New York - Day 1: Selfies, Shopping, & Site Seeing

After we got out of the hotel to walk to the place where we were to meet the on/off tour bus we realize very quickly that it was cold.  A very bitter wind was blowing and we were freezing.  We passed a stand where they sell candy, drinks. magazines, etc...and they also sold hats, ear muffs, and gloves.  My dad so kindly got us all the things that we needed to be warm and then we were on our way.

We of course had to stop multiple times for selfies because we were just so excited to actually by in New York city with all (except Sherri) of our siblings.  We were all so silly with each other and were just having so much fun being our crazy selves in the big apple.

We only got off the on/off bus for one stop and that was at ground zero where the two towers were located before the planes took them down.  It was a really beautiful site where something so terrible happened.

They had two large pools of water that went down into a hole and all around the surroundings were printed the names of all the people who died in the attack.  There was a little church right in front of where I was standing for the picture that wasn't affected at all from the towers falling.  Such amazing stories to come out of  9/11.

They also had this really neat white structure that kind of looked like a big bird by that little church.  I am not sure what it was/is for, but was kind of neat looking.  We didn't waist time getting a ground shot in front of it. 

After looking around we decided we were hungry.  We asked some workers and they directed us to the food court across the street from where we were.  So we walked across the street and found what looked like a mall and found us some yummy Mexican food to eat.  It looked like this is where a lot of the people who work in the area come to eat.  Lots of business professionals. 

After eating we needed to get to pier 11 to catch the ferry that goes around the Statue of Liberty.  We were told to go to that pier by a certain time to catch the ferry.  My dad started heading that way but his foot was really hurting him and he just couldn't walk anymore.  So he took a cab to the pier while the rest of us walked.

What seemed like a short walk ended up being more like a couple miles walk to this specific pier.  We passed the place where you go to get the ferry that goes to Liberty Island (Julie and I took a picture by the sign) and then kept walking to get to our pier.  Once we all rushed to get there we found out that we got wrong information and the ferry didn't leave for another 40 minutes and that would mean that we didn't have enough time to do the ferry ride before we'd have to get ready for the opera.
We were all pretty bummed, but decided to pick up the on/off bus and go back to the hotel to get ready.  While waiting for the right bus (which seemed like it took a good 45 minutes) Julie and I bought us a cute knock off purse.  They wanted $45 but I talked them down to $30 each.  My mom got her and Teagan bags too, so it wasn't a total waist of time waiting for the bus.
Once the bus came we quickly found our cold seats on the top back of the bus and enjoyed our guided tour back to the hotel.  It took a lot longer then we thought it would (and the tour guide was super rude to a family with a noisy kid - we were not happy about that) so because of that we were then pressed for time to get ready for the opera.  But we did get to see some things on the tour that we wouldn't have otherwise, like Central Park.
We finally got to our stop and then walked back to the hotel to officially check into our rooms and get all dressed up for the opera.