Standing tall and watching over the city for over a hundred years, a symbol of hope and freedom for millions who migrated to America, the Statue of Liberty was not to be missed. We finally had the chance to visit her on our third day. It felt surreal to finally see her up close. I learned on the audio guide that the exterior is originally copper but has turned green due to oxidation. Up to now, the Statue of Liberty has remained the symbol of freedom not only for America but for the rest of the world. The tour took more than half of our day and once we were back in the main island of Manhattan, we were starving.
We had lunch at a random Chinese restaurant in the financial district and dessert was, I’m excited to say, in Serendipity, one of the locations of the movie of the same title. This movie, I could watch over and over again and it was amazing to finally try the hot frozen chocolate. Since reservations for dessert were not accepted, we had to wait for an hour once we were there. We went to Dylan’s Candy Bar which was just around the corner to while away the time. The 6 year old had a field day there. The frozen hot chocolate, their most famous dessert, having been featured in the movie, was worth the one hour wait.
It was past five in the afternoon when we finished in Serendipity and decided to finally use the ticket we booked online for the Empire State Building. There were lots of tourists but since we went for the express ticket, we were able to jump the long queue. Without realising, our timing was actually perfect. It was starting to get dark and the lights were starting to turn on, giving us both the day view and night view. It was an exciting experience to finally go up to the main observation deck on the 86th floor. I was imagining Meg Ryan running towards the lift to get into the last flight up, to meet up with Tom Hanks from the movie Sleepless in Seattle. I watched that film a thousand times.
The view was amazing and I could clearly see my favourite building in New York, the Chrysler building. Once it was all dark and the New York skyline well illuminated, all I wanted to do was stand there in silence and take it all in, 86 floors above the ground.
New York, too many places to see, too little time and too many things to write about so please hang on for the third installment of my New York story.
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