Roma

Sooo.....

1ust Italy's subtle way of showing how they feel about the American president.

Left Over pics

Going back

After a great 3 weeks in NY Im going back to Europe! Meeting my dad in Rome tomorrow. Ill try to post soon.

After Ellis

Okay so back to Monday. After leaving Ellis Island Scott and I walked around Battery park for a while, watching street performers and enjoying the sun. We walked North up through wall street and saw the famous big bull of Wall street. We kept walking for a while and headed up to the WTC site. In the day light it was very different, you could watch the work being done through tears in the fence covers that went all the way around ground zero. There was one observation area that I found where you could get a decent view and ever tho I had seen it before the size of the devastated area was awe inspiring. We headed up towards Rockafeller Plaza to try and get into the Conan O'brien show, passing through broadway and by radio city music hall. There were some great shows like: Blue Man Group, Young Frankenstein, Lion King, Chicago, Mary Poppins, Grease and others. Maybe one day I'll come back at see one but right now I'm too poor. So we made it to NBC studios which is a large, black building right next to where they film the Today show. We walked in and it looked like the inside of a 5 star hotel only with posters of NBC shows, past and present, everywhere. We went up to the Conan area only to be told that there were no more extra seats. We then headed off to Central park so I could see Balto. Central park is massive! Its a very nice park also, even in "winter". Statues and nice landscaping were the theme. It was also very open and seemed like it would be alot of fun in the summer. There were horse carriages and bike pulled carts everywhere, but we stuck to walking. The park was so big we missed Balto a few times but finally found him. The NY Balto is jacked! Compared to the Anchorage Balto this dog was definitely on the juice. Leaving Balto behind we took the Subway back to Atsoria, Queens to meet Mario. Tuesday we didnt do to much, mostly just hung out in Queens and then checked out the nightlife. Queens is very very international and a fun place to go. Wednesday we helped marios Grandfather empty out an apartment in one of his buidings that he was renovating. After that we headed into the City to meet Elle, one of our friends from Florence. Elle was leaving to do volunteer work in Africa on Friday so we wanted to hangout with her before she left. We had a mix-up and didnt get to meet up with her that night so we just walked from Washington Sq. Park through the East and West villages. Those are pretty unique areas, known for being counter-culture, non mainstream areas. Filled with shops and restaurants and interesting looking people it was a fun area to walk through. We then went down Mulberry St. into Little Italy (according to Mario its not the authentic one) and I was abe to use my Italian to talk to some lady who was outside a restaurant trying to get people to eat inside. We decided to try it and it was alright, nothing special. Little Italy had a surprising number of Asian owned shops and was only a few blocks in size. We continued down through a little bit of China town and walked for a while before taking the subway home. One thing I've loved doing is walking around Manhattan because every 3 blocks it really is a different place. So many different ethnic areas, shopping areas, surreal areas like Times Sq. and pretty much everything you can imagine. Thursday we hooked up with Elle at her Washington Sq. Park apartment and started walking. We took the subway up into Times Sq to get a bite to eat at ESPN Zone, which is a sportsfans palace. The main eating floor was facing a wall with two huge screens and about 20 others, all with different sporting events on. It was alot to take in. I was very happy to see about 8 basketball games one at one time. There also was a screen at out table that was touch operated and allowed you to bring up any of the 20+ games that were on the wall. The food was very good also and they had a great selection of beers on tap. I got a gorgonzola cheeseburger that was decent. (by the way we went out last Saturday to a gentlemans club and had a couple or a few drinks and one more thing I've learned in NY is that 30 whitecastle burgers between a couple guys does not feel good in the morning) After eating we walked around the always crazy Times Sq and started walking downtown. We spent about an hour walking around NY before taking another subway to a stop near her house. One thing about NY is that it's a very clean and safe feeling city. The subways actually feel cleaner than many in europe (at least italy). I also have a safer feeling than in many other American cities I have been in. It might be because of the 100,000 NYPD officers there are but it's definitely different than I expected. All the New Yorkers explain that it was Guiliani's work that made it this way. After we got off the subway we walked to the hollywood diner for milkshakes. We hung out there for a while, talking about Italy and remembering some of the things we did. After we walked her to her apartment we had some fun wrestling in the streets before the mood was dampened by the realization that Marios jeep wasnt where he left it..... After some phone calls we discovered that it had been towed- about 40+ blocks away.(near the meat packing district This was at about 2AM but we decided to walk. As we walked through the different neighborhood we saw all the clubbers coming out all dressed up and jumping into their sportscars and limos. It was a pretty nice walk, still pretty warm and the streets for the most part were pretty empty. We made it to the tow lot at about 3:30AM and it took about 45 minutes for them to process his car out of the lot. Next update- Coney Island and last night.

Almost done.

I've got about 4 days left in NY and we've been taking it kinda easy. On Monday we got up at 6 AM and went to visit the Statue of liberty and Ellis Island. Mario had to go to his school and sign up for classes so we (Scott and I) separated at the Lexington subway station and went down to the Battery Park station. There was a nice park there with some war memorials and a giant Eagle. We got our first clear look at the Statue and it looked tiny! In all the movies it seems like it would be huge - bigger than the empire state building. We went to Fort Clinton and bought the fairy tickets. It was about 8:30 AM and we joined the line waiting for the first fairy to arrive. We got there at a good time because about 10 minutes after we got there the line really started getting big. We were definitely some of the few Americans in the line. I heard about 8 different languages while waiting there. We went through a security area that was exactly like getting on a plane. The fairy was pretty big and had 3 decks, each with a little cafeteria area. We went up to the top and settled in. It was a very warm day and pretty clear, although there was a little smog. We were leaving the southern tip of Manhattan and as we pulled away we got a great view of the city line, including the Empire state building and the gap where the twin towers used to be. As we got closer the Statue we realized how big it really is. It was a very impressive statue on a very nice looking island. We docked and began walking around Liberty island. We did a full loop reading the little information stands they had all around. The pedestal was also huge. We had been given two of the few tickets that lets you go into the pedestal. Since 9/11 no one has been able to go up the statue itself. To get into the pedestal you had to go through a security area that was a little more intense. We had to stand in these big machines that puffed air up from the ground in short, intense bursts until the light turned green then we were led to another metal detector and x-ray machine. The pedestal's base was made from the remains of an old fort and had many masonic symbols on the outside. Once inside we walked through a museum that told the story of the statue of liberty. Once through there we walked about 200 steps up to the observation area, which was pretty close to the feet and offered a beautiful view of Manhattan, Jersey, Brooklyn and Queens. We stayed up there for a while before heading down to catch the next ferry to Ellis Island. The ride was about 10 minutes and by now it was about 65F out. Beautiful day. Ellis Island was the first stop for millions of immigrants and I was interested to find out if any of my relatives records were inside. Once on the island we went into the main processing building and walked around the immigrants museum for a while. We then went to look up our family names in the hall of records. Volunteers over the years had but all the paper records into digital memory so they had banks of computers where you could view search results. Scott went first and found records of his Pangrazzi ancestors. I went next and put in Walklin. There were a few different results from different areas but I put in what information I knew and came up with

First Name: Charlotte
Last Name: Walklin
Ethnicity: German - Germany
Last Place of Residence: Hannover, Germany - U.S.A.
Date of Arrival: Oct 28, 1912
Age at Arrival: 35y Gender: F Marital Status: M
Ship of Travel: Cincinnati
Port of Departure: Hamburg
Manifest Line Number: 0021

It also lets you see the original copy of the ship manifest, which shows she came with two more little Walklins. This is the text version of the manifest.
0021. Walklin, Charlotte F 35y M German - Germany Hannover, Germany - U.S.A.
0022. Walklin, Walter M 9y S German - U. S. born Hannover, Germany - U.S.A.
0023. Walklin, Herbert M 7y S German - U.S. born Hannover, Germany - U.S.A.

It was really cool because it showed the answers to all the questions they asked like if they could read or what their profession was. http://www.ellisisland.org/

I'll finish the update soon!

In the works....

Statue of Liberty, Ellis island, finding immigration records of (maybe) my relatives, eating on Mulberry Street, White Castle, and more wandering around Manhattan........