Bikes, Bridges, Brooklyn, & Bruises

Well I told you there would be plenty more to come!  Now you may be slightly confused by the title of this post, but I feel like the alliteration sufficiently sums up my Saturday spent with my dad and Kevin.  Let me explain:

A.   Bikes:  When the lines to take the ferry to the Statue of Liberty were longer than the one for the Disneyland ride for Dumbo at peak season, we decided it was not worth the wait.  Instead we rented BIKES in Battery Park and rode along the waterway which turned out to be the best idea we could have had.

If you look really hard you can even see my building in the background.

B.   Bridges:  Naturally we had to have a destination for our bike ride so we chose to bike across a BRIDGE, the Brooklyn Bridge that is.  Now the biking and walking path are side by side and both have two-way traffic which makes for an incredibly dangerous combination.  It is still a miracle that I didn’t hit a single pedestrian.

 Brooklyn Bridge

C.   Brooklyn:  After crossing the bridge, we found ourselves in BROOKLYN; a quiet escape from the busy city.  Grimaldi’s, New York’s most famous pizza place, lives in Brooklyn.  It has an hour and a half wait, but thanks to Hannah Lee’s advice we called in our order and only had to wait 30 minutes.  In the meantime we grabbed a delicious banana split down by the water…life is short so why not eat dessert first?  The pizza was great, but in my opinion it probably would not have been worth the hour and a half wait.

 Hope you weren't hungry when you started reading,

 because after looking at these pictures you will be starving.

 This line could give the Statue of Liberty line a run for its money.

Originally Kevin was mad that we didn't order more pizza, but even he couldn't finish it all.

 Finally some greenery.

Reflection of NYC in a motorcycle mirror by the waterfront.

D.   Bruises:  If you have ever heard about my dad’s vacations, you know that they are not leisurely, period.  It doesn’t take much to realize that I got my traveling bug from him.  Anyways, his trips mean one thing, lots of walking and by the end of the day my feet were throbbing and probably had internal BRUISES.  You see, after our bike ride the line for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty had disappeared, so we hopped on it to see the statue and Ellis Island.  We then proceeded to walk through the entire lower half of New York:  Canal Street filled with its knock-off designer purchases, Chinatown with its plethora of cheap souvenirs, little Italy which had more restaurants than you could count, and trendy Soho and Greenwich Village.

This picture perfectly sums up Kevin's nine days of traveling with my dad...

exhausting but they still had a great time.

 

 Note Kevin's creative pose.

 Ellis Island.

 Little Italy.

 So maybe we did get American food on the outskirts of Little Italy, but it was good.

 Street performers in Washington Square Park.

Empire State Building.