We got up early Friday morning & for breakfast had another food we’d promised ourselves we’d try – New York bagels. There was a bakery even closer to our apartment than the pizza place was, and we ended up eating there every morning. Oh my goodness. Nothing like the frozen Lender bagels we can get here. Then it was off to Battery Park, where we caught our first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.
We didn’t get to climb up to her crown – you have to get tickets for that six months ahead of time – but we did take the tour around her base. It was an audio tour, and the information was – as always – so interesting. I so wish we’d had time to actually study it more closely – next time! I did find the story very interesting about how Joseph Pulitzer raised money for the pedestal by promising to publish every single person’s name who gave even a penny to the program in his newspaper.
We couldn’t stay as long as we normally would have on Liberty Island because we had tickets for the Hard Hat Tour at Ellis Island – where we literally put on hard hats, and toured the buildings that had not been restored yet. It was just incredible seeing the condition of the rooms, which is I guess how all of Ellis Island looked before restoration was begun in the 1970’s. Just very, very interesting.