I can’t believe it’s December and I ticked New York off the ‘Bucket List’. Which by the way, I think everyone should do…. We do places we want to go at the dinner table every 6 months or so which the boys love.
I digress….As you heard in the November we started the month/pre trip off with the car in the garage. Our prayers were answered and we got the car back in time, I worked on the Monday, but the packing was pretty much done so it wasn’t really a problem. We were on the road at 3.30am, it was cold, the boys slept in the back of the van with their pillows and doonas.
We got free parking with Carlos’ employee parking pass, yeay for us! We checked in and waited patiently for the plane….we were all tired which wasn’t going to bode well for later in the day. Bruce and I got a row to ourselves, as did the boys, which made the squishiness not as bad. It was a long flight, movies over head which are never as good as the seat screens. The boys did ok, although it was a little turbulent towards the end. Our stop over in Cincinnati was short, we landed around 3.00pm, I grabbed some McDonalds and we had to eat it on the plane. The boys both lets say were not well on the decent down, so I thought they should have something in them, especially considering we really didn’t have a proper breakfast or lunch. I was sitting next to a nice southern Delta flight attendant who was going to New York to work a flight to North Carolina, the accent was fantastic and she was a Hoot!! The flight wasn’t full so Bruce and Jamieson got a row to themselves. We even saw what a ‘Moon Pie’ looked like, and then she gave it to us because we didn’t know what it was. Flying into New York was amazing, Bruce got some good footage.
We landed around 5.00pm (it was pitch black) and got our bags…distributed them amongst ourselves and gave the boys the, ‘Don’t walk off, strange city, unsafe’ talk before buying the subway card for the week and heading outside to catch the bus. It was hot on the bus, and we were all feeling really sickly from the descending again and the not really eating a proper meal for the whole day, being up since 3.00am etc. We were very happy to be getting off onto ground and some fresh air….we walked a few blocks with our suitcases and found our hotel. It was as expected for the price in Upper West side. It was clean and had the basics, which is all we wanted. I would rather spend the money on other fun things; we were only going to be there at nights to sleep so I thought it was a good deal.
We perked up a little after some food and decided to head out for a little exploring, it wasn’t too late and we were jazzed about being there. We jumped onto the subway (new experience, which was kind of fun) stopped at Penn Station, which has a Kmart, how weird is that. We headed down to Madison Square Garden where the Knocks were playing to see if we couldn’t sneak in after the game to get a look. Security was tight and not going to happen, so we looked around took photo’s (DER) and headed down the street to look around, we stumbled onto Macy’s and got to see their windows after a stop at Footlocker. They were cool, like the Myer windows in Melbourne, we walked around the corner to see the other windows and decorations which were cool too. We went inside to have a look at the Christmas section, which was a small and a little disappointing, not what I imagined for New York Macy’s. Oh well! We looked around a little more and made our way back to the hotel for a BIG sleep! Aarrhhh, sleep!! We can now add sleep walking to sleep talking for Conner when he is tired. Kind of funny story though. I was sleeping with an eye mask on, half way through the night, Conner was of course talking but decided to get up, walk over to me in bed and snatched the eye mask from me. I said to him “Are you going to put them on?” He looked at them and said “Na” and put them on the bedside table. Bruce and I were so tired but we looked at each other in the dark and LAUGHED our butts off. Had to share that one.
Wednesday, Day 2 was upon us, we got up, checked the weather, nice day, so we jumped on the subway and caught the Stanton Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, which Jamieson can only say in American, even after we told him to speak Australian. We jumped on the ferry with hundreds of other tourists. (There was a lot of Europeans in New York, I am assuming on holidays) the ferry was huge, it was like the Sorrento Ferry but twice as big and wide too., those hundreds of people looked like next to no one once they were spread out over the whole ferry. I was freezing cold outside but we got of pictures going past the Statue and warmed up inside. We got off the ferry and decided to walk to Ground Zero….we found a little market on our walk and then found Ground Zero, it was all fenced up so we couldn’t really give the kids the visual to go with the story but I think they got it once we found the gallery and pictures and it was a little more real. We kept walking through the financial district and found a little Italian suit shop, Bruce got a new suit and I also bought him two pairs of shoes to go with the suit for Christmas.
It was a nice little part of the world, but we were on a mission, MEAT PIES!!!! We happened to walk through China Town, the bummer was there was just a sweep and all the knock off bags were gone, stores were closed and signs saying ‘ Trademark Violations’ were on the doors. It was a big bummer no new bag for me. Finally……we found our little “Tuck Shop’, it was around 2.30 and we were all starving to go along with our craving for Meat Pies, it’s been over 12 months. We met one of the owners Lincoln; he is from Adelaide and a really nice guy. They are talking about opening one in LA or San Fran, which would be great for me! We had our pies, Bruce got a Vanilla Slice to go and we were off to find the right subway to get back to the hotel to get ready for out big night out. Lion King on Broadway. Wooo Hooo!!!
We got home and showered and changed into our Theater clothes, had a bite to eat and made our way to the Theatre. How exciting, the boys were actually really excited too. We found our seats, which were towards the back of the theatre but centre of the theatre. The curtain went up and WOW, what a show. We swapped the boys seats around during intermission, they were really enjoying the show, which was great to hear. They spent the rest of show sitting and watching, even Jamieson hardly moved, it was something I’d never seen before. The show was amazing, the singing was unbelievable, the costumes were great, and there aren’t enough words to say how fantastic it was. I guess this sums it up, we were sitting there at the end of the show and I asked them what they thought. Conner (Mr. hard to impress) said, “When can we see that again”, that was awesome. It was worth every cent.
We walked around Time Square checking out the stores and looking around, it was getting late and we were tired so we got back to the hotel around 11.00pm. It had been a long day with a lot of walking and what a great end to the day….
Thursday was here. (Happy 10th Anniversary Bruce and Belinda). Bruce and Conner were sleeping so Jamieson and I got dressed and walked out the market to get some food. It was only a couple of blocks away; we grabbed some snacks and breakfast stuff and went back to the hotel for some breakfast. MMMM food! We were all really tired and didn’t get out of the hotel until nearly lunchtime. It was definitely a low energy day. We got on the train and made our way to the New York Public Library, it was amazing, the foyer looked beautiful with all Christmas decorations, we had snacks and walked down to Fifth Ave and saw all the Fifth Ave stores. Girls understand, boys not so much. We dropped into the Disney store and had some pictures taken with Goofy and the Chipmunks, the NBA store was also on Fifth Ave, so the boys were happy about that. Two floors of NBA/basketball, the boys (all three) were in heaven. The only bummer was the court at the bottom that you can usually shoot around on had merchandise on it, but there was other stuff to do so they had a good time. We made our way down Fifth Ave, FAO Schwartz, which wasn’t as big as I thought, but the Giant piano was really cool! It did start raining, we found a little café and had some dinner then we ended up getting back to the hotel early (ish), we were tired from the last couple of days and nights.
Friday was here and the bad weather was due to come in later in the day so we spent the morning walking around Central Park, it was really cold and a really big place, we didn’t really scratch the surface but we got to the Ice skating rink in Central park - ???? Rink. Bruce decided to not skate because his knee might buckle again, so he settled in on the sidelines. The boys and I put on our skates and Jamieson took off, literally, he was amazing to watch. Conner slowly made his way around, it didn’t take him long to get used to the slippery surface; and pretty soon after that the two of them were sliding around together laughing and falling, it was great to watch. I got on the ice very slowly, getting on the surface is very disconcerting, I landed on my butt a couple of times and very slowly made my way around. Bruce got some good footage of me falling on my butt; which made him happy. We met an Australian family from Qld and Bruce spoke to Murray for a while, then they left to grab a coach ride before it got dark. We decided to stay until it got dark, (just to have the experience) we took some night pictures and had one last skate then left and found a nice little place to eat a well-earned dinner. We were sore everywhere, I was sore from tensing and skating at the same time.
We walked past Radio City Music Hall (packed!!) and down to Rockefeller Center, the tree was huge, there were people everywhere, which made the experience a little harder. We got our pictures and watched the people on the skating rink then found the Nintendo Store. We ended up at Time Square again and did Toys R Us (Huge store) and MM world etc, it was one of the days that we will all be talking about forever. The boys had a ball and I think it will be a close call to see what they liked the best, skating or The Lion King.
Saturday was a filler day kind of, we went to see Grand Central Station which was amazing, we stopped there for lunch, then found the main hall which was fantastic, it had a Christmas light show like Crown Casino, although this was just on the ceiling. We then jumped onto another train and went out to the Brooklyn Bridge; we walked half way across, FREEZING COLD!!! We went back to hotel and packed for the next day, we were going to Springfield, MA. We had a quiet night, went to Macy’s to buy a couple of Christmas decorations (they were at 40% off already) we ended up sitting in the furniture section for a while, all very tired. We went to Time Square to have one last look around all those lights and buzz with people everywhere.
We woke up on what can only be described as the North Pole, coming into New York, the cold wind came in and you have NO IDEA of the cold! It went straight to the bone. We checked out of the hotel and had a little wait until we could pick up the car, so we went to a café around the corner for lunch and waited…. Bruce picked up the car (and ticked off “driving in Manhattan” from the Bucket List – hey – it’s a challenge you should all try – it keeps you awake!!!) and went back to the hotel and the wind was sooo hard and cold, you could hardly walk forward. We got into the car, said good bye to New York and drove towards the Connecticut border. We drove past the George Washington bridge, through Brooklyn and about 40 mins later crossed the border into Connecticut. Woo Hoo another state to say we’ve been to. We drove through Connecticut, Hartford, New Haven. We didn’t get to see Yale, which I would have liked to see, but we wanted to get to Springfield before dark if we could. We ended up stopping at Denny’s for dinner and got to Springfield around 8.30pm and found the Marriott – big comfy beds, Arrhhh. (God Bless Priceline dot com and last minute Hotel specials!)
We all had a fantastic sleep and didn’t want to get out of bed the next morning. I woke the boys up at 9.00am; we had some breakfast and were at the Basketball Hall of Fame by about 10.30am. it ended up being a great day to go, there wasn’t really anyone else there so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. The boys had a great time doing all the interactive stuff and Bruce had a great time with the whole place as you can imagine. It’s the Holy Land! We grabbed some stuff from the gift shop and made our way down to New Haven where we were going to be staying for the night. We had a lazy late afternoon and evening, chilling out and relaxing at the Sheraton, more comfy beds.
We drove back to New York on Tuesday, of course hit traffic, only had to turn around the wrong way once, which was good. We finally found the car place, unloaded and caught the subway to Penn Station to get the train tickets to the airport. We got to the airport with a lot of time to spare, there was no one really there which was a surprise, no lines at security or checking in. We had some dinner and waited for the plane to come, the boys weren’t looking forward to the flight, residual effects from the flight over. Conner reckons he’d rather drive for 4 days…yeay right, he’s be done after one day.
We finally got on the plane, had a row each again which was good, it was a flight straight through which made a difference, up and down only once. They also had screen’s on the back of each chair with TV shows on it so everyone was happy, it really made the 6 hour flight feel shorter than the 4 hour flight to Cincinnati on the way over.
We were finally home; well, nearly. We landed in San Fran around 10.30pm and caught the bus back to the employee car park to get the car. It was a quiet ride home, the boys were sleeping and I slept for the second half of the trip, Bruce stopped to get a coffee and we drove up to the house at around 12.15am to a really nice surprise. Carlos (we didn’t know who at the time) had been around to the house and put Christmas lights on the outside of the house. It looked so pretty and we got inside and they had put the heater on for us too. Now that’s friends, what would we do without them?
So, four pages later and that was our 10th Wedding Anniversary Family trip to New York. I will now have to check the list and see what is on the top. It was a great trip and something we will always remember, which is priceless!
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