Meeting the Monteiro's in New York
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Sat 21 Jul 2012 16:29
| As we had missed out on Ed's birthday celebrations, we arranged to meet up with them in New York for the weekend. This was the first stop on their summer holiday visiting various places in the USA. We arrived on Friday lunchtime and started the way we meant to continue, with the first stop being lunch at the Grand Central Station Oyster Bar. This was as fabulous as last time and was a great way to start the weekend, and to celebrate Ed's birthday. After a delicious seafood lunch, we set off to explore the Natural History Museum, as Jo was determined to show us all the skeleton of the woolly mammoth. After an hour walking round and looking at skeletons of just about every other type of dinosaur, Jo had to admit defeat - there was no woolly mammoth!! The rest of the museum was quite interesting, but as it was pouring with rain outside, it was packed! It is also a free museum which ensures plenty of people going through the doors - that said Ed managed to pay $120 as an entrance fee/donation! After a short rest back at the hotel, we set out for dinner, more food and wine! The next day we had a really early start as we had booked a trip out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Both are on separate islands in the Hudson River. The first stop was the Statue of Liberty, and there was an audio tour giving information on the build process, but as they are doing some reconstruction work, you can't get to the crown at the moment. There is a short audio tour, but this drove us all mad and none of us finished it!! Ellis Island was more interesting, again there is an audio tour, but this was much better. The island was used as the immigration centre up until 1954 and everyone arriving in America landed there to be checked for any physical or mental impairment, and to make sure they could support themselves. About 2% of all immigrants we refused and returned to their native land. Saturday night was theatre night. Whilst the Monteiro's went to see Mary Poppins, John and I went to see the Tennesse Williams play, 'A Streetcar Named Desire', which was amazing. Times Square, where we met afterwards was absolutely packed, much busier than the last time we visited. Having eaten hotdogs from a street vendor, we retired to the hotel for a nightcap. Sunday was spent shopping in the morning and, after yet another boozy lunch, we headed back to JFK airport to return to Portland having had a fabulous weekend. Amazingly, we went to New York and took only 9 photos!! Ed was the official photographer for the weekend and probably took about 900 - more will no doubt follow!! |