Hi all,
Merry Christmas to all! Hope you've had/are having a fantastic day. We've had another busy and great one!
We had seen on the news the weather was going to be miserable for most of today so we decided it was a good day for museums and shopping. The news was right - it rained for hours!! We got the train and headed to 'The Museum of the City of New York', which was the building used as the school in 'Gossip Girl'. I was waiting for some tourists to finish their photo and pulled the funniest face ever in a photo Shannon took whilst waiting. This was after a good three minutes of them standing in the way haha.
The museum's first floor was all about the history of New York as a city and there were some other exhibitions on the higher floors.
An English explorer called Henry Hudson arrived here on behalf of the Dutch in 1609 and bought the land off the locals for $24. The Dutch then called it New Amsterdam, and this is when the Wall Street wall was built to protect their mini city. However the wall seemingly didn't work, the English took over in 1664 and called it New York.
We read all about the huge surges of immigration throughout the centuries, about one third of New York's inhabitants are immigrants to this day (more on that when we go to Ellis Island). New York was the busiest seaport in the world too. Over the years though there has been a massive divide between rich and poor. This got better and worse over time. In the 50s and 60s, houses were controversially cleared in the Bronx and Harlem areas to build highways. This devalued the area, and people started burning their houses down to claim insurance money because they couldn't sell them. The areas are much better today, we are touring them next week so more on that then. In the 70s and 80s apparently NYC was quite dangerous, but it really improved in the 90s.
I learned that the subway has 21 routes and 422 stations and is 233 miles long. We are slowly becoming more professional at riding the subway!
The other exhibitions had to do with activism, jewellery and the art scene in New York City. All up we spent about three hours.
Then we walked past the Guggenheim and took in the ginormous queue and thanked ourselves for not wanting to go in!! We walked through Central Park and saw many squirrels, and next went to the Museum of Natural History, as featured in the movie 'Night at the Museum'. We saw lots of animals from various parts of the world and many dinosaur bones including a giant titanosaurus that was only gifted to the museum this year.
We started to fatigue and got a bit silly because it was so hot in the museum. But we really enjoyed it!!
We then got the subway south and walked through Times Square. We got photos further down than last night and took it all in. It's crazy there - still hasn't properly hit me that I'm here!! We did some souvenir shopping (got my magnet and an I love NYC t-shirt), got Starbucks and set off on a hunt for Christmas lights.
And we succeeded! We walked past Radio City Music Hall and its beautiful lights, then a very crowded Rockefeller Centre and Plaza with ice skating rink and beautiful giant red baubles and tree. We made it around the corner to Saks on Fifth Avenue, but it was very crowded and partly blocked off. We later realised apparently a suspicious package had been found here so NYPD closed off some of the street. All was fine though. As a result we couldn't see too much of their Christmas windows so we walked further down Fifth Avenue for 15 blocks.
On the way we saw the New York Public Library, and eventually we ended up at Macy's in Herald Square. And wow! The lights here were amazing! This beautiful building was built in 1902, and had about eight Christmas windows. All were very decadent and detailed. We loved them! They put Myer to shame.
We headed back to Brooklyn, and had dinner in a cosy little Italian restaurant, much deserved after another busy day. Then we ended the day by walking to the waterfront and having a look at the Brooklyn Bridge. We could see the city skyline all lit up including the Empire State Building in Christmas colours :) We got a cab back and here we are!!
NBA TOMORROW!!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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