American Girl Place

Helene and Becca each have a look-alike doll from the American Girl company. So after seeing the Statue of Liberty and having lunch in Chinatown, we treated ourselves and the dolls to tea at the American Girl Place.

We were served scones, finger sandwiches, and plenty of sweets.
Even the dolls got their own teacups.
Samantha, Helene, Elizabeth, and Becca:

4 generations:

After tea, Samantha took a trip to the styling salon in the store. This is her before shot:

After:
And some shots of the girls all dressed up to match their dolls:

Lunch in Chinatown

After seeing Lady Liberty, we took the subway to Chinatown for lunch. No, we didn't eat at McDonald's; I just liked the Chinese characters right under the Golden Arches.

Kathy's husband bought himself a Droid while we were galavanting around New York, so I thought it was fitting to take this picture for him:
The only Chinese-looking architecture I saw:

(The rest just looked like NYC with subtitles. And with women approaching us every 10 paces to offer brand-name handbags.)
The produce stands had slightly different offerings than in other parts of the city:

We had a nice lunch of dim sum, fried rice, etc., then went back to the hotel to dress for high tea . . .

New York, Day 3, Morning

I can tell by the number of pictures I had that this was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I didn't even count how many shots I actually took, but I narrowed it down to 34 to post here!

On Monday, we started out at 6:30 to catch a city bus a few blocks from our hotel. It took us to Battery Park:

This sculpture (below) moved me, but we whizzed by it quickly on our way to the ferry, so I didn't know the story until I got home and looked it up. For more info (and a picture of the rest of the sculpture, which is covered by water in this shot), click here.
My goofy girl on the ferry ride from Battery Park to Liberty Island:

The day started out pretty gray, but cleared up as the sun rose.

Ellis Island:









There was an excellent museum in the pedestal of the Statue. This was her original torch:
This is an exact size replica of her face, made in the same style and out of the same materials as the original:
Same story with her toes:


To create the statue, molds were created out of wood, and then the copper was hammered into shape by hand:
A few people each day can get tickets to go up to the crown. We ordered our tickets months in advance, so we were able to go up. Security was intense. We had to go through metal detectors, and Kathy even got "puffed". Then we had to put all of our belongings (except one camera each) into lockers. Here are Kathy and Becca on the windy staircase heading to the top:
Helene panicked about halfway up the 350+ steps. She said she was afraid of heights, but I'm wondering if maybe it was claustrophobia because there wasn't much to look down on from the tiny staircase. Sandy was kind enough to walk her down, so the rest of us could continue to the top. The crown was much smaller than I expected. There were about 6 of us in it, and it felt crowded. Here's a picture I took by sticking my camera out one of the tiny windows:
On the way back down, we could see the inside of her nose:

And here are some views from the pedestal:

Kathy and Becca:
My mom and I:



We found Sandy and Helene in the cafe, recovering with a cup of hot chocolate. An actor portraying August Bertholdi (the artist who created the statue) was strolling through, so we stopped him and asked some questions. He was outstanding, and I learned as much from him as from the museum.