Not the first O'Donnell to get off the boat...

Whilst reminiscing about my trip to New York last year, I read through this blog and realised that I forgot to fill in the details of my last day in the city! As I had intended to keep this as a little diary of my trip, I have decided to fill in as much as I can remember of that day for my own interest as much as anyone else’s!

My last day in New York involved a trip to Ellis Island. Hedy had the day off work again, so after a quick trip to the local grocery store to stock up on American candy and cereal treats to take home to London, we headed off on the subway to the south side of Manhattan. The boat to Ellis Island also runs to Liberty Island, so those tourists wanting to take a walk around the Statue of Liberty can get off the boat at the first stop and hop on the next one to carry on to Ellis Island. For Hedy and I, this was a chance to take a closer at the Statue, but we didn’t fancy getting out so planned to stay on the boat and only get off at Ellis Island. Regardless, we still had to queue for both trips – and oh my, what a queue! If you ever plan to go there, give yourself a LOT of time to wait! You have to queue for your tickets, and then you have to get into the monster queue to get on the boat. I would say we were there for a couple of hours, but the queue does move quite quickly so it wasn’t too frustrating!

You can no longer go up into the Statue of Liberty as the Americans are (quite rightly) concerned about preserving her and keeping her safe from attacks. As a result of the current risks, this also means that getting onto the boat required almost as much security as getting as getting on the plane later that day. I was half expecting them to scan my fingers again! Think bag x-rays, no hot drinks, belts off, boots off, frisking and so on… This provided an explanation for the enormous slow moving queue anyway!

The boat ride was very pleasant and you get a great view across the city from Liberty Island without having to get off the boat. It is only a few minutes from there to Ellis Island, which was the first stop of every immigrant into the US for many years to be checked out for entry into the country. I would say this was the most interesting place I have visited anywhere, in terms of the way it is set out and the way that the information is given to tourists. The building is lovely, and there are personal stories of immigrants that are so interesting that you wish you had time to read and listen to them all! We were limited by time as I had to get back for my airport connection, but could easily have lost most of a day wondering around there. I paid the small fee to look up my Dad’s paternal Great-Grandparents, both of whom independently went to New York, didn’t like it and came back again! You can see the original ship records and picture of the ship they sailed on. We think we worked out that my Great-Grandfather was there after the birth of my Grandfather, suggesting that he was planning on moving them all over. Thank goodness he didn’t or you wouldn’t be reading this! The family story goes that he got off the boat, was immediately insulted for being Irish and punched the guy out cold. It is thought that he decided he didn’t like it and headed home two weeks later. After being at Ellis Island, my suspicion would be that he was sent home for this little incident! Ah, the O’Donnell temper… I didn’t get it you know… (What!? You wanna come here and say that?!!?) We think that his wife went over when she was younger, possibly to stay with family, but was home sick and headed back.

Time was chasing us, so we went out to get the next boat back to Manhattan – only to find another enormous queue! I was a little panicked at that point, as I was cutting it quite fine to get back to the apartment for my pick-up, but luckily we just managed to cram onto the next boat that came in! We had planned on going to the Met Museum that afternoon as I had missed out earlier in the week, but we had realised early in the day that this was all day affair so I will just have to go there on my next visit!

Once we were back in Manhattan we jumped on the subway and headed back up to the apartment, walking a couple of blocks when we realised that we had some time to spare. I finally got to try out Taco-Bell! It was so nice and such good value! I had a little taco and burrito and I think it cost me about $5. Yum! They really need to launch that chain in the UK!!

My airport pick-up was a little late, so Hedy and I sat outside the apartment in some welcome sunshine, eating our burritos and chatting away. As I recall my flight home was fairly uneventful – aside from getting stopped at customs again so they could rummage through my bag and work out what the skeletal finger pen was again! Must remember never to take that on a plane again …

I loved NYC – I will definitely have to go back sometime and visit the places I missed, hopefully in the summer so I can wonder about in the sun and take in some more of the city too! Thank you so much Hedy for giving me the chance to go there J