Now I've Had the Time of My Life!

Wow! Here it is, our last night in New York. I can't believe how fast the time has gone and what all we've done and what we've seen. It has truly been a wonderful time. I'm so thankful we were able to do this. We feel like real New Yorkers! We've learned the subway routes and can make snap decisions about getting off and on. We've learned there are lots of jobs we wouldn't want (door man, guard in a museum, person who sells stuff on the street, etc). Every time the doors close on the subway there is an announcement "Stand clear of the closing doors." We've learned there are very few public bathrooms and at least half of them you really don't want to use but will anyway out of desperation. We know that if you go to the store, you only buy what you can carry. Our friends Eric and Denise who live here say that they don't drink much beer or soft drinks anymore because you have to carry it! When we've gone to the store, we waited to buy milk at the corner store because we didn't have to carry it as far! We've also learned that if you do live here, you definitely need a pair of boots when it snows!

We survived the "Arkansas snow" in New York. You know, here today, gone tomorrow? Well, that's what happened yesterday. Most of the snow was gone this morning. We left the apartment this morning and headed down towards Wall Street. I wanted to go down the street behind city hall and we saw some beautiful buildings. One was a county courthouse and the other was an old bank building.

This is the top part of the old bank building.

The Woolworth Building - my favorite!

From there we headed down to check on the protesters and see how they fared through the snow. There aren't as many as when we came but they are hanging in there. On Friday, the fire department took away their generators because they were a fire hazard. We did see one guy who was using a bicycle to power up a generator. He probably needed to charge his cell phone!

Here's a picture of their little tent city.

The pile of stuff in the back, sort of the upper right corner, is a pile of sleeping bags and clothes. We think they belonged to some who were here but have gone home and they donated their stuff. It's a huge pile. It's been interesting to watch them.

We walked on over to the Hudson River and the World Financial Center area. It was pretty cold down there but we hadn't been over there yet. We hung out in the World Financial Center Winter Garden for awhile because it was warm and they had a public bathroom! There's a pretty good view of Ground Zero from there.You could get a better idea of how big the new buildings are and what is being done there.

The Winter Garden is on the right. The other buildings are part of the World Financial Center.

Then we wanted to walk down Wall Street one more time. Well, now they've blocked it off completely. The cop was telling everyone to take a picture and move on. Before when we were down there, the street was blocked but you could walk on the sidewalks. I think that's the reason City Hall is blocked off too. They don't want the protesters moving in there.

So, we headed up towards Central Park to see it one more time. There was still a lot of snow in the park. We saw so many limbs broken off trees and one big tree that was down. We heard on the news tonight that there were 2,000 trees down in the park. They had areas of the park that were closed because of partially broken limbs but we could hear chain saws working. I couldn't believe how many people were on bicycles and, of course, there were hundreds of joggers.

It looked strange to see the trees with green leaves and the snow on the ground.

I think this was my favorite view in the park today.

After that, it was time to head back to Brooklyn. We're trying to get packed and figure out how everything will get home! Really, we didn't buy much, knowing we didn't want to check another bag so we brought a carry-on bag that didn't have much in it plus, our big suitcases only weighed 40 pounds coming up so we each have 10 pounds to play with!

We'll be back in Little Rock at 3:00 pm if all goes well; in time to go trick-or-treating with Macey! I'm so excited to see her (and her parents) and to see their new house. Being the sweet kids they are, they cleaned our house today, mowed the yard and got a few essential groceries. And, we have Brent and Jackie coming on Thursday for a week so we have a lot to look forward to and won't dread leaving here quite as much.

Check back and I may have a few more pictures posted or more information. I've written these posts pretty late and am not sure what I said! We are exhausted but like I said, we've had the time of our lives here. Maybe if you haven't been here before, you have an urge to come. There's no place like it, that's for sure! Thanks for following along and for your comments.

And, we walked 9.99 miles today for a total of 225.49 miles in 29 days! I didn't count the day we came. I put on the pedometer just as we'd leave the apartment and take it off as soon as I got home.

Conrad and Linda