New York - Statue of Liberty (27 June)

The extent to which Sept 11th has affected America becomes evident when visiting such places as the Statue of Liberty. We all qued for the ubiquitous security checks, bag check and walk through the metal detector before getting on the ferry to get to Liberty Island. Once on the island you qued for another hour to go through more security checks to be able to go up to the Statue. This time we had to walk one by one into a little cubicle and stand on an assigned spot while several jets of air sprayed at you. Watching the yellow skirt blow up on the bearded she-man in front of us was not pleasant! I assume this was some kind of explosives residue check. Even with all the checks, there were still several heavily armed park policeman patrolling the grounds.

Once done with all the security, (and more queuing to use the lifts) the statue was pretty cool. A lot bigger than I expected, the index finger alone is taller than a person. There was a museum where we learnt some interesting things, like the statue is actually made of copper and has gone green with oxidation and that the Statue’s designer also had plans of building a giant naked man straddling the Suez Canal! The photo above of Warren standing next to the foot is an actual sized replica of the Statue and is what it would have looked like when first built.
The photo to the right is the tour guide telling us all about the original torch which she is standing in front of. The gold torch of today has only been in use for the last 10 years or so.

Nobody is allowed up the statue anymore, we could only go to the top of the pedestal but you could look up inside and see all the steel rods holding it together. The internal engineering designwork was done by the same guy who did the Eiffel Tower.