New York City Christmas: Day 2

The next morning was bright, sunny and warmish. My mom decided to let us sleep in so she went the Amish market a few blocks from out hotel to get some yogurt, coffee, bread & jam etc. Once we all had coffee in our veins, we headed off towards the subway; which reminded me of this part in "Teen Angst? Nahh..." by Ned Vizzini when he jumped the turnstiles and got caught by the police. We decided to go the legit way and buy us some metro passes to use during the next few days.

The view from the hotel window in the morning

I've been on the metro many times before like in Montreal and Toronto, but only when I visit. Going on the subway is so fun, plus you can get from Manhattan to Soho in like 5 min. when it could've taken us, like, an hour or more. We then got off on Canal Street and were immediately harassed to spend our money.

On Canal Street

After canal, we headed through chinatown and into SoHo and Greenwich village. Surprisingly, we didn't do that much shopping, we only went into H&M, Girlprops and Coach, but didn't buy anything. At that point we were all starving so we decided to try and find a nice restaurant where we could sit and eat a sandwich. We finally decided on an authentic looking Italian cafe. We all got a panini(except of course for my picky little sister who got pasta) and this "chocolate mousse" for desert (it was basically like eating fudge from a bowl) which was all really delicious. After that, we strolled over to the arch in (the name has slipped my mind at the moment) "____" square near NYU and where Harry left Sally in the movie "When Harry met Sally". It was amazing that people had made this thing out of this huge slab of stone.

The Arch

We then started heading back to times square through Greenwich village so that it wouldn't be completely dark by the time we got back. We stopped by a few vintage stores and a drugstore to get some awesome neon orange and yellow nail polish. One thing that made me sad is that we never got the chance to go to urban outfitters, because they don't have them here in Canada. Our goal while walking back was to stop by Macy's, just to say we had. Since it was Christmas Eve, I don't think it could've been any more crowded, it was INsane. When we finally managed to get in, we just pushed past all the people to get to the escalators which we just kept going up and up and up...Did you know that there are like 9 floors in Macy's? It's so cool, and the even cooler part is that after the 6th floor, the escalators are wooden? I bet they're from the original store. We went all the way to the top and then looked around at all the Christmas trees. What was funny is that they were all decorated at the bottom because the people were too lazy to decorate all the way to the top.

Macy's

New York City Christmas: Day 1

Finally, a chance for me to blog about my New York City Christmas! I've been veerry busy lately, especially with exams, EQAO and summatives etc coming up very soon. This makes me happy to review the good times I've had before experiencing terrible ones...Oh well, boo-hoo for me. On with my story...

The night before, we had been driving for 7 hours, stopping for burgers 3/4 of the way to Coldspring NY (where we were staying the night). We were staying in Coldspring because then we'd have more time in NYC if we just took the 45 minute train trip on either sides of the trip. We almost didn't get on the train until my mom yelled at us that the train was moving so we jumped on as it was about to leave the station. Excitement already? It was promising, not that the trip already wasn't...anyways, the trip in was really nice, lots of river-side towns. When we got into actual NYC we went through Harlem, which funny enough, looked a lot like Montreal QC.

The station in Coldspring Going under a bridge while going into the city
When we finally arrived in Grand Central Station it just hit me that "wow I'm in New York City". It was really crazy, I was so excited for the next few days. We then went straight to out hotel; the Belvedere, and checked out luggage. We took the camera and set off for times square & fifth ave. Both were almost exactly the way they are in the movies (except we were seeing times square in the morning).

Fifth Ave!
The Apple store on fifth ave.
After browsing on fifth ave for a bit we headed over to central park. Even in the winter central park's still really beautiful. We walked for a really long time, just checking out the sculptures, fountains, bridges, etc that are all fabulous.
The evil-looking trees in central park
The fountain in central park
As we walked on for a while past the trees and the fountain we came to the central park zoo. We didn't pay to go in but we were able to peek in in a few places to see the seals swimming and jumping around in their infinite edge pool. After walking through the central park zoo, we walked in a loop around the lake and went to the Belvedere castle on the hill which gave a really cool view of the great lawn. While marveling the view, it started to rain again (it had been raining on and off all day) so we decided to start to head back to the hotel.
Central park zoo!
View from Belvedere Castle
While leaving central park, we passed by strawberry fields and it's "mayor", who's a homeless man who restocks the "Imagine" memorial for John Lennon with fresh flowers. I think that it's really cool that he buys flowers with the money he earns for John Lennon, people there really did love him. Supposedly Mike Meyers comes there all the time to check out his work. After we crossed the street to visit John Lennon's apartment building and where he got shot. It was creepy knowing I was standing in the exact place he died. It was a really nice apartment building in a fancy neighborhood looking over central park.
The mayor of strawberry fields' flower art
John Lennon's former apartment building
We started our walk back to the hotel, looking into all the amazing stores on our way. We got to the hotel and checked out the room and just chilled for a while. After about an hour, we put our shoes on again and set off to see times square at night and to find a restaurant. Times Square is absolutely crazy at night, when you look at the sky it's illuminated by all the lights. There are so many things to look at, and the m&m store screen is the biggest, most distracting screen I've ever seen. We also snook a look at the radio city music hall which was playing host to Ozzie Osbourne that night (no, unfortunately we did NOT go :P). After Times Square, we headed over to "Hell's Kitchen" (a restaurant district) to find us some eatin'. After weighing all our options, we decided on "Azteca" which served traditional mexican food. I decided to be adventurous and order Molé (chocolate chicken) which was really delicious and doesn't really taste like chocolate. After, we just came back to the hotel and watched 3 consecutive episodes of "What Not To Wear". They really got me pumped for NYC Shopping the next day!
Times Square at night
Radio City Music Hall

Video Of The Week

Urgh, the last day of winter break. One word that describes this: depressing. One thing that eases the pain is thinking back on my awesome break. I watched tons of movies, went shopping, got lots of excersise, ate lots of good food, AND I went to New York City (which I will update w/ pictures very soon). One of the movies I watched was "Hot Rod" with Andy Samberg. It would probably be my pick for best movie of 2007. It's one of those movies that actually made me laugh out loud, not just "oh that was funny" or "heheh". It was also very consistant, like it was funny throughout the whole movie, thanks to Andy Samberg and his ridiculous facial expressions.
The video of the week is an excerpt from "Hot Rod" and it pretty much gives you a taste of the kind of comedy that's in the movie. If this video doesn't make you laugh, "Hot Rod" may not be right for you.