NEW YORK BY DAY (June 4th)

Before I start this story I must tell you about our plans for going to Patterson etc. As I think I may have mentioned some time ago we had met a brother and sister outside Brooklyn Bethel. We arranged to call them for a tour. Anyway there is another brother in NY that our dear friend Don had put us in touch with. We spoke to him last night and he told us that he would be more than happy to take us up to Patterson if we wanted to go. We were so excited as Patterson is where we had always wanted to go. As we would not have time to go to both Patterson and Brooklyn we decided we would call our sister and tell her that we would be going out to Patterson instead and thanked her very much for her offer. It was all arranged that we go on Friday, yay! (Today is Wednesday)

So back to the story. We are walking to the subway station and on the way the footpath is ridiculous. Its uneven and I mean really uneven! The trees that line the roads are beautiful but they lift the concrete under every tree. In some places it has lifted so much there is a drop of just under a foot! No exaggeration! As you can imagine, what do I do, but fall off one of these huge drops and sprain my ankle very badly. I felt a ping in my ankle and yelled, politely of course. As some of you may know, I have damaged the tendons in my ankles a number of times dancing and as a result they are weaker than normal. I thought Oh no, Im going to get to test that travel insurance already! I stood there for a few moments gathering my breath and after a while I could walk again, but just slowly, so there was no major damage. I decided we should carry on into the city as we only had one day left to do so and we would just take it slowly.

We made it into the city this time without a stop in Harlem. We got off at High street which takes you right into Brooklyn where all the Societies Buildings are. We wandered around here, this time seeing it from quite a different angle. We went down to the promenade and saw Manhattan again, but this time in the daylight. They actually look like two different places, they are so different in the day to the way they look at night.

We walk the route we rode the other day and take in all the sights. We head toward the Brooklyn Bridge and head across to the city. On our way over it starts to rain, but not to heavy so we take shelter in the middle along with 50 other tourist.

The walk up the bridge is a site to see also, as you can really see the structure of it. Underneath where we are walking there is traffic whizzing by on both sides. In the middle is a train.
Upon reaching the other side we head around toward South St Sea Port and go inside to have lunch. We sit facing Brooklyn. What a wonderful view and way to spend you time.

Now we head down toward the Statue of Liberty. We realize we wont be able to go out and see her but that we should be able to get a good view from the very bottom of Manhattan Island. We go past Wall St and some other famous landmarks and reach the Staten Island Ferry port. These ferries are huge to say the least. We thought to ourselves how cool it would be to take a ride on one of these but thought it would be too expensive so didn’t bother. Later everyone would say to us " oh did you go on the Staten Island Ferry, its so beautiful. You get a great, up close view of the Statute of Liberty and go out to Staten Island and then you can just come straight back if you want to". We said, " well no we wanted to but didn’t have the money". They all then said and can you believe this, "oh the ferry is FREE!!!! You can ride it as often as you like and you don’t pay anything!!" WELL IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO KNOW THAT BEFORE WE WENT!! Ho hum again, never mind at least we will know for next time. For all those reading and intending to go to NY, go on the ferry to Staten Island ITS FREE!

Right at the bottom of Manhattan Island there are all these memorials. Many to fallen marines but many for immigrants that came through here trying to find a better life in the USA. Many had very sad experiences and never made it onto the mainland. There were some statues depicting the struggle they had. Quite a moving area. On our way here we also passed a fire station. Dave and I commented to each other that they were probably some of the first on the scene on 9/11 as it was so close to ground zero. Then we walked two more steps and there is a plague on the building with the names of their fallen comrades. Again, very moving.

Outside one of the many memorials we came across a funny sign. It was on a little fence that was being used to barricade an area off. The sign read " this is not a bike stand" we had a giggle about that one and took a photo just for the record. We thought Shane would appreciate that one.
Another funny thing happened down here. We were walking along totally looking like tourist with our map out etc. (quite safe to do so in this area as everyone is a tourist) Next thing we have a group of people walk past us and say " you look like you know where you are, which way to the Staten Island Ferry?" We laughed and pointed them in the right direction. There we were in a foreign country with a map looking lost and people are asking us for directions! I guess you just had to be there. Actually we got asked for directions quite often while in Manhattan and amazingly we could help every time.

From here we walked up 5th Ave. Man I wish I had remembered that this 5th ave was the famous 5th ave you hear about in movies etc. There was every major designer you can think of, Gucci, Fendi, Lacoste, Tiffanys, Pier Cardin, Cartier, just to name a few. The street was lined on both sides as far as you could see with them. By this time it was 5pm and they were all closing, stinkies, I would love to have gone inside and had a nosy. Yeah right, like they would let us ragamuffins in there! Dreams are free though.

We went back past the giant Brass, whatever, bull and then by the Municipal region. Here there are some very old courthouses, town halls, government buildings, monuments etc. The courthouse used in Law and Order is here. The whole area was so well looked after. The buildings were almost white they were so clean and across from them was a beautiful fountain and gardens. Quite surreal in among all the high rises, scrapping at the sky.

Onward through, China Town and Little Italy again. Quite different during the day. We would love to have spent more time in this area but we had to get back as the brother mentioned earlier was taking us out for dinner and we needed to get back home. Not only that but my foot, although, I had not told Dave was killing me and I really needed to get off it and put some ice on it. So home we went.

We meet up that night with a brother named Daleep. He is from Guyana. What a lovely man he is too. We also met two of his friends, Antony and Shilindra. They took us to a Peruvian place for dinner and it was delicious! Mmmmmmmm. Would love to go back there again. We then went and had NY cheesecake for pudding, much to Daves delight. He had now tried all the NY favorites, hotdogs, hamburgers and cheesecake. He is now a happier man!

While out with these brothers, we mentioned that I had fallen that day and that we weren’t sure if I would be able to walk in high heels, which were all I had brought for our tours through Bethel etc. I said that I would try them on when I got home and see if I could walk in them. I was also concerned that I still had not had a chance to put ice on it and that if I did more walking the next day, I may do some serious damage to it. This I did not want to do with only a week left before we go to Belize! I tried them on when I got home and could not put my foot in them as it had swollen and the angel of my foot was very uncomfortable. I had to decide if we would go or not as we had to let the brothers at Patterson know if we would be there for lunch or not. Very reluctantly I had to say no. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to go. As it turns out, it would not have mattered, even if I had a perfect foot, we would not have made it. We got a phone call from Daleep saying that his car had broken down and that we would not make the trip anyway.
Our trip to Patterson or to the Brooklyn Bethel was not to be this time. Even if we wanted to, there was not enough time to call and arrange a tour through Brooklyn and I wouldn’t have been able to walk for long, if at all anyway. Can you believe it? We travel all the way the NY where the world headquarters of Jehovahs Witnesses are and we only get to see one of the facilities and that’s from the street! Im sure Jehovah will forgive us! He he. That is what you call time and unforeseen occurrence that’s for sure!

Both Dave and I spent Friday resting up as we had had an action packed few days. We went to dinner again with the brothers and this time a couple of sisters to. It was a delightful way to spend our last night in NY.

Bags packed again, we get on the plane headed for Miami again. This makes flight number 4 in two weeks! NY is in a different time zone than LA was and that’s different from NZ, so that’s also three time zones in two weeks. Im sure that’s not good for ya!

Also during our stay in NY we went to Conney Island and to the fairground there, but it was closed, we went to the beach that you cant really swim in due to the pollution and went through the Russian and Jewish quarters too. It was all quite interesting. All these little cities or communities within one huge city.

We had a wonderful time in NY and loved every second of it and there were a lot of seconds piled into that trip. There is so much more we would love to do and see. I guess that means we will have to go back.

During our stay here, we were again really well looked after by Jehovah and our dear brothers. They again would not let us pay for anything, this was their way of helping out and as a result we can use our money for furthering Kingdom interests where there is a real need. Thank you Jah. We have been blessed in so many ways and imagine there will be much more along the way. We have been so impressed that no matter where we go, although we have not known a single person, we have felt like we have been friends forever. Truly we have a united organization identified by love, where else would you experience that? I think nowhere.

Love to you all, and big hugs and kisses to our dear brothers and sisters in NY if your reading.