The Statue of Liberty

To tell you the truth, visiting the Statue oLiberty wasn’t in my to do list. Indeed, saying “hello” to a high tall spiked headed lady painted in green doesn’t seem really exciting to me. But hey, I’m a tourist, Helena wants to drop by in her island and visit “Miss liberty”, I guess I can make an exception. Perhaps, I may learn why people have decided to paint her in green … (I know, I’m just being silly, I know why it’s green of course thanks to the State House field trip).

But first things first. We went to a small restaurant for a brunch. Pretty nice and old fashion style. Helena wasn’t familiar with the term “Brunch”, a mixed between breakfast and lunch. So I told her that when you skipped breakfast but still want to eat an early lunch, than we have what we called a brunch. Then we took off for Miss hulk… erf… the statue of liberty sorry.

So when you arrived at the border right before taking the boat to Liberty Island, you can have a quick look at the “Statue of Liberty” and … I thought she would be taller. We bought the ticket, and hop on the boat for Liberty Island. On our way, I couldn’t help noticing 2 things. While the city and its huge skyscrapers started to shrink, the Statue of Liberty started to grow bigger and bigger. There… oh wow… I can’t have the whole statue in my field of vision. While we walked around we took many picture of her, many ones were pretty funny.

I also learned some piece of history. Did you know that Mr. Eiffel made the last pieces of the Statue of Liberty? The one who built and designed the Eiffel tower in France. Well this may be the reason why she is so gorgeous ^^. I also notice that she wasn’t built on a socle but on a fort. Indeed, long time ago, the Liberty Island was a military position. It served as a scouting fort to spot incoming invaders. The fort where the statue stands is shaped as a 11 spiked stars to have a 360 field of vision.

Then our next stop was Ellis Island. This place is huge, loaded with historical facts as well as movie facts. Indeed this is where they shot the movie “Hitch” with will Smith. This latter dates Eva Mendes to the island to show her that one of her ancestor was a pioneer. Anyway, the most important one is that it was used as a place where new comers who wanted to live in America had to pass a health check. Two diseases were common at that time. One of them was called trachoma, a disease that can make people blind. The second, well I don’t remember.

On our way back to the Manhattan, there was this guy dressed as Spiderman. His outfit was... hum pretty tight... and he was striking some weird poses for by standers pictures... But I couldn't help noticing all these girl gathered around him. Roughly 10 girls around him, each one of them giving him 1 dollar for a pose. It is really unexpected and now, I believe beeing Spiderman is quite an earning job.

After leaving the statue of liberty, we had a quick look at the NYSE-Euronext. Pretty beautiful. Now a days I believe that NYSE is less croweded because of new way of communication ( internet). Bye bye to all the messy people screaming at each other with pens and paper sticked to their mouth. I also notice one strange thing: very fancy Gym clubs surrounds these stock option houses.

At last but not least, I invited Helena to a sushi restaurant. Since it was her birthday, it was my treat. So Helena is a bit afraid of trying out new stuff. She doesn’t like to go on unknown territory. Since I have some experience with sushi I ordered several different fancy rolls. Why fancy? Because they are not just casual sushi’s such like the California rolls. There are a bit more… well fancy… More topping and so on. Then for our final sushi I made her try something really unusual. The “ Uni Sushi”. Uni stands for sea ursine. It has a very particular taste and a very particular way of eating. You have to put it in your mouth and eat it really slowly so the taste just blows your mind. It kinda feels like the sea is invading your entire mouth. And you know what? She totally agreed ^^. Sharing your experiences and likes is really enjoyable (especially when we both agreed).

The next day… guess what we had for dinner again…