Give me Liberty... (again, very picture heavy)

After our lunch we took a nice walk around the tip of Manhattan. They have a lovely walkway along the river, to Battery Park. The main things Sariah wanted to do when she came to NY was to see Ground Zero, and to go to the Statue of Liberty. She is sad thast you can no longer go UP in the Statue. I'm glad I did that in my younger years...

As you walk along the tip of Manhattan, you begin to see Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty. People walk, jog, roller blade, ride bikes, etc along tis river area. It

was mid day when we were there and people were laying out enjoying the sun. There were guys fishing (I don't know exactly what fish they were catching)... they'd set out several poles in a line.

This was a neat memorial, I wish I'd gotten a better picture of it.

American Merchant Mariners' Memorial at Battery Park.

http://www.walkingoffthebigapple.com/2008/06/marisols-american-merchant-mariners.html Here's a blog link with info about it.

IKEA is even in NY!!! (This is for another post... but I think we should start a campaign to get IKEA here in the Huntsville AL area.)

On the boat to Liberty Island.

Last year in school Sariah had to memorize the Poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus -

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Sariah had a little fun with her crown we'd already bought, and a torch she found in the gift shop.

Back on the boat - Saying goodbye to Lady Liberty!

After we got off the boat and walked around Battery Park, we found people doing characatures, so Sariah got one, it turned out really cute.

She paid for it. Of course they suck you in by saying it is only $5.00 and then try to force you to pay for a (cheap) frame for another $15.00, making it a total of $20.00 and if you don't take the frame your picture will get ruined! I didn't have that much left on me (after buying t-shirts and sweat shirts for the girls) so I said No, and he said how much do you have??? I think between Sariah and I both we ended up with $11.00. Then we saw several people taking pic's with someone dressed up in a Statue outfit. When they finished as the person started to move on, I said could we get a picture, adn the people from before us, said they'd take the picture so we could both be in it. they actually took about 5 pic's for us on our camera. We thanksed everyone, and the statue person said, that will be $5.00. I had no Idea! I told her there was no sign or anything and she should post a sign with a price on it if that was what she expected. I suppose that it made sense (she had a little box I noticed to put the money in on the ground tucked next to her stuff, with a license on it, -authorizing her to sell her wares (pic's with her in costume) there in Battery Park. I just didn't realize BEFORE we had already committed! Sariah and I both dug through all our stuff and scraped together $5.00. I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't been able to come up with it. Show her we were deleteing the pic's off our camera??? Who knows!?!