New York City Marathon

We left the Park Place Hotel this morning with dozens of marathon runners heading out to run the New York Marathon today.  Little did we know we were ‘running’ our own New York City Marathon today!  We headed for the subway this morning only to find many of the streets and subway exits being blocked off for the marathon.  Looking for the subway, we strolled along Central Park which was beautiful, our stroll took us through Columbus Square.  Once we caught the subway, we took Red #1 to Chambers and exited down in the financial district.

After a quick breakfast in McDonald’s-New York style, we walked down to Battery Park and boarded the ferry for the Statue of Liberty.  After spending 30 minutes in line for security checking that rivaled airport security, we rushed up the stairs to the base viewing level. 

Several of the students had fun photo ops with this great backdrop!

Then we hurried out to the ferry and barely made it.

We rode the ferry to Ellis Island and searched for family names.  Natalie and Steven found their family names, but some missed the ferry back to Battery Park.

The rest of us shopped for soveigners while Sean and Morgan had Characiature’s done. Then we trooped on uptown past Ground Zero to our Mexican restaurant.

After lunch we hoofed  it over to the Trinity church which is now a tribute to Ground Zero.  After that we looked at Ground Zero from atop the steps of Brooks Brother building.  The bus picked us up and dropped us at Pier 88 to tour the USS Intrepid.  From there we had a beautiful view of the city while the sun was going down.

After that, Soren and Dylan weren’t feeling well, so a couple of us were dropped at the Hotel with them.  The rest of the group went to Applebee’s for dinner.  Then they had a quick sprint around Times Square with a group photo, which Soren and Dylan are feeling real bad they aren’t in.  The day was beautiful and the night is proving to be even better.  The group is going to end the evening with a view of the Big Apple from atop the Empire State Building. The night was chilly but the view was worth it!