Last holiday adventures in NYC

The last few weeks before the holidays were busy- and so much fun. Between Karin's visit and all the other activities I've posted about, there were a couple more highlights...

My #1 favorite winter activity is ice skating. My friend Veronica and I decided the week before Christmas was a great time :) First we went to a restaurant and had tasty chowder, then we went to Bryant Park for ice skating! It was a good choice- not only is it cheaper, but it is way less crowded than the rinks at Rockefeller and Central Park.

Yay for ice skates!

On a later day I also went to the Christmas Market at Bryant Park with Alina, another of my friends. It was cold and I have no pictures of the actual market but it was fun to just wander through the shops and chat :) After the market we headed to a place called Junior's for cheesecake. It was delicious- and I actually have a picture of it. Strawberry Shortcake cheesecake. Yum.

Thanks to my roommate Suzanne, I also had the opportunity to attend the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. We saw The Barber of Seville, and it was great. It was in English (since it was their holiday show it was a little shorter and in English so it was family friendly) so it wasn't quite the same as when I saw it in the original Italian at the Opera House in Vienna but it was still fun! It felt very New York to get dressed up for a night at the opera ;)

My first visitor :)

Karin Stewart gets the official title of being My First Visitor :) I was pretty excited that she came to spend the day with me after being in D.C. for a wedding! Since she was only here for the day we packed in as much as we could...

First stop: The Statue of Liberty. Followed by a quick walk by the 9/11 Memorial, Freedom Tower, and Trinity Church.

The tiny line in the distance is the Statue of Liberty. The sun was so bright we could hardly stand to look in that direction.

After spending some time in Lower Manhattan we headed uptown to drop off bags and get ready to head to the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall.

Love this building- just look at it! And Karin of course ;)

Next stop: Rockefeller Center, 5th Avenue, F.A.O. Schwartz, and Times Square.

Uptown again to meet up with people at Magnolia Bakery (it's famous apparently). Then Last stop: Temple, Grand Central Station, and finally dinner- at 11pm!

My favorite picture :)

Thanks for coming to visit!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

...so I'm hiding inside where its at least a little warmer, although not as warm as I would like it! Since we have no control over the heat in the apartment we manage with extra blankets, sweatshirts, and socks haha. But outside- it is SO COLD!!! Seriously, everyone kept saying "its so cold in NY, are you sure you want to move there?" and I thought to myself "I lived in Rexburg all those years- I'm prepared for anything ;)" Which is partly true and partly an underestimation of NY.

I've determined that both NY and Rexburg are extremely cold places- but in very different ways. I can't say that one is worse than the other- pretty sure they're both just bad! The other day I wondered why I continue to move to places where there is winter... so I'm thinking my next big adventure will be to Hawaii or somewhere like it ;)

At first I thought I was a wimp- my phone says the temperature outside is 30 degrees so why am I so cold? I was remembering the good ol' days in Rexburg when it was in the negatives and your nose hairs froze (and your hair if you went outside with wet hair- Lori ;) and your lungs felt like they were being seared with every breath you took. I remember one morning I had to step inside every building on my way to school because it felt as if a weight were crushing your head and stabbing needles in your face all at the same time and hurt so bad.

Turns out here it isn't the searing dryness of the cold, but the humidity. It chills you to the bone so even when you come inside you feel as if you can't ever get warm. I knew the humidity affected the felt temperature in the heat- we always hear about that- but didn't consider it affecting the cold too until my dad finally pointed it out (thanks dad). So I'm not a wimp after all. Well, maybe.

To remind us all of the nice days when it was way up in the 40s- here are some pics from my last stroll in the park way back in the middle of December. I've almost made it to the top of the park- 15 more blocks to go (and plenty more places to discover throughout the park :).

I made it to the east side of the park where I found... the Guggenheim!

One of the things I love about NY is that you find great old buildings in the middle of everything else.

The Reservoir

P.S. On a side note, this reminded me of another classic Rexburg moment- (305 girls) remember the time the front door froze shut- so Lori had to use the blow dryer to thaw it so she could get to class? Haha, how many people can say that ;)

Silver Bells

In case you haven't figured it out by now, it is definitely Christmastime in the city! In addition to the various tree lighting ceremonies, I've also been to these fun holiday activities:

Stake Christmas concert. Turns out we have a REALLY talented stake. I was a little surprised when I saw the length of the program, I was expecting an hour of calm Christmas carols. But they went all out, it was 2 hours of both calm and fun Christmas carols- even the Grinch was included.


The looooong program. Good thing it was all good!

Elf Extravaganza. These girls are impressive- in addition to watching Elf (one of my holiday favorites!), we ate the four basic food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup. They crafted the 7 levels of the Candy Cane Forest out of candy canes and truffle cake pops, the Sea of Swirly Twirly Gumdrops out of gumdrops (of course!), and the Lincoln Tunnel out of Rice Crispie Treats. So Fun. In addition we also had spaghetti with syrup (they made up these spaghetti and egg quiche thing so it was edible- wasn't too bad actually!),  Funfetti buddies (like muddy buddies but with funfetti- yum!), and lots of candy.

Countdown. Guess what? I am excited to come home for Christmas!!! (No, I am not ready to move back yet!) So when you have no paper or anything crafty, this is what you get for your countdown:

 

Holiday Window Strolling. You have to go look at the department store windows if you're in NYC for the holidays. Of course. We started our little stroll at Macy's (which were some of my favorites- just because they were about Christmas in NYC :).

 



Stewart/Davis kids- remember re-enacting the escalator scene from Elf while we were at Macy's?

 

After Macy's we made our way to 5th Ave, which we followed until we reached Central Park. Here are some of the highlights:

Lord & Taylor. My other favorites.



New York Public Library. One of my favorite buildings. . . it just happened to be on the way :)



Saks.

Bergdorf Goodman. Crazy cool windows, but not very Christmassy.

 

 

As promised, I made it back to Rockefeller Center for pictures of the tree from the front view. . .

 

Rockin' around the Christmas tree

Of course I had to attend the Tree Lighting at Rockefeller Center. After I got off work I went home, bundled up, and headed down to the Rockefeller Center. . . along with masses of people heading the same place. I was getting there a couple hours early so the plan was to take a book, grab food on the way, and stake out a spot. Well, by the time I made it there it was dark (reading was no longer an option), and I didn't know where exactly I was trying to get to and in the process accidentally got shuffled into a spot where I couldn't leave to go get food. . . It was standing room only, my feet were killing me from working long hours the last couple weeks, and I was sick (on top of being hungry). Oh and it was freezing cold. So to be honest, I was kinda miserable.

Luckily I had my iPhone. What would we do without those these days? I entertained myself by texting people (my siblings always know when I'm stuck somewhere bored- like the laundromat), and looking up flights for going home for Christmas. It was a long two hour wait. . . but the show finally started. I wasn't close enough to see the performers (you had to get there while I was still at work for that), but I had a pretty good view of the screen and the tree. Even though I did not feel good at all by this point, it was fun to be in NYC listening to great performers singing great Christmas songs. Oh, and texting pictures and videos of Scotty McCreery (sp?) singing to my country loving (weirdos) extremely jealous sisters, haha.

Pre-lighting. (Had to snap this as we were moving)

Pre-lighting. Just waiting. . .

Making Callie and Jenny jealous.

In case you couldn't tell (ha, as if you could tell anything from this pic), that's Mariah Carey.

I'd never heard of Il Volo- the Italian trio, but they sounded amazing! I now have a Pandora station of their holiday music- and its a pretty good mix so far, I recommend it. Most everyone else performing actually sounded great too- I was impressed since you never know with live performances.

The moment that made it all worth it was the tree lighting itself. I have to admit it was good. It's just lights, but just being there with all those people and the music and the other Christmas lights and decorations around- and the GIGANTIC TREE!- made it magical :)

I was going to upload a video of the lighting for you, but it wasn't working and then it was taking too long. . . and patience is not a virtue I possess when it comes to blogs. So pictures it is!

 Unfortunately I couldn't go back past the spot where you get the straight on shot of the tree that night- the policemen were directing us all away from the area. BUT, I went back during my 5th Ave stroll the next week. . .

Deck the halls... or the streets

I was lamenting the lack of Christmas cheer in my apartment when my mom reminded me that the whole city of New York is decorated for Christmas. Good point :) It really is a magical time of year in the Big Apple. There are Christmas decorations and decorations happening all over, all the time. Including right outside my door... where they are selling Christmas trees!


Mmmm... Fresh whiff of pine tree when I walk in and out of my building :)

New York style Christmas decorating. If the scaffolding is going to be there indefinitely, might as well decorate it.

        See how the Christmas tree in the first picture is right outside my door? Yeah, well one day it got moved- to the door on the other side of the store in the picture. Think I noticed? Nope, tried to get into the building with the Christmas tree right outside the door. Couldn't figured out why my key wasn't working... then realized why and sheepishly made my way to my door.

 

I'd like to say that was the only time I've accidentally tried to get into the wrong door, but unfortunately I can't. Right next to my door is another one that looks exactly like it. And the inside looks exactly the same. Technically it is all one building from the front- there is a continuous facade on the street and only once you get inside do you realize there is actually a little alley between the buildings. Anyway, since it is all one building, the key is the same for both doors...I'm sure you can imagine where this is going. One day when I was again not paying enough attention (this is what I get for thinking while walking, apparently I can't multi-task), I walked into the building next to mine. The interior has the same finishes and is just a mirror image of my side of the building, so I didn't realize until I started up the stairs and they turned the wrong direction... Oops. But don't worry, my roommate has done the same thing. I'm sure there are plenty of others in both buildings that have done the same as well ;)

 

Now that you all feel better about yourselves, I'll make you jealous with all my fun NYC Christmas events... In the next blog posts... Coming up next: the Rockefeller tree lighting, 5th Avenue strolls, concerts, and movie parties- it has been a fun couple of weeks!