Wow.

We did New York in a day.

I don’t think I’ve ever walked more than this in one day in my whole life.

It took us a while to wake up, but we finally dragged ourselves out of bed (couches in Eric’s apartment) and went to a cool little restraunt called Pillow Street or something for breakfast. It was good. We were fueled up, so we started walking.

Our first sight-seeing objective was the Brooklyn Bridge. As we walked its length among hundreds of other people, there were periodical “stands” where guys were selling bottles of water for a buck. Usually they consisted of a cooler full of water and a chair. We had a pretty big day ahead of us, so we pretty much blasted across the bridge without stopping.

The next destination was the Statue of Liberty. We navigated down to the docks and got in line for tickets. That wait wasn’t so bad. The next was, however, about an hour. There was plenty going on around us to keep us entertained while we waited though. There were two different steel drum players and one guy with a eukalele who was somewhat clever in adlibbing a song about North Dakota for us.

Security was tight. It was very similar to an airport. After putting my belt back on, we climbed on board.

The ride out was awesome. I love boats, and cruising on the big ship was relaxing.

Once we arrived, we made our way around the statue to take the requisite photos. We also got to see some pretty comical folks from around the world.

We skipped Ellis Island because of time constraints.

After landing, we found a subway entrance. Our next landmark was Central Park, and it was a little far to walk. Navigating the subways wasn’t too bad. I kind of enjoyed the ride. The A train was wicked fast, and with small points of different color lights flying by in the darkness, I felt like I was in a Willy Wonka scene.

Central Park was pretty cool. It’s really kind of bizarre to go so suddenly from walking among skyscrapers and taxis to walking through trees. Couples rowed about in the pond in rented boats. It would have been a romantic scene if not for She-man, cruising around the lake like a crazy person, almost colliding with the other boaters. We also took a peek at Strawberry Fields, in honor of the Beetles song.

We almost called it a day at this point, but I wanted to see Times Square. I’m so glad we decided to. We weren’t there for long, but I loved every second.

Usually I hate big crowds of people and the general chaos that it brings, but Times Square was somehow different. We came up out of the subway to a night sky, but it was not dark on the street. The dazzling lights and constant motion of people moving about in all different directions was very exciting for me. I couldn’t understand what all the people were doing there, just walking around. Some sat in the middle of the street in lawn chairs; there was too much pedestrian traffic for any vehicles to drive down the street anyway. If you ever go to New York, make sure you see Times Square at night.

After Times Square, we had pretty much reached the end of our day. It was a subway ride and a mile and a half walk back to the van.

I think we pretty well used up our day to its fullest.