Arrival and Escape

On the boat cruise. Everybody was really excited about the Statue of Liberty. We took our tourist shots, too. We were tourists after all.

After arriving, we went for a Circle Line boat cruise around Manhattan Island. It was interesting and nice to relax after the long bus ride. Hendrik and I both commented afterward that Manhattan is much greener than we were expecting. There is a fair bit of parkland, and not just Central Park. I should mention here that most of the pictures to go with these posts were taken by Hendrik. There's no point carrying around 2 cameras and taking pictures of the same things, so I just let him use mine.

Above: Domino Sugar factory, soon to be luxury lofts.
Below: Where the World Trade Center used to be.

One thing that this day highlighted was the importance of packing light. We were originally going to stay at a hotel on Saturday night, but Christina's relatives, Laura and Andy, graciously invited us to dinner and then to stay the night. Because our plans changed, we ended up carrying our bags around all day. (In case you were wondering, the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York does not have lockers. But you can leave your bags at the Greyhound baggage counter for $8/bag.)

There are a lot of bridges (and tunnels) connecting Manhattan to the rest of New York and New Jersey. Note that I'm carrying my backpack.

To get to Andy and Laura's lovely home in Greenwich, CT, we had to take a commuter train from Grand Central Terminal. The walk there from the pier took us past the edge of Times Square, which was insanely busy, but I'll write about that later. Grand Central was neat, but it was a little hard to find our platform (partially because of the apathetic ticket booth attendant). The train ride was uneventful. The train itself was a little... depressing. Definitely not as nice as GO trains in the GTA.

Human traffic around Times Square.

Laura picked us up from the train station, then drove us through town and down to the water. It was so nice to just relax at their house that night. Hendrik and I went for a swim before bed, listening to the tree frogs and other night sounds. They were different than what we have at home, but somehow familiar. It was really nice to Andy and Laura again and I look forward to the next time.

Looking out at the water in Greenwich, a stark contrast to the city.