More Walking

This morning, we decided to make the trip to the 9/11 memorial site via the Subway. Travel by the subway seemed easy, and once on, it was; it was the 'getting on' part that was the interesting part. The concierge helped to give us direction in terms of the metro card and the line to get on, but when we actually arrived..... it took a little to get sorted. However, we hopped on line 'A' and hopped off a street over from the World Trade Center stop.

Once off, it was literally a 5 min walk to the memorial site, where once stood the Twin Towers. The new One World Trade Centre (being 104 floors high and higher than the Empire State Building and only 6 floors short of the original Towers) is an incredible sight and essentially gives you a head spin, looking up at the top when at its base. A short walk past the trade centre and onto the memorial site. Again, words fail to describe the site. Where each individual Tower stood is now a large square hole in the ground which has been transformed into a beautiful waterfall that is surrounded by an edge of etched concrete. The etchings are the names of all who lost their lives either being in the Towers, on the streets and those who helped. It was a very quiet and even peaceful place, yet extremely sad. Miranda especially felt the heaviness of the place and wanted to leave, Hayley was still unsure what it all meant. It was important and significant for us to get there.

From this point, we wandered through to Wall Street. Apart from being the Financial Hub of the world, it has historical significance being the place where the Dutch claimed the lower end and constructed a palisade wall hence the name Wall Street. Eventually, the American's purchased the land from the Dutch for a minimal price. After a couple of photos and with map in hand, we found ourselves at the Police Plaza.

While we didn't find a street lined with doughnut shops, there were plenty of police bikes, police cars, and actual police. We wondered from here through to China Town. It is amazing how quickly the streets and its people change when you cross the road. China Town was just full of tiny shops, plenty of people and a distinct change in the level of cleanliness. Keep walking over a few more streets and you find Little Italy, a complete change. And then Soho - which, we found out in was considered 'urban' shopping as compared to 5th avenue which is high-end. Plenty of shops to see but no more parcels to add to the load though. We wandered past Greenwich Village, Washington Park, Union Square markets and made our way to the

Flat Iron where we did our grocery shopping last night.

Yesterday we walked around 8 to 10klm; today because we took the Subway, it only worked out to be around 6klm. Miranda and Hayley have done a great job walking; the bribe of a little ice cream of an afternoon, when they get tired certainly helps. Last night while heading to Whole Foods (grocery store) we walked past what a place called 'Eataly' which we assumed was a small boutique Italian grocery store. On closer inspection today, we were completely fooled by the exterior. This place was in fact (upon entry) I would have to say the size of Hayley's gymnastics shed at home ..... Huge!! It had at least 4 different eating areas, a stand-up wine bar (all with Italian cheeses and meats), a sit-down casual dining area, a pizza area and a more formal bar and restaurant. But wait that's not all, it was also a supermarket, had an espresso with Italian chocolates and sweets section, a gelato area and coffee section. Simply amazing - a maze of Italian fresh foods (pasta, breads, meats and cheeses) with a whole line of bottled sauces, packaged pasta, olives, truffles and an entire wall of different olive oils.

It was clearly too much for us to handle; too many choices, so the girls scored a gelato ice cream (only medium size) which was huge and we headed to Whole Foods to get ingredients for tonight and tomorrow's dinner. We needed to get to the Knicks Basketball game at Madison Square Gardens, which due to wonderful planning and foresight on Peters behalf was just across the road from our hotel.