Happy Halloween!

Today is Halloween, and from the looks of it, it is taken very seriously here in the US. we'd seen Halloween decorations everywhere for the past weeks, building up to today and I must say some of it were very elaborate and creative.

Started the day off by heading down to Greenwich Village for a wander through the area. Has a bit of a small town feel, with the older buildings tucked amongst the newer ones. Some interesting architecture, with the triangle buildings and sharp corners. Certain places had the barricade ready in place for the parade later that evening.

We found this little restaurant in Greenwich Village that served Paella, so decided to try that for lunch. This is part of our on-going quest to find the best Paella. It looked like it had all the right ingredients listed, but somehow did not quite taste as good as it could do - they used a rather mild chorizo that added little flavour and the rice was a bit too wet. The quest continues....

Next on the agenda was the World Trade Center and the 9/11 Memorial. We'd pre-booked tickets for that afternoon. The Memorial had only just opened a few months ago on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. There were the South and North waterfalls, built on the foot print of both the towers that collapsed. Nearly 3000 people lost their lives in the attack, and their names are inscribed around both waterfalls. A very sad and sobering sight to see some family members trying to locate the names of relatives or friends who had died on that day, some were tracing the names from the metal plaque, one had a perfect red rose placed next to his name.

There was also a Survivor Tree. This tree is from the original Twin Towers site, nurtured back to health and then planted in the park when the memorial opened.  Apparently the tree got hit by lightning afterwards and still lives so really is a true survivor.

We headed back to Greenwich Village after this, this time getting off at Spring St where the Halloween Parade and began to wander up the street looking for the best spot to camp for the evening.  We still had a couple of hours yet though, so before long we started thinking about food and found an italian place along 6th Ave that was doing a bustling trade for Halloween campers - we stopped for a panini each there before wandering over the road and picking a section of barricade to camp at for the night.
The 39th Annual New York Village Halloween Parade was an interesting affair - lots of colourful outfits in all shapes and sizes were represented.  Lots of comic book heroes, tv characters and celebrities was represented - including several Michael Jackson's, a Clinton and even a Gaddaffi zombie was there, complete with Golden Gun.
There were huge skeletons, massive eyeballs and dragons that hovered above the crowd.  We had at least two renditions of Thriller - complete with synchronised dancing.  Plus numerous cars and trucks decked out.  One float even had a mini ice rink, with the people skating around on top of it.  The range of costumes and effort that some people put into them was astounding - I spoke to one of the Ghostbusters guys on the Subway afterwards and he had spent a good three months making his whole costume - his ghost-trapping gun was complete with blinking lights and he even sported a Ghost-detector that was fully functional with antenna that slid out and lit up.
The Parade went on for hours - and apart from a few people trying to squeeze in at the front of the barricades everyone was pretty happy and had a good time and the subways were running smoothly afterwards so we all got home safely afterwards.

We had to leave New York this morning and I can't help but be a little sad leaving this busy metropolis with quirky weather behind.

Next stop - Phoenix, Arizona!

- J -