I’m big and green - Who am I? (not the incredible hulk!)

Did you know going to Liberty Island is like going on a plane? You even need photo ID. Well we didn’t know that so off we travelled to the New Jersey ferry terminal, went and bought our tickets, and got told the adults needed photo ID – either a US drivers license or a passport… So off went Deanna and Dad to go get our passports. They had to walk/bus/train all the way back to the RV and back. This took all of about 1 hour. All of which 2 things happened 1: Emma and I nearly died of boredom 2: we missed the first ferry. Oh well, there was soon another.

The ferry had three levels so Deanna, Emma and I all explored (as usual) and found a way to the front of the ferry and take pics and feel the wind on your face... it sure wakes you up!

The first stop on the ferry is Ellis Island – we didn’t get off there but decided to stop there on the way back. Then the boat went right around the statue because the docks are on the other side of the island. We hopped of the ferry and looked up… She wasn’t so small any more!!!

A few months ago Dad had purchased tickets for us to walk all the way up to the crown. We weren’t allowed to take bags or wallets – especially not keys so we stuffed all our things in two lockers. The rangers were hard case - u had to raise your fist sky-ward each time you saw one... to show him your wrist band that is.

Before you are even allowed into the base there was even more security to go through. They had normal airport style + one more funny machine that huffs air up at you. Mums hair looked really nice when they blew the air at her.

We went into the museum (in the base) there was a face as big as the statue, a replica of her foot and her old torch (it died, so she has a new torch now). The steps in the base went up in a z shape and when we got to the top of the base a man took our wrist bands and didn’t let us keep them for our journals. Then it was up the big spiral steps to the crown. There were like 8 stops on the way and Deanna made us stop at every single one to take pics and wait for her. Emma and I wanted to keep going and beat everyone else… But sneaky mum didn’t stop so she beat us up. A ranger at the top gave us a badge and did a quiz on us. We knew all the answers because of a book we read about the statue. Did you know that the inside of the statue is not green like the rest of her but a bronzy colour? And they had to clean the crown people had written their names all over it - even graffiti @ statue of liberty.

The crown is really small from the inside and compared with the pics the windows are miniature. Our whole family found it easier to climb the statue of liberty's 354 steps than Boston’s 291 steps. I think this is because the widest part of the statue's steps can fit a size 8 & ½ (American) shoe not falling of and no bigger. And the monuments were much bigger. Emma and I were determined to get to the bottom first so we raced down not stopping at any of the platforms. This is good because we were just in time to have a ranger point out where the inside of her left foot was

When Mum and Dad finally got down to the base we went out to the observation deck that went right around the base the view was amazing but just a little hazy - you could see all the way to the massive bridge on the opposite from manhatten. We pretended to be the statue and what she would say if she saw people pretending to be her.

The restaurant was unusual because we had to stand at these tall tables to eat our meal... the food was great but. Afterwards we fed some birds - even Bob joined in although one of the birds mentioned to him that he was eating too much.

Our next stop was Ellis Island. Do you know how Ellis Island got the name? Well it used to be owned by the Ellis family and when they sold it the name stuck. Emma and I took the kids audio tour and we learnt that it used to be a place where immigrants stopped as they arrived off the ships to America. The people would come from all over the world and would have to go through many checks - one was when they got their eyelids upturned by a button hook to check for disease. Imagine going through that process at the age of 4. More that 12 million went through that place and most were allowed to stay. But imagine if your Mother or Father got sent back on the boat because of illness or some other problem.

We were just in time for the last ferry to New Jersey & the view of Manhatten in the dark was just awesome!

Lots of love Amy!