The fourth day in New York was different from the other ones. For the first time we had no real tours planned so we decided to take it a bit slower then the other days. We met up around 10:00 and had a slow breakfast at a different location though at the end it was actually quite bad, the restaurant was quite bad not only with the food but also on how clean it was, it was really bad actually once you entered the toilets, I mean yes, at a busy moment it could have been almost acceptable but it was quiet so it was actually embarrassing. But we could not stay there for too long for we needed to hurry towards the World Trade Center memorial. Yes, we went for disaster tourism, I know i know, what were we thinking but it is actually one of the things you must see in New York people say.
We did need to hurry because we were around 45th Street and well, we needed to go all the way to Battery Park which luckilly was just a metro ride of 15 minutes but before the right metro comes you are also 15 minutes later… once we arrived there we even needed to look for the right location. And we were already late so well, it was a bit of a rush for us because we arrived already a bit late on Battery Park and so we also needed to rush for the Memorial. Luckilly they dont take the arrival time too strict and we walked through the security checks with ease. Once we reached the sight we actually struck silent, the site is actually very impressive and serene. You can ask the volunteers for some stories or use an app to see where some people were when the towers collapsed. It was really something special. I think we stayed there for an hour even.
Since we were close to Battery Park we decided to take the ferry to Staten Island which was just a short trip to the island and then the next ferry back because there is not much to do there if you are not a fan of baseball.
Once we arrived there we decided to split up and Hans and I decided to visit The Intrepid and the space shuttle Enterprise. First of all we decided to take the subway back to Times Square, which was quite frankly a big mistake since it meant that we would have to walk across 4 avenues and 6 blocks and that might not sound far but when it is 30+ degrees and neither of the people walking are a fan of the heat than you can probably imagine that it was a cruel hell for the both of us ;-).
At the Intrepid we rushed towards The Enterprise where we could see her in full glory and sneakingly touch her. Yes, we are bad to the bone, I know ;-). After we made some pictures and bought our souvenirs it was time to explore the top of the ship The Intrepid where they even had one of the top secret high speed planes from the 80’s, The Blackwing. But we had to go on, since we wanted to see The Concorde as well which was one hell of a plane, it looked so beautiful, just a pity that it was only open for special tours and well it was almost closing time when we were there so no more tours for us and I had to satisfy myself with just watching the outside of this mighty plane which still made me a bit happy but I wish I could have walked inside it and enjoy some of the wonderful seats that were in it. Last but not least I made some pictures of the Growler, the submarine that was part of the exhibition and after that we went to meet Sanne, Louise and Jochem whom we met at The Docks at the foodcourt. The dinner there was actually quite tasty with the Chinese food however it was quickly abandoned due to the storm that came over us, the sky became quickly dark and a furious thunder storm unleashed on top of us. After a little while we decided to take a taxi back to the hotel and finish the day there.