October 29, 2007 well, it has been a very fun and eventful time in New York. So much to see and do that we didn’t even see or scratch the tip of the iceberg, will have to come back but not stay in this RV Park. I shouldn’t say that, if I didn’t have a dog and want to take a shower everyday, then maybe I would stay here again, it really wasn’t that bad, just the driving here was. “PICTURES ARE POSTED” by the way.
Well, recap time;
Saturday, it did rain all morning but we took off for the Statue of Liberty anyway. The 1st boat was leaving at 9:30am and we were only 5 min. away from the park where it took off from. We left at 9:10am it was raining and off season so there shouldn’t be that many people there, wrong. We saw so many people and panicked but as we got closer to the ticket office we realized there was a diabetes walk-a-thon going on and most of the people were there. Because of all the security checks we just missed the 1st boat by 2 min., that’s when Dave said “you know we weren’t meant to see the Statue” but there was no way I was leaving now. We did catch the next boat at 10:15am and got off at Ellis Island. I called my brother, Mike, to ask him what Grandpa Tomaselli’s first name was, I knew I had heard it before but just couldn’t think of it. Dave and I wanted to look up what boat my Dad’s parents had come over on when they left Austria/Italy. Ellis Island has a library to look up this stuff from 1890 thru 1924, for a small fee, we paid the fee and started the research, Mike had given me some info, after calling him 5 times because I kept losing the connection, but we weren’t finding any info. I then tried to call our Uncle Renzo, my Dad’s brother, but he wasn’t home, it ended up we checked from 1890 to 1924 and didn’t find anything. We decided or figured out that my Grandpa Tomaselli didn’t come over on a boat to Ellis Island, where all the emigrants were suppose too, so he must have crossed over illegally and landed somewhere else. Thank goodness my Dad and Uncle were born here or else they would have been illegal too.  After Ellis Island we caught the ferry to the “Statue of Liberty”, really something to see. We joined up with a tour that was already going on and hearing the Ranger speak and give the details was very interesting. It just amazes me, that way back then, someone would say I want to build a statue and this is what I want to build and this is where I want to put it. Just like in South Dakota the guy that did Mount Rushmore, there is “NO WAY” in these days could anyone do or build anything like that without going thru “Hell” to get approval.
After the Statue of Liberty we came back to the coach for about 45 min. walked Valley around then hit the road again about 3pm. We took the train “Path” then tried their subway system, which was a bad day to do it. It was really hot in the subway, and crowded, and the damn thing kept stopping, then they finally they made an announcement that 3 trains ahead of us there was a sick person so we were going to have to wait. In the mean time this man, who had gotten on our subway, started talking out loud to himself, while doing so he was rolling joints. Everyone was trying, well not everyone, but most were trying to get away from him. Anyway, when we finally got to Broadway and 34th we got off of the subway. We started walking around and I was taking pictures, Spanky, my nephew asked me to, crowds of people and very entertaining. Sorry I didn’t get the picture, but there was a girl ½ naked in the middle of Broadway that was playing a guitar, what she had on was short shorts and tassels on her nipples. We kept walking around because we wanted to see where the play we were going to see on Sunday was going to be, “Spring Awakening”. While walking around we heard some guy offering ½ price tickets to “Alter Boys” which was one of the off Broadway musicals my nephew had recommended to us. We decided to go ahead and buy the tickets and go to the play, the only bad thing was it was 5pm and the musical didn’t start until 8pm. There was no way we were going to go back to the coach 1st so all we could hope for was that Valley had a strong bladder and could do without dinner for a long time. Really the dinner part wasn’t a problem and the bladder wasn’t either but I just hate putting her through that because she is 11 yrs old, but oh well. We walked around some more then stopped in an Irish Pub, had a beer and a burger then headed for the musical.
Better cut off now, and on the next blog do the review and recap of Sunday and Monday.