23rd December:
- Sam and I go see 'Arthur Christmas' at 11am to pass the time awaiting our parents arrival in NY. There flight was slightly delayed and arrived at the Novotel Times Square at about 4pm.
-We head up to our Rooms, on the 27th floor, and unpack setting up our christmas tree to Michael Buble's xmas album with Times Square looming out the window....
- Walked through TimesSquare popping in some shops, and ended up on 42nd street at BBQ's for a very American dinner, plates piled high, to refuel everyone after the long flight, cocktails and beer too...
24th December, Xmas Eve:
- Headed up to the Upper West Side to see our apartment then onto breakfast at our local diner.
-Rode the subway to Columbus circle, walking down Central Park south looking at the xmas lights and popping in some shops, then down 5th Avenue...stopping off at the Rockefeller tree...
-Went down to Bryant Park to do some Iceskating...
-Onto Grand Central to look at the Christmas Markets and then the subway back to Times Square to get ready for our Christmas Eve dinner at Don't Tell Mama, on Restaurant Row!
-Finishing up just before Santa arrived in the attached Piano bar with live singers!
December 25th- Christmas Day:
-Sam and I, still kids at heart, gave stockings to each other.
-then joined our parents downstairs in the Hotel restaurant for Christmas breakfast
-On returning back to the room, Santa had been and we opened our presents, thank-you to all the pupils that sent over cards and presents, it was really nice to open then all from you!
- On Christmas afternoon Mum had booked tickets for us all to see the Radio City Christmas show with all the Rockettes, it was amazing!
- In 3D too!
-I'm sure Mum was scouting some ideas for the show...all the movements and patterns were absolutely perfect! Complete with Santa's, toy soldiers, bears doing the nutcracker, a life size tour bus, iceskaters, fireworks and three camels, a donkey and some sheep in the living nativity!
-Heading back to the Hotel for Christmas dinner (A la Carte) with the best table in the house, the back drop of Times Square!
December 26th, Boxing Day:
- Breakfast at Pigalle, followed by a walk around Central Park! We also got to chat to Ella on Skype and she showed us some of her new toys!
- Lunch at the Boat Basin Cafe, and a visit to Herald Square...yes you guessed it, yes we are mad, we entered Macy's on Boxing day....no words are suitable to describe the amount of people and lack of visibility! Rog' needed some Hershey's Dark Chocolate to bring him around!
- Dinner tonight was at The View, a revolving restaurant above the Marriott Hotel in Times Square! Glad we booked all these nice restaurants in advance as we would never have got in otherwise!
27th December- (the day the Rain hit!)
- For Christmas Sam bought his parents a bus tour around NY so they could see the sights, so they went on that while we showed my parents some places that they haven't seen before. First stop was the High Line in Chelsea where we 'hung' out for a bit!
- Visited Chelsea Markets, then we left Dad in Starbucks (with the NY Times and a Chai Latte!) whilst we browsed in SoHo,
- The photos stop there for this day...We went down to Ground Zero on the Subway and it began to rain...we ended up getting free tickets into the Memorial and began to queue, the rain got heavier and heavier as we stood in the hour long queue, luckily we had some umbrellas...by the time we got into the memorial it was windy too, we glanced at it for the whole of about 2minutes, then left attempting to get a taxi back to the hotel, finally grabbing one by pretending we were part of the Hilton Hotel! Meanwhile Sam's parents were dry-ish but steamed up inside a tour bus! Reservations were made for Gigino at Wagner Park which over looked the Statue of Liberty for tonight... a full on storm was happening now...we made it down to the tip of Manhattan but the gusts of wind were too strong and we couldn't actually get out the taxi, The Andrews', ended up being dropped at a Subway station and jumping the barriers as Sam had their tickets, whilst the Downing's taxied back to Times Square, all of us eventually meeting up at Appleby's for dinner...directly opposite the hotel. Memories of Rosina's first ever trip to NY in 2006 where it poured with rain for 4 whole days came 'flooding' (excuse the pun!) back!
December 28th- Departure Day!
- Packing everything back into the cases meant that we split up again for breakfast, but then all of us headed down to South Street Seaport for some final shopping and some lunch, crepes at the market went down a treat. We then had drinks over looking the Brooklyn Bridge!
-Just to say they had done it, we then walked down to South Ferry for Ann and Keith to see the Statue of Liberty then Subway-ed it all the up to the Hotel! Everyone got in a taxi to go their separate ways and the flight landed in the UK on time. Everyone is now at home, and most importantly Domino got his present :) (A dog biscuit in the shape of a NY Taxi, made by an organic Dog shop!)
