137 Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty.

Friday 12th April
The Hall curse on the weather has stayed with us and today it has rained and rained and then some more rain.  There is absolutely no point going up the Empire State Building as you can't see it.

The weather curse was following us. 1" of rain today

11
We went for breakfast and then jumped back on "the big yellow taxi" bus, (our tickets were for two days), to Times Square with a view to getting cheaper theater tickets for tonight, and found that the list for the tickets doesn't come out until 2.30pm. It was just too wet to hang around so after a little stroll we found an Irish Bar and had a couple of beers.  We did join the theater queue, but the one show we wanted to see, did not have any tickets available.  There really wasn't much else we wanted to see, so we ended up in the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant for a late lunch.

Life is like a box of chocolates

The rain continued so we caught the bus back to our hotel and eventually braved the weather and hit another Irish Bar called Mulligans.  Everybody else had the same idea and the place was packed.  Home again and an early night.

Saturday 13th April
We were up early this morning and after breakfast, we caught a yellow cab to a tourist office where we had to activate our New York passes. 

Breakfast is weighed and sold by the pound. Odd but fair.

Do I look scared.......Our luntic cab ride

We had purchased them whilst still in Britain and they entitled us to various different tours and entrance to many different tourist attractions for free.  We headed first to Pier 84 and jumped on a water taxi which took us down to Battery Park. 

A more sedate and interesting taxi

We got off there and went to the 9/11 memorial.  Where the twin Towers stood, there are now two water falls and all the names of those that lost their lives in that awful attack, The Pentagon and the flights involved and also the 6 people who'd lost their lives in the 1993 attack on the Towers.  Around the waterfalls, they have started to rebuild new sky scrapers and they will become the buildings for the financial district.  It is quite moving, but is also being done sympathetically.

The new "No 1", World Trade center.

We left there and returned to the water taxi, which took us around the Statue of Liberty, but we couldn't land and Ellis Island was also closed to the public.

We were unable to land due to hurricane "Sandy" damage being repaired.

New York, New York, da da dadda, da da dadda.........

It transpires that a lot of the attractions are unavailable at the moment, because they were damaged by hurricane Sandy.  This included the warship "Intrepid" which has the space shuttle "Enterprise" on it's deck.  Again this was closed due to repairs needing to be done.

Part of the USS Enterprise exhibition

Enterprise on the deck of USS Intrepid. This shuttle never actually flew. The last time I saw this, it was sat on top of a Jumbo Jet and landed at Stansted Airport. That was 1985 (ish).

After our tour by boat, we were taken by bus back to Times Square.  Our mission from here was to walk up to the Empire State building.  We could see the top of it today.  The sun came out after a slow start, but it was still quite cold.  We got in pretty quickly and up graded so that we could go right to the top.  First though we were treated to the New York Sky ride, which is a simulator ride on the 2nd floor.  It was a different way of seeing New York.  From there we went up to the 86th floor and walked around the observation deck.  The views are amazing and we could see for miles.  Next stop was the 102nd floor and apparently, according to the recorded message in the lift on the way back down, we are members of the "elite 102 club".  We didn't get a certificate though.  

The view from the top of the Empire State Building was incredible.

 
Having not eaten since breakfast, we stopped for some food and as it was getting quite late headed back to our room.
The motor cycle jackets we ordered have not arrived, so that might cause a bit of a problem on Monday, but I'm sure we will think of something.
Just as a bit of information really, we have been keeping an eye on the weather channel, mainly because we will be traveling around the US, and it would appear that Britain does not have the monopoly on weird weather.  There have been severe snow storms through the central belt and tornadoes and hurricanes are expected in Florida.  Most states have been suffering from temperatures almost 20 degrees lower than the seasonal average, and Boston, where we go to next showed a projected forecast of the next 3 days in the 50's, then one day 70 and then back down to 60.  Apparently it is all to do with the Jet stream.  Oh well, we will just have to keep a sense of humour and deal with it as and when.  Roll on the adventure!