Liberty and Ellis Island

Apart from a very sore throat, I was feeling better this morning. Consquently, I got ready and then took the subway down to the ferry terminals. I still had the ticket to Liberty Island and since I had bought it two days ago, today was the last day that I could make use of my ticket.
After a security screening, I could board the ferry to Liberty Island. From the shore of Manhatten the Statue of Liberty seemed a lot smaller than I had expected. However, when standing right in front of it, I could see that it was indeed quite big. I didn't feel like getting the audio tour so instead, I just walked around Liberty Island and enjoyed the views of Manhatten and the clean air. As there were no cars around, the air on this island was really a lot better than in New York. It was still quite noisy due to all the tourists, though.
About an hour later, I took a ferry to Ellis Island. I hadn't expected to be spending much time here. However, as it turned out, the museum on immigration on the island was a lot more interesting than I had expected. It was shocking to see under which conditions the people came to America in the early 20th century. There were thousands of people with barely enough space to lie down on a small bad, no accessible washrooms and a lot of seasick people everywhere inbetween. In addition to that, the immigrants had to pass a medical and a legal exam in order to be admitted after their long journey.
One of the rangers working on the island told us the story of her ancestor - an eight-year-old girl who had travelled to the US with her eighteen-year-old aunt. After the train ride to the nearest harbour, which took about a week, and the nine day long boat ride, she almost couldn't enter the US. The reason for that was harsh - no female was allowed to enter the US on her own. Any woman would need to arrive with her husband or another male relative. Luckily, her father, who had immigrated to the US right after the girl had been born, could come and pick her up the next day.
I also thought that it was quite interesting that Bremen was mentioned a few times here - many immigrants actually booked passage to the US starting in Bremen. In fact, it was the second most common departure port at one time.
After I had checked out all the exhibits on the island and taken the ferry back to New York, it was already 5 PM. This wasn't a good time to be taking a subway - it was so full of people. Even though no one could move in there anymore, people were still trying to get in. Luckily, I had a seat since I had gotten on the subway at the first stop. Due to people always blocking the doors, the subway needed about an hour to get to the hostel instead of the usual 40 minutes.

Originally, I had planned to go to the Comedy Cellar this evening. As I was very exhausted from my trip today and didn't feel like I had enough time to relax before then, I postponed my visit. Instead, I took a shower and relaxed the rest of the evening, which was probably a good idea since I still had a very sore throat and something like a cold.