The day I took the Staten Island ferry September 16, 2007

Today was my last day in NY before I move to Boston (I will come back here for one day at the end of my trip, but I don’t think I will have the time to visit a lot of places).
The weather forecast was right: today, we’ve had a wonderful day and I don’t regret I planned my visit of Staten Island for today.
I left the hotel at 8.30, which I thought was very late as I had to stop at the bank, but I arrived just in time to take 9.30am ferry at the extreme South of Manhattan. The Staten Island ferries are some very big boats: you have at least 3 decks, You have a lot of seats inside and also outside (that’s great when you want to take pictures). It was quite cold anyway and I stayed inside most of the time because I was having breakfast (a huge muffin and a surprisingly good coffee, both for a very reasonable price).
It took only 25 minutes maybe to arrive in Staten Island… this was much earlier than I thought. That’s why I decided to walk to the botanical Garden, which was the first of the 3 places I wanted to visit (the other 2 was opening at 1.00pm only). On the way I saw the SI Yankees Stadium (baseball), and a tribute to the the WTC victims.
Did you know that Staten Island was a BIG island???? The road was looong before I arrived a the botanical garden, which is located inside Snug Harbor, the cultural center of the island. The place is extremely quiet and beautiful, with a lot of flowers, trees, benches, cottages (one of them was a restaurant and 2 guys were playing jazz outside). It was perfect to relax and take a million pictures. They even had a Chinese Garden with a wonderful pavillon.
At 1.00pm, I went to the Noble Maritime museum, also located in Snug Harbor and dedicated to a printmaker (John A. Noble). It exhibits his work, his houseboat sudio (!!!! - they’ve put a part of a boat inside the museum!!!!), and a collection related to Sailors’ Snug Harbor, a retirement home for mariners.

After this I went back to the ferry terminal (by bus this time) to take the bus to the Historic Richmond Town museum. This museum is a trip into the past. It was like the Van Cortlandt house yesterday, but with 28 buildings dating from the late 17th to the early 20th centuries. Some people with historic costumes were explaining the history of the house they were in. I also took a million pictures there (several shots per room, they probably thought I was mad!!).

It’s time to pack my luggage now (it’s already 10.00pm and I have to leave the hotel at 7.30 tomorrow morning). I’ll try to post a message tomorrow, but I don’t know yet how it will be like at the hotel in Boston.

The day I relaxed September 14, 2007

Here we are… another day is over. The weather was grey all day long, but I took the boat anyway for a 3 hours cruise around Manhattan. Despite the colour of the sky (wich wasn’t good at all to take pictures), I had a really GREAT time. I was sitting, with some fresh air, and all I had to do was to look at all the beautiful buildings and bridges. It’s so good to visit a town and relax at the same time. It was a fun trip because I recognized a lot of places I’ve been at: The Empire State building (yeah, I know, that’s not new, you can see it from anywhere in NY), the Chrystler building, Battery Park (where the boat to the Statue of Liberty leaves), The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the tiny building of the police museum, South Street sea port (Fulton market), Brooklyn bridge, the UN and many other places.
Once out of the boat, I took the bus to Columbus circle, on 59th street. Of course, I took some pictures, then, tadaaaaa… I had a walk in Central Park. That’s incredible it took me 5 days to do it. I’ve walked on Central Park West several times but I never entered the park itself before today. It’s all green there, with places to sit down and squirels to look at, some people are playing american football or baseball. I’d LOVE to have such a quiet place in Montpellier (well, it’s almost the size of the whole town, but that would be great anyway).
Inside Central Park, there’s a zoo. I did visit it. It’s not really big but it’s a cool place to relax. There were 3 amazing frogs living in the water and looking like small trees. I’ve never seen anything like this before (no picture of them, sorry… it was too dark).
I carried on to the Guggenheim museum and had a bad surprise: not only they are fixing the ouside of the building, but only 3 half floors were open (and one whole floor was diplaying paintings I didn’t like at all). I was happy to see some paintings by Kandinsky, but I would have loved to see more.
Let’s be positive: it didn’t take a long time to visit the museum and this allowed me to go to again to Chinatown and Little Italy (I didn’t take pictures because they wouldn’t have come out well because of the weather, sorry again). As for once my day hasn’t been exhausting enough, I have decided to take the bus on the avenue of the Americas, wich made me visit Soho (South of Houston) and Noho (North of Houston) at the same time (I was walking on Houston Street, the limit between the 2 boroughs, hahahaha!!).
I went out of the bus on the 59th again and from there, my hotel was only 3-stations away.
End of the story for today.