NY and NJ Trip

My sister and her kids are currently visiting us and we took them on a trip to NY & NJ along with my parents. I have some family in the NJ area and after visiting them, decided to go do some sightseeing.

It was a very hot and humid day - one of the worst days so far. Also, very cloudy and thunderstorm-y.

We parked in the Liberty State Park to visit the Statue of Liberty. We took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and had a lot of fun on the top level of the ferry. There was a nice breeze which really helped with the heat. Unfortunately, we didn't get tickets to go to the pedestal or the crown. So we just saw Lady Liberty from the bottom and walked around a bit. I loved the view of the NY Skyline from the boat.

We ate a picnic lunch on some benches in Liberty State Park and took the ferry to NYC to the Boardwalk Ferry Station near the 9/11 Memorial. Earlier in the day, on the way to Liberty State Park, we were all sharing our memories of where we were and what we were doing when 9/11 attack happened.

My niece, who is 9 years old, was asking what does a terrorist attack mean and what does 9/11 mean? My sister explained the history of the terrorist attack, what it means and what exactly happened that day. We walked to the 9/11 memorial. The memorial is built beautifully and so differently. I loved the waterfalls and the engravings of the firefighters' names all around the memorial.

We tried to take a taxi to Times Square and that was when the nightmare started - first, we could not find a taxi, my daughter was too exhausted and fell asleep and she needed a diaper change ASAP. There was no place we could do a diaper change nearby and I finally ended up doing it on a park bench nearby as she was sleeping.

Then we waited for a cab and went to TimesSquare. We could barely move in TimesSquare - it was so crowded. Apparently, President Obama was in the area and that caused crowds to go up along with security blocking off some roads. We just went to the ToysRUs in Times Square and got out and tried to get a cab. We could not get a cab for 20 mins - finally we found an Uber Taxi but gave him the wrong direction and we ended up walking for almost 30-40 mins to get to our ferry station to catch the ferry back. We just made it in time with 2 mins to spare before the ferry was at the station.

We were all exhausted by this time. But we all went to dinner to a really nice Indian restaurant, Sapthagiri and the food was really good. They have an awesome Cashew Curry and the Dosas were tasty. My favorite was the Papdi Chaat. It was awesome and so yummy!