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Liberty Island

View from the Statue of Liberty Pedestal You can only get up here with a special ticket, and the statue itself is closed to the public. In the lobby of the pedestal, a park ranger guide said to our group of visitors that we might want to think about what this statue could mean to us as the monument is not only a symbol for American independence and human rights, it has also always been a symbol for universal freedom. When she was unveiled in 1886, her original name was Liberty Enligthening the World. From the top observation deck I could see that at that time the statue's shadow happened to be as long as the tent on its back. The upper half of the tent is a souvenir shop, the lower half is an area for searching people. On my way to the statue I was searched and my belongings were x-rayed twice: the first time before I got onto the ship, the second time inside the tent on the picture. I also had to leave my bag in a locker inside the tent - probably the only lockers in the city as they were removed from all train stations and airports. Furthermore I remembered that I never experienced closely such a fuss about travelling to a friendly Western country than on this trip to the US. Apart from the usual passport, luggage and customs controls, my big suitcase was searched manually at my departure airport where I was also questioned, then my passport and boarding card were checked again, before and on the flight I had to fill out three forms and at JFK I had to give two fingerprint scans and a digital picture. So, I was still standing on the pedestal, thinking if it wasn't ironic that I had to go through all these liberty-restricting procedures to get to the Statue of Liberty at last...