Staten Island, Statue of Liberty and Grand Central Station, Christmas Day, New York

We’d thought to go to Christmas Day mass. However the Christmas Eve Choral Eucharist at Trinity Church on Wall Street had just been such blessed perfection that we felt it might carry us over.  It was a sunny day.  We’d thought to take a boat tour and see the Statue of Liberty that way but it looked liked most tours were closed for Christmas Day.
The Staten Island Ferry meanwhile ran on the half hour and was free.  We’d also finally adjusted time zones so we woke at a decent hour so I could get us the hotel’s complimentary coffee. We were even feeling intrepid and opted for the subway rather than taxi.
The subway was simple once I’d figured out how to buy tickets from the machine. We took it downtown (south) to Bowling Green. There we walked to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.
Laura who is near sighted kept asking me how I knew it was the Ferry Terminal until she looked up and saw the huge sign.
It isn’t a place for someone with social phobia or claustrophobia. When the doors open the press of people is like nothing i’ve known except maybe getting on a subway in Tokyo.  When I noticed all the passengers had gone to one side of the boat and the boat was listing that way I figured that was the ‘view side’.
And what a view it was!
There were so many cameras clicking you’d have thought the boat had a cricket infestation.I took my own share of the French lady, Libertas,  designed by sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi built by Gustave Eiffel dedicated 1886.  It was a gift from France to the US celebrating Independence.
On Staten Island Laura and I went for a stroll before returning to have a magnificent steak and lobster meal on the waterfront.  A thoroughly satisfying Christmas meal. On the way back on the Staten Island Ferry the sun was setting allowing for even more colourful and different pictures of the Statue of Liberty and the New York Sky line.
We even got back to the Subway and took this to Grand Central Station.  More photo ops. Then a walk some 10 blocks down Park Avenue back to our hotel.
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