My first day in New York

The first day of the holiday started with a grueling Tabata session. We headed to the gym at about 6:30 (feeling good thanks to jet lag) to start the workout. It’s 8 sets of 20 seconds intense exercise plus 10 seconds of rest on an exercise bike at the hotel gym. We went in with confidence but it’s surprisingly painful, but it was too late to back out. The goal was to do Tabata every day that we could, and we managed all but one! Here’s an embarrassing picture of Joe doing his only Tabata of the holiday because why not?

The first activity was walking across Brooklyn Bridge. Dad and I managed to get some awesome pictures of the skyline view from the bridge despite the building work in the middle! It took a surprisingly long time to walk it, luckily we crossed from Brooklyn to Manhattan so we didn’t have to walk back! Oh and Mum will like it if I mention the annoying lady on the bike who shouted to me “You’re in the cycling lane, Sir” in the most stereotypical American accent possible.

Next up was the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center. It was under construction still so I was skeptical of how interesting it would be… it was incredible. Two huge sunken pools of water had been built into the ground where the twin towers had stood. It’s really hard to appreciate impact of the attacks until you see where they actually stood – plus it made for some pretty cool pictures. Engraved into stone around the edge of the two pools were the names of all the people killed in the attacks – from people working in the tower; to those on the planes; to the firefighters who died saving lives.

After stopping at T.G.I Fridays for a quick snack (or was it lunch?), we took the Staten Island Ferry to… Staten Island. We got great seats (even if it meant pushing and barging through people) which let us get good pictures (yes, everything was a good picture) of the skyline and Statue of Liberty from sea. Then of course we had to get it off and back on to the same one to return to Manhattan!

Overall it was an awesome day for sightseeing and photography and visiting (briefly) various New York Islands!