New York Day 7

We started off the morning with a scheduled tour I'd requested months ago at the Federal Reserve Bank. LOVED IT. I learned that the bank stores gold for over 36 other foreign countries in a vault/bunker that is more than 80 feet below ground level, or 50 feet below sea level. The gold is worth more than $194 billion dollars, and is the largest accumulation of gold in the world, even more than Fort Knox. As a result, the security is top notch (there has never been an attempt to break in/steal from the facility)...we had to strip off excess clothing, store all belongings and go through security. However, once we descended into the vault, we got to see the gold bricks stacked up high in unmarked (on purpose, even the countries who store gold there are never identified) cages! So it surprised me that we could stick our little pinky through one of the cages and touch the gold bricks!

Our next stop was the WTC site (since the last time my parents were in NYC, they were able to ride the elevator all the way up to the top of the building), and a Memorial shop selling souvenirs/showing a preview of what the site will look like one day (the pools of water will stand where the buildings once did).

We returned to Chinatown for lunch, since I'd never had dim sum before! It was neat to see the little carts rolling back and forth and trying all the food! We had the most amazing warm, cream-filled pineapple buns for dessert! I would say 11 out of 10 people there spoke Mandarin to my parents and I (though strangely enough...not to Ryan...who is fact, part-Chinese)! ;-)

Ryan loved his shrimp fried rice, took two bites of a vegetable spring roll (before saying "All done" and handing it off to grandma) and one bite of his pineapple bun. But most of the time he played happily with his brand new police car (it had lights and a siren)...because yes, we've fallen victim to the "Give the kid a new toy so you can eat your dinner quietly" trick!

Dinner was with a dear old friend...my former roommate and teammate from college, Kari Lee! Kari is the men's and women's golf coach at Columbia (the teams are doing great)! She and her lovely lady Ana are both getting their Masters at Columbia while they're there. I asked to eat Ethiopean food, so they took us to their favorite place in Harlem called Zoma, a place with DELICIOUS vegetarian food. Loved hanging out with them!