Musical Piano's and the 9/11 Memorial

We'd had so much luck with the weather so far in New York, but the weather for our fourth day in the city was forecast for rain and strong winds.

And that's exactly what we woke up to. Torrential rain and winds strong enough that Bradley had to hold onto me as we left the hotel room.

Luckily it wasn't actually that cold, it was still pretty warm and humid, which was good since there's nothing worse than having to wear jeans when it's raining, and then walking around with heavy damp legs! Shorts are far preferable as even though your legs get wet, they dry super fast.

Our first stop of the day was FAO Schwarz, we arrived just before they opened so we killed some time in the Apple store downstairs to get out of the rain.

When FAO Schwarz did open, we were one of the first people inside, and all of the staff were lining the entrance and clapping the first visitors into the store. It was very strange, but also made us feel pretty special!

He was definitely not going to fit into my suitcase

We slowly made our way around the store, stopping to purchase some new socks since my were soaking wet and admiring the Lego displays.

We came across the famous Big Piano and since the store was practically empty, had the whole thing to ourselves. We had a good 10 minutes of playing to ourselves before we had to move to let other people on.

It was pretty awesome pretending we were in Big, and you can actually buy one for your own home, but I can imagine the appeal would die down pretty quickly...

After finishing on the Big Piano, we continued exploring the store. FAO Schwarz is huge, and full of all kinds of awesome toys and games.

Moose Hat!

On the ground floor, they had FAO Schweetz, a huge space full of hundreds of different kinds of lollies and chocolates. 

Also downstairs was a make your own Muppet studio. We didn't really feel the need to have creepy Niki and Bradley puppets lying around our house, so we had a quick look and carried on..

Bradley found his Muppet double anyway..

We had booked tickets for the 9/11 Memorial site for 11.30 a.m., so we headed off to get the Metro downtown.

We were lucky enough to get a break in the rain, and while it was still overcast, the rain held off so that we were able to fully appreciate the Memorial.

Before heading over to the Memorial, we stopped at St Paul's Chapel, a tiny Church across from where the Tower's stood. The church stood standing while the building's surrounding it were turned to dust, and became a haven for the volunteers and worker's at the site, and volunteers dished our food and coffee and did as much as they could to help.

The fact that the building didn't sustain any damage whatsoever, was put down to one huge Sycamore tree in the corner, protecting it from the flying debris from the falling Tower's. The roots of this tree have since been cast in bronze.

The fence surrounding the Church became filled with flowers, photo's and toys, like a makeshift memorial for 9/11. Even now, there are still ribbons hanging from the tree's inside the Church yard.

The Mayor of the City of London presented this bronze bell, called The Bell fo Hope, to New Yorkers on the first-year anniversary of September 11. 

It was cast by the same foundry as the Liberty Bell and London's Big Ben, and was gifted to New York to show the solidarity of the people of London with the people of New York. The Reverend of Trinity Church, rang the bell on the second anniversary.

One World Trade Centre - previously known as the Freedom Tower

There is a lot of construction going on at the World Trade Centre site. One World Trade Centre is halfway completed, and you can see a few other buildings have started being built also. The site will look amazing when it's finished, but for now it just looks like a huge construction site.

We went through security, and luckily we didn't have to wait in line at all, we just walked right in.

The Memorial site is like a garden, with two huge pools full of water, with the names of all those who died in the planes and the tower's.

Feeling inappropriate smiling..

There were a lot of people there, and it was pretty intense standing in the place where so many people lost their lives. A different kind of feeling to visiting the concentration camp in Dachau, but similar in that it felt bad posing for photographs, and it seemed inappropriate that parent's were letting their kids run around screaming.

After the Memorial we headed further downtown to the famous Charging Bull statue by Wall Street. It was locked off with fences surrounding it, so we weren't able to get very close.

Wall Street

We saw a few famous building's from movies, most notably the building that bane takes hostage in The Dark Knight Rises.

By this stage the wind was getting so string, we kept coming across mini tornadoes in the street, so we headed away from the waterfront and went in a few blocks up to Soho.

We wanted to find the fire house that was used in Ghostbusters. It was pretty awesome, and is obviously kept in really good condition, It looks just like in the movie!

We weren't ready to call it quit's and head back to the hotel just yet, so we wandered up toward's Chelsea and along Bleecker Street.

We stopped in at the Magnolia Bakery, and admired their mini cupcakes and delicious looking cakes.

We stopped off at a Chocolate Cafe and warmed up with a Hot Chocolate, and couldn't help ourselves by buying some yummy chocolate goodies to take back to the hotel for dessert.

We relaxed over our drinks for a good hour before we felt ready to head back out into the cold and wind.

We couldn't keep going any longer, so we caved in and headed back to our hotel amidst storm warnings, and reports that the city might lost power.

We warmed up with a hot shower, put on our pajamas and ordered sushi to be delivered. 

It was nice to be curled up in bed while the storm raged outside, luckily we didn't lose power, but we did lose most TV channels, with the signal cutting out on all except for the news.

It was only the early evening, but we were done for the day!

Chocolate S'mores and Moustaches!