On Sunday we said farewell to the wonderful Toronto and flew back to the New York. Unsurprisingly, Toronto has a very good public transport system so we used the streetcar (tram) and then the Pearson Express to head to the airport.
Interestingly you actually enter the United States before taking off. There is a part of the terminal at Toronto just for American-bound travellers and you clear immigration and customs before leaving. I like the self-service immigration portals at Toronto - both entering and leaving the country we used these rather than having to queue for an immigration officer. On departure, as part of the customs process, I declared that I had fruit/vegetables on me (my in-flight banana). Therefore, unlike Riona, who went through the 'good-to-go' queue, I had to talk to a customs officer and waive my potentially forbidden goods. "How long are you going to the US for?" he asked looking at the USA stamp in my passport from only 6 days earlier. "Um, a day," I responded. "I've kind of been there before," I added by way of explanation.
Strangely Riona took longer than I and when we met up she was soured faced. "What's up?" I asked. Well, it turned out that as we parted for our different queues Riona had asked an official if she couldn't just simply go with her Mum into the 'something to declare' queue so we could stay together. "Your Mum?" quizzed the officer. "I thought that was your sister!" Cue grumpy 21 year old - affronted to be seen as a sister to a 49 year old woman.
Luckily there was a penguin on hand to cheer her up.
And then we sat in a bar and played cards.
La Guardia airport took a bit of navigating. Well, leaving it was a cinch as we'd already cleared immigration, but the shuttle bus to the subway was hard to find and then a bit of a wait. I'm not a patient traveller at the best of times. However, bus and subways all navigated, we found our hotel and a nearby Chinese takeaway and sat on our beds eating rice and fried vegetables whilst watching a Harry Potter movie.
Day 7 - Monday 02 September
Yay for breakfast! Fruit loops US style, an old favourite of Riona's.
The clouds were gathering as we left Battery Park and looked towards Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.
By the time we arrived it was drizzling heavily, which turned into proper rain.
We sheltered in Castle Williams, once a barracks but used as a jail in the late 1900s.
The rain continued so we hopped to the coffee shop, which was disappointingly outside (Governor's Island is really designed to be enjoyed in fair weather) and we sat under the garden umbrellas with our coffees and waited for a break in the rain.
The clouds lifted briefly and we headed out to explore The Hills, a new area since our last visit. It was obvious in 2012 that they had great plans for the island although unbuilt at the time of our visit. Now there is a hill, adventure play area, hammocks, nature trails and all sorts of fun to be had....in the dry. We scurried up the hill to see the views of Staten Island. As we reached the top the rain broke and we scuttled down trying to find shelter somewhere. Eventually we hid under a garden marque and dripped and shivered.
Eventually even the rain had had enough and we ventured out, dripping, to see the views. There she is.
My little climber.
We remembered this chapel from last time.
Back over to Battery Park for a late lunch.
And then the subway back.
Same old benches from 2012...
I flew home that evening. A super easy trip from the hotel to JFK on the SkyTrain. It felt strange to be leaving my daughter behind alone in a foreign country. I knew she'd be fine - she had a Chinese takeaway, hotel room and TV, she's savvy and Mark and his brother were arriving the next day - but still weird.
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