Lady Liberty's Crown...

Tom had booked us all tickets to go up into the Statue of Liberty's crown a couple of months ago, so on Saturday morning (after a bacon and egg sandwich), we made our way to Battery Park and got on the ferry to Liberty Island.

It was a cold and blustery morning (there was even some snow in the air!) but the sun was shining and the views from the boat were magnificent...

They were selling souvenirs on the ferry, so we all made a little purchase to mark the special occasion, some fetching Statue of Liberty hats and glasses were purchased...

(the hats make an appearance a little later)

It was a wee bit blowy on the back of the boat - somehow Abi's hair stayed looking lovely!

The little ferry ride to the island was lovely, and there were far less seagulls than last time, there was no dive-bombing, no pooing, just a smooth ride with fantastic views...

When we got onto the island, it was time for a little photo-shoot with those hats...

Tourists? Who, us?

After our little photo shoot, we got our golden wrist bands and headed into the statue. We were pre-warned about the steps up the statue, there were about 360 steps all the way up, but we hadn't realised how much they narrowed as we got higher and higher.

By the time we were just about in the crown, the stairs had become incredibly narrow (I had to turn sideways slightly) and very steep and spirally, but once we got up there, it was all worth it...

It was far smaller than any of us had imagined, and with another full family up there it felt pretty cramped. It was amazing seeing the hair details of the statue from the inside, and then finding out how thin the copper is - it was something like 3/8ths of an inch thick (or thin!).

The man with the beard was a Liberty Island Ranger who gave a little talk when we were all in the crown. He said that technically speaking the Statue of Liberty was one of the worlds first skyscrapers, and at one point the statue was the third tallest man-made structure in the world - after the Pyramids (and something else)!

It was really windy outside, to the statue was swaying a bit and you could hear the wind through the little windows, and the Ranger was saying that in the summer it becomes unbearably (and dangerously) hot. The whole statue's made out of copper, and copper retains heat - so I can imagine it'd be like an oven up there during the New York summers.

The views from the windows were fantastic, looking down to the left you could see Lady Liberty's tablet...

And up to the right, you could see the points of her crown and the torch...

It was fantastic and quite surreal to be up there and be inside the head of the Statue of Liberty - it was definitely another New York Bucket-List thing to tick off, thanks to Tom for booking up the tickets and thinking of it!

The way down from the crown was even more claustrophobic than the way up, ducking down, turning sideways, being squished in the hips and getting pretty dizzy from the staircase spiraling down, except this time there was the added bonus of a bit of vertigo because you could look down and see the bottom! At least the journey down didn't take as long as the way up!

We stepped out onto the stone base of statue, underneath Lady Liberty's feet and took some more photos...

It was still pretty windy outside, so Tom took cover to take his photos...

After our boat trip back we headed to South Street Seaport for a spot of lunch at Heartland Brewery, some Pulled Pork Sandwiches and Onion Straw were in order for us windswept seadogs. Then we had mooch round the shops, stopped off in Abercrombie & Fitch, aged 3 years in the queue and then headed back to the apartment.

We were all a bit worn out after our big adventure, so we had a quite night in and watched Cloverfield - a fitting film to watch as the Statue of Liberty ends up getting decapitated by an alien in it!

It was such a fantastic day - I don't think any us will ever forget it!