Winning at Easter

Last Easter Sunday I woke up early and was out of the door by 8.15am. I got on an underground train for 12 stops, got on a boat for 20 minutes, climbed up 377 steps, and there I was.

Completely on my own, the only person in the entire world at that exact moment looking out from the crown of the Statue of Liberty in N Y actual C.

Feeling very small and insignificant within the global scheme of things, but also a bit amazing and special for being there toute seule, just me and Lady Liberty, sharing the view and taking it all in. I felt a magical glow I wanted to protect, to remember in minute detail, along with an intense pressure to relax and enjoy my moment. It turns out that doing things you’ve always dreamed of doing is fraught with the panic of not quite doing it right.

And sure, the magical glow may have been largely due to a huge sense of RELIEF that I hadn’t passed out on the way up. Heights don’t bother me, but climbing up a double-helix spiral staircase where the steps are only 19 inches wide and everything’s made of metal and it’s 27 degrees outside so it’s much hotter than that in here, and the railing is just getting hotter and shinier and sweatier with every step I take – well, that bothers me.

So I make it. And by some fated planetary alignment, I’m undisturbed by other tourists and free to take as much time as I want for gazing and photographing, and regaining my composure and a normal resting respiratory rate. The sporty-looking couple who were ahead of me have been and gone, and the fanny-packed group behind me are evidently taking advantage of the rest-stops on the way up. 

Right now, in this moment, I am Winning at Easter.

Just below me in the statue’s headspace were two National Park Service employees keeping an eye on things, a man in some kind of nook (the Statue’s ear?) and a woman casually swinging her legs while sitting on a metal beam (as you do). They were lovely and helpful, and keen to chat. The man reassured me that my new obsession with the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is really quite normal, and it turned out that the woman had recently spent her honeymoon in Paris, and we swapped stories about hunting down the many and varied Statue of Liberty replicas that are dotted about the French capital. (My own ‘gotta catch ‘em all’ challenge of visiting each one is in the works. I’ll get to it when I get to it, OKAY?).

I shared my anecdote about how the statue on the Île aux Cygnes, not far from the Eiffel Tower, was swivelled in 1937 so that she is now directly facing her big sister on the other side of the Atlantic. The woman lit up at this gem, and I like to think she’s woven it into the Liberty stories she tells tourists.

Visiting the Statue of Liberty is the only thing I’d booked before arriving in New York, mainly because people kept telling me it sells out 6 months in advance and you simply must organise yourself beforehand. It’s easily the most reasonably-priced ticket I bought on my trip, just $21 for visiting Liberty Island, climbing up to the Crown, visiting Ellis Island and its incredible Immigration Museum, and hopping freely on and off 3 different ferries around New York Harbour along the way. (Please bear in mind that in New York money, I had a plate of waffles and a coffee that cost more than this; they were really nice waffles, but still).

As regular readers of this blog already know, I am nuts for GOING UP STUFF, so this was an ideal morning for me. However, if you’re not sure about the steps or the height for climbing up to the crown, take a look online for what to expect. There are go-pro videos and suchlike. And I would thoroughly recommend an early-morning time-slot, as queuing was minimal.

I saw plenty of people not even bothering to get off the ferry at Liberty Island. They were straight round the harbour to the next stop at Ellis Island, ready to get going with the hours of fascinating stories and memories from 62 years of US Immigration. Self-guided audio as well as human tour-guides, so you can take as long as you like.

That was the best thing about the whole day; there’s something for everyone, and you can tailor it to suit the time and energy you have.

This Easter, I (sadly) didn’t go up any stuff. Instead, I went to the cinema and took in some art, and then I went to 3 different supermarkets in search of cocoa powder. I eventually found some (a different kind of Winning at Easter), which is sort of hilarious, given that I now live in the UK again, and I thought my days of being a confused moron in the supermarket were behind me.

Apparently not.

Confused Moron, Party of One, signing off, and planning to be Going Up Stuff every Easter from now on.