mode …. you get the idea. And all
the while that Statue is passing by tantalisingly close, begging to be
photographed by someone whose hands are actually steady enough to hold a camera
still for 1/60th of a second.
We get to Liberty Island and disembark, a thousand people,
tow by two through the one small entry to the vessel, and walk to the main
entrance to that statue, where we join another queue to prepare for yet another
security screening. This time you are
not allowed to take food or water, nor are you allowed back packs of any kind, though
I am allowed my over should camera back that is pretty much as big as a back
pack. I think I could live with all of
this hoopla if there was some kind of logic that went with it. I mean honestly, am I going to whip someone
to death with a cucumber? Poke out their
eyes with a banana? Or maybe I could
just hold a knife to their throat, because yes, knives were allowed here
too. Farcical.
So it’s fair to say that by this point I was feeling very
dark about our decision to do this trip, as it was something we’d um’d and ah’d
on. But we were here now, and FINALLY it
was all systems go to climb the stairs to the pedestal (note: tickets to climb
all the way to the crown are very limited and book out months in advance). So we climbed and climbed, and climbed some
more, passing people slightly less fit than me (yay, there are some!) and
eventually made it out to the base of the statue. And Wow, was it worth it ? Yep.
Amazing. She looks quite small
from a distance, but up close she sure is impressive. Totally worth it and my irritation was soon
forgotten. We spent much longer than
expected, snapping pix and enjoying the view of Manhatten from the Island. And curses, lots of my photos were
over-exposed, it was such a bright clear day and the light reflecting off the
copper was pretty fierce. I’m still very
much learning how to take pix, and it was a stupid mistake that I’ve almost
stopped kicking myself for. We spent
over an hour there before catching a return ferry back to Manhatten. Taking the opportunity to laugh at some poor
girl with her cell phone clamped to a wand which she used to take multiple
selfies with.
We caught the subway back to our motel, had a quick toilet
stop and then headed out again, this time for the Rockefeller Centre. Again tickets purchased online the night
before with the hope of skipping the queues, and this time it actually
worked. Sort of. We were allowed straight in to “will call” to
collect our tix, and were told when we came back at 2pm for our slot, we could
just waltz in the front door. So we
amused ourselves laughing at all the ice skaters falling over on the skating
rink at the Rockefeller plaza, and taking pictures of the Art Deco motifs on the
actual building until 2pm. There was
some kind of promotion for cranberries and J was interviewed by some local New
York channel regarding his views on cranberries. They had a big pool of water there, full of
floating cranberries and a couple of guys standing in the middle with waders.
Two o’clock soon rolled around and true bliss, we did indeed
waltz right in the revolving door …. to another security screening. Sigh.
Then joined the queue for the trip up in the elevator, and had to wait
about 15 minutes until we were herded into the lift. Up 67 floors in 43 seconds, ears popping
multiple times on the trip. And you get
out and oh my, what a view. But wait,
there’s more. You can take the
escalators up two more floors and it is truly stunning. Can’t possibly capture it in a photo, it
really is breathtaking. Hands down, the
best view over any city I have ever had.
We spent ages up here, snapping photos (thousands) and laughing at
people taking selfies or using I-pads (thousands!). Finally left feeling totally blown away by
the experience. It was completely awesome
and I feel so lucky to have been able to experience this. To be healthy and able-bodied, and to have
the opportunity to do these things is a gift I really am grateful for.
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