Well here I am in New York on American Independence Day. But while we are still admidst the celebrations of the 4th July here, takahe will be celebrating her birthday back in New Zealand, where it is already tomorrow! So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to takahe. bamboobowboyis back in New Zealand too, he texted us to say he had arrrived. I've just finished watching the fireworks on tv, though we could hear them in real life, happening down on the river not too many blocks away. I would have liked to go and see them but we are all so tired after only about 4 hours sleep last night that we couldn't really face it.
On our last day in Anaheim we did get to ride a preview of the new makeover of Space Mountain, which was probably the highlight of our day. It seems to be excellent, with many small improvements to the old ride, though they are clearly still having many teething problems with it and I am glad I wasn't in the cart which got stuck inside for 10 minutes when the ride broke down! We finished our trip to Anaheim by riding "Soaring over California" which has to be my favourite ride, it is so beautiful it always leaves me feeling that I want to ride it just one more time.
As I said we are very tired today after a very short night on a plane, however we did manage to take the Subway to Battery Park and stroll through the celebrating crowds there, look at the Statue of Liberty and take the Staten Island ferry. Over on Staten Island we looked at the Memorial to those who died in 9/11. On the way back to the hotel we popped into St Patricks cathedral, which is a couple of blocks from the hotel, to admire and to pause in all the business and remember the God who is with us wherever we travel, whatever we do. After freshening up at the hotel, we popped out to McDonalds and all of us ate as much as we could for less than the price of one steak from the hotel restaurant! Tomorrow we plan to go up the Empire State building, go downtown again and hopefully find time to go and look at some art in one of the galleries. Goodnight!