Christmas Time In NYC
FYI-its a long post, hope you're up for a good read :)
Hello Hello! It's getting closer and closer to the holidays! You know what that means. More and more cookies! My house usually has much more this time of year but I have been CRAZY busy these past few months that most of the cookies here, actually all of them, are not one's I made.
Anyways. I do not have a lovely Christmas cookie recipe today. My apologies but I was away enjoying myself in New York City! What a better place to be around Christmas right??!
I was hoping to run into Buddy the Elf! I think it should be required that Will Ferrel goes into character and roam the city around this time of year. How awesome would that be!? Haha I seriously LOVE that movie.
I also think New York should be required to play Christmas music out on the sidewalks through out the city. Just some suggestions. I sent a letter to the Mayor, we'll see what he says :).
Well, let me tell you why I was in New York in the first place. A long lost friend of mine from across the pond, England for those of you not familiar with the phrase, was visiting. Chris and I met while volunteering on a game reserve in South Africa. He has been spending a while traveling around Africa and New Zealand (must be nice to not have to work for a year) and made a stop in NYC on his way back to London. So of course we planned on meeting up.
I was excited to be a tourist through association. You know when you hate looking like one in a place you are familiar with but feel it's OK when you are accompanying a tourist. We did so much, most walking. Which was killer being that Chris is like 8ft tall (more like 6ft 6 or something like that, still ridiculously tall lol), and I am only a whopping 5ft 1. I was basically sprinting while he strolled along.
Regardless we did it all. Central Park, where we strolled past the skating rink, which we never got around to doing, and stopped by Strawberry Fields. We also strolled down to that Famous Fountain by the water where people can rent row boats and be all romantic. Speaking of being romantic. We witness an engagement at this fountain. This one lacked the romantic factor and ranked high in the awkward factor, lol poor girl. I won't go into detail but word of advise to the fella's. When proposing don't walk away from your new fiance, all I'm saying.
We then headed down to St. Patrick's Cathedral where we came across something quite peculiar. Maybe we were just being overly critical but we still thought it was funny that in their nativity scene they had the usual but then perched in the back was a statue of a golden retriever dog, collar and all. Hmmmmmm. Not going to say much more about that just that I had never seen a family pet joining in at the birth of Christ.
We then foolishly made our way over to Rockefeller center to see the tree. It was JAMMED packed and literally impossible to move as a single person. It was more like we were all one big ball of people moving with each other. It was amusing to listen and watch the people around. No one was in the holiday spirit like myself. Where was Buddy the Elf when you need him most?! People were literally yelling at each as if they purposely were crowding them. It was unavoidable people, get over it. One man freaked out on an old lady because she walked into his picture. When i say freaked out I mean he used some harsh language and a loud scary voice.
On that note we left and headed back to our awesome room's in Brooklyn. It was a remodeled loft in a very funky, artsy neighborhood. The next few days were spent at a n Art Museum which required you to sign a wavier incase of injury, pretty awsome, eating creat city grub like fries from Pomme Frites, and also at NY Rangers game where we had 9 dollar beers and enjoyed the game from the last row. Still we had a BLAST! And it was such an exciting game.
We also visited the 9/11 memorial which is going to be absolutely beautiful once everything is complete. They have two remembrance pools laid where each of the twin towers was originally located. The pools are set in the ground and you look down into it where waterfalls flow over and into a deeper pool and then a smaller square in the center. It sounds so peaceful and is really beautiful. Around each fountain is the names of all those who lost their lives. It's organized by groups so its easy for a friend and family member to find someones name. It was so sad to see all the names and to just reminisce about 9/11. It was also crazy to think how long its been and how much work is still being done. If you want to check out more information of visiting the memorial you can go to the website here.
walked up to South Street Seaport, and then got lost trying to find the Brooklyn Bridge, go figure.We could obviously see it but we were trying to get to the part where you can walk on to get to Brooklyn and well it took us longer to walk to the entrance then it did to actually cross the bridge. Oh well. It was well worth it.
crowded, too windy, or too long. It was perfect! Beautiful views and just pretty cool to be walking across. We then go to Brooklyn and made our way to a pretty park with a "beach" and view of Manhattan.
Then we chowed down on the Famous Grinaldi's Pizza.
Well first I got my head bit off because I didn't know the line was outside. But hey I should know better than to upset an Italian New Yorker right lol? So after waiting for a few minutes we squeezed and ordered a large, yes a large for two people. We asked fro roasted peppers and ricotta as our extra toppings. Now this pizza was pretty great. However, maybe I was expect SO MUCH more and was a tad let down. Our crust was a little to limp and soggy for my liking. This was most likely just because they have 10lbs of cheese on top lol. Regardless it was still delicious and we ate almost all of it.
That was pretty much the end of our trip as I was leaving to come back to work, blah. We did have an awesome time both sight seeing during the day and partying around town at night. I hope you did not fall asleep because in a few days I will be posting some AWESOME Christmas cupcake recipes.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Reminder from Buddy: The best way to spend Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear! Go on belt a carol or two! :)
