Day 8 - Family, Friends, Food, Fun, and Finally...

Day 8 - New York City and Pound Ridge, NY
Miles: 0

One of the wonderful things about having friends in any city is that they know all the best ways to get somewhere, or see something, that you wouldn't normally think to do. Today, we appreciated Rosa the cruise director. even more. We knew what we wanted to see and where we were going and she was able to just fill in the details.

Our first stop was the 9/11 Memorial and the new Freedom Tower, built on the site of the World Trade Center.

I was at Ground Zero years ago with Rosa and her daughter Maia, when they were still cleaning the debris from the area. There was an incredible difference in how the grounds look this visit - but the feel and the heaviness in the air were the same.

We walked around for a couple hours, randomly reading names of those who died off the memorial,

and noting number tags in the trees planted for throughout the plaza. The tags help locate memorial cobblestones beneath them...

it was hard to take it all in, and hard to imagine the terror of that day in such a now-peaceful spot.

After a last moment of silence, we headed toward Battery Park

and to the pier that housed the Staten Island Ferries.

We'd thought about heading to Ellis Island and to the Statue of Liberty, but were reminded by Rosa that that trip alone would take all day. Instead, she'd said, just get on the Staten Island Ferry, ride out and back and you'll be almost as close to both attractions as if you'd been on a tour. Plus the Staten Island Ferry is free.

So that's what we did, and we are so very glad.

Ellis Island showed up first, and we thought of all our relatives and the people who landed on its shores and first set foot in our country through this place.

Then we glided by Lady Liberty, so close and at such a spectacular angle you felt like you could reach out and touch her, or at least get some very decent pictures.

We arrive on Staten Island and had lunch, then headed back to the ferry for the return trip.

One thing we noted in the City that was different for both of us was the amount of security everywhere we went. There were police officers, police dogs

and security officers everywhere we went. We wondered if they were there to fend off actual threats, or more for just a sense of being safe. We figured it's probably some of both.

After a quick dash to Wall Street

we headed back to Grand Central Station to catch our train to Westchester County. On the way, Sean stopped in his tracks and pointed to the name of the tavern we were just passing.

We unknowingly were walking by the pub that his parents used to frequent when they were first married. In fact, they liked the place so much that they named their first child after the bartender...whose name was Sean. So, of course we had to stop in for a beer.


We were exhausted as we took our seats on the train, but managed to rest up enough to have a spectacular dinner with Rosa and Lou before we called it an evening.