Day 6: Wall Street and Times Square (7/17/2010)

So, we slept in late again. I love sleeping in! Alarm went off at 11am, rolled out of bed around 11:30am. I made sandwiches using the sandwich materials that I brought with us from San Diego. We used up all the meat, which is good. We didn’t get to eat breakfast again. I like this kind of traveling, it has a built in dieting program! Lol. Anyway, by the time we were ready to go it was 12:45pm. Now it was time to use public transportation to get to New York!

First we had to wait for the Days Hotel's airport shuttle to arrive. That took us to Newark airport. From there we had to take the AirTrain to Terminal C to catch Bus 62. The bus was conveniently already there waiting when we arrived and we made it on. A French couple and their two kids were trying to buy tickets for the bus when we arrived but they didn’t have exact change. In fact, all they had were $50 bills! Anyway, they were freaking out and the bus driver wasn’t happy, so Michael stepped in and paid their $5 fare. I thought that was very nice of him. The French couple was very appreciative. Their English wasn’t very good but they seemed to understand that they needed small change in the future, and at least we gave them a good impression of Californians. =P

Bus 62 took us to Newark Penn Station for $1.50 per person, . At Newark Penn Station, we took the PATH trolley to the World Trade Center. That cost us each $1.75. From the WTC we made our way over to Wall St. We wanted to go to the Museum of American Finance since currency and economics is an interest of mine and my brother’s. We arrived at 2:40pm and had until 4pm to see the museum. It was actually quite a small museum, but very informative and interesting. I took pictures of a lot of the signs to create a sort of virtual museum. My brother and I are very slow museum visitors since we have to read absolutely everything, so of course we didn’t get through it all before the museum closed. But I took pictures of several exhibits we didn’t get to so we can read about them later.

Next, we walked past the New York Stock Exchange and took pictures outside of that. We then made our way back to Broadway and, after a long wait, took pictures with the front (and back!) of the Wall Street Bull. Our quote of the day was, “It sure is a lot more convenient to just take pictures with it’s balls than with it’s head!!” Apparently no one wants their picture taken with the ass of a bronze bull. Wonder why... ;p.

We then strolled through Battery Park. We wanted to see that because it was in the game Deus Ex. One of my brother’s and my favorite computer games. We enjoy visiting places in real life that appear in computer games we’ve played. :) We saw Castle Clinton and a Memorial to Soldiers lost in the Atlantic Ocean during WW2. We also ate our sandwiches for lunch and bought hot dogs from a New York hot dog stand. I took pictures of that cause it was our tourist event from GTA4. But I mentioned that already.

Our next stop of the day was Times Square. We took the South Ferry Subway north for $2.75 a person. Times Square was pretty insane. It looks just like you see it on TV but it’s more interesting to be there in person. We walked down the street admiring the lights, advertisements, and gazillions of people. This street really reminded me a lot of the busiest parts of Tokyo that I've seen. Except in Tokyo everything runs much more efficiently, and I don’t remember it smelling as bad (fume-wise). Probably because they have far fewer cars attempting to drive through the city. I was amused to see vendors selling Obama, McCain, and Sarah Palin condoms. A quote from one of these sellers was a close second in our quote of the day contest. In reference to Obama condoms, "Change is coming! Don't let it come in you!" Lol.

By the time we walked through Times Square our feet were getting tired and we decided we had seen enough for the day. We walked nine blocks back to the PATH station at 33rd Street West. That took us back to Newark Penn Station, and Bus 62 took us back to the airport, and the Hotel shuttle brought us back to where we had started. We got back to the hotel room at around 9:00pm.

After we got some water to drink, we set off again in search of food. We found a pizza place and brought a pizza back to our room. After I ate, I took a nice relaxing bath and now I’m all ready for bed. Good night!