We started out at Grand Central Station for breakfast. We ate at Zaro's Bread Basket. It was pretty good...They actually had Tropical Punch Kool-Aid for a fountain drink..haha. Of course Alicea ordered it. We also found a Juniors in the Dinning Concourse and I had to have one of the giant Black/White cookies.....It's a large cake-like sugar cookie where half of it it frosted with white frosting and the other half is chocolate frosting. It was amazing...and it was like 9am and I was eating it...lol. Oh well, I was on vacation and I was going to indulge in anyway I could. After breakfast, we headed down to the subway tracks for our first "official" day of riding the subway. We purchased a MetroCard, which is a thin credit card type card that you load with $24 and you get unlimited subway rides for 7 days. So, we got on the subway and off to Battery Park and to see the Statue of Liberty.
The subway stop was right in front of the park and the Staten Island Ferry port. So, we opted to ride the FREE ferry and go by the statue versus the Ellis Island Ferry, which is like $20, that takes you to the statue. I had no desire to sit in line for hours trying to get close to her...I had a city to explore and limited time!
So, the ferry takes you past the statue on its way to Staten Island. Then you have to get off and re board to go back. They don't let you stay on.....but we saw some interesting people in that station..haha....alot of "bums" that were truly crazy! One guy was walking around cussing people out if you made eye contact with him! One Asian lady made the mistake and he unloaded on her calling her all kinds of things and her face was in awe.....chances are she didn't understand everything he was saying and just sat there. There are a ton of foreigners in NY and allot of them only speak broken English or none at all...
After the statue, we walked down a few blocks and found another destination, the Wall Street Bull. And when we got there, It was a nightmare!! I swear every tourist in NY was there......and most of them were foreigners!! There was no organization to taking pictures in front of it AT ALL....it was just fit in where you get in and hope no one else is on the other side in your picture. Well, Alicea and Angelia didn't want their picture with it but of course I did. So, I handed off my camera to Alicea I think, and they made their way to the front so when I was able to get close they would be able to see me and take it. I waited a few minutes, and then I slid in and thought I was home free..I would be able to get my picture and then get out of the madness. As I was putting my arm around the horn, a French lady decides she also likes my spot. So what does she do? Steps directly in front of me and stands there. She is so close, her back is about 3 inches from my chest!! I was livid!! I said, "Excuse Me?", and she ignored me. Then at this point, I called her a name that was not very nice. Then, after she gets her picture she moves and doesn't acknowledge what has just happened. I hope I ruined her picture being in the background...lol. So, after that debacle, I get my picture and move on.....can't let her ruin my mood. I did feel like I was in the middle of paparazzi with all the people and camera flashes going off...lol
Wall Street Bull...do you see my foreign "friends" in the back?? lol 
We headed back to the subway, and then off to Canal St./ChinaTown. Now, everyone knows this is where you go to get the good knock off designer purses, sunglasses,wallets,jewelry, etc. And Oh my.....It was an experience! There are Asian ladies/men everywhere on the streets trying to sell stuff....but they don't always have their items visible. It is illegal and they don't want to get caught. So when you walk by them, they say( in an accent...lol)" Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Coach, Juicy Juicy"....haha!! It was hilarious!! And If you say ok, they may take you a few blocks to the back of their mini van to sell it to you...as I quickly found out! I was a little leery at first but when she opened the sliding door, I had no time to think....she was rushing me and Alicea in so no one(cops) saw us. She had two little stools in there and no factory seats...it was gutted and had shelves full of purses.....OMG!! She asked what I wanted and I immediately said Chanel.....black with white C's on it.I have a white with black C's already from a shop on the square here in town. But anyway, She wanted $65....I said nope $40. She said $60..I said no $40...so we went back and forth until I wore her down to $40....I WON!! Alicea also got the same purse for $40....we paid, she bagged them up and basically pushed us out of her van..lol The next place had a secret door that blended in with the wall....they make sure no one's around and turn it open and then there is a secret room filled with the good knock offs. So, you go in look around and pick what you want, if anything, and then they are all private when they open it to get you back out into the front of the location. I will say it was quite the experience. After a few "secret rooms" we were done. We actually just went in another little shop that had purses to look at regular sunglasses, and they were loading up all of the secret room stuff in large trash bags and putting it in an SUV and sped off...they said the cops were close. We immediately took off and were a bit freaked out. Enough of Chinatown...off to Little Italy, which actually just ran into Chinatown. We had decided to eat there for lunch. We found a little place called Casa Bella. Actually the doorman had lured me in and they other followed...haha. We all had a pasta dishes and just sat a while to rest our feet, which were aching terribly by the 3rd day in NY. So, they waiters and old guy working the bar were really Italian...accents and all. The old man kept muttering cuss words under his breath about workers showing up late and people calling and hanging up. It was actually not loud enough to hear but I have hawk ears I have been told so I heard all of it. And then our waiter decided to go outside and visit this older man, adorned with gold jewelry all over, and hand him a wad of cash....right in front of the window where we were sitting!! He later came back to our table and asked if we saw the Godfather out there and If we wanted to say hello to him...I politely declined. He said, "He will be very offended if he hears that...", and then laughed. After that, he proceeded to make fun of me for drinking my glass of water with a straw. He said "Where are you from that you drink your water with a straw?".... I said, "Texas", and he said, "That's explains it." What a punk..lol We left and walked around Little Italy/Chinatown a bit more then off to the subway again. But wait, Angelia notices that after about an hour of walking around, she doesn't have her purse!!! She left it in Godfather Land!! OMG....I have never seen her walk so fast! We hurried back to the restaurant and low and behold, her purse was right where she left it, untouched!! What luck!! She made sure they rest of the trip she had it before we left every location.
We walked around and bought more souvenirs and they settled on a pizza restaurant right off the square. It was really busy so it must have been good. I didn't eat dinner because my tummy was upset but I sat with them. After dinner, back to the hotel to get to bed and up for another day. Now when I say we went back after dinner, I mean it was around 10 or 11pm at night....we ate later than usual on this trip and we usually didn't go to bed till around midnight or later.
Stay tuned for Day 4 in the City that never sleeps!!
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