A Festive Day in New York City

 

The crew from Varekai is taking a two week break from school, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to blog about our recent trip to NYC.

On Sunday, December 17, 2017, we finally made it to New York to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.  The boys had been wanting to go for awhile, but we just never had a good day where we could make the trip.

We parked in the Bronx, as we always do, and rode the subway to Grand Central Station. We had several things that we wanted to see.  We had, just a few days prior, watched a documentary about St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  So, we knew that we wanted to visit the place for ourselves.  There was a pretty Christmas tree in the courtyard of Lotte New York Palace Hotel just before we got to the cathedral.

From the tree, we headed over to see St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  Mass was currently going on, so we were told to stay near the back with the other sightseers.  Mass ended while we were still there, so we did get to walk around a bit.

The walk to Rockefeller Center was not too far from the cathedral, and we happened upon it by chance.  There was a line of people, that we were trying to avoid, that encircled the city block.  Within that line of people was the tree.  We never really figured out what the line was for…ice skating, shopping, etc.  We guessed that it was ice skating, so we chose to not even think about attempting that activity.  We zig zagged our way through the many people to see the tree up close.

When we got there, there was another line (much much shorter) to take your own picture with the tree in the background.  We figured since we had come this far that we could stand in this short line for a few snapshots.

We took a break from sightseeing to have lunch at an Irish Pub that was very near Central Park…our next destination.  We had been to New York several times before, but we had never walked through Central Park.

John pointed out that Big Bird was sitting on a park bench in the Central Park.  The boys are not fans of the show, but John and I thought it was conversation worthy.  And, it made an interesting picture with the color contrast.

We did not take a carriage ride but many people did.  There was carriage after carriage after carriage carrying bundled up people through the park.

Liam and I stopped and watched a lady getting her portrait drawn.  The artist was incredible.  The drawing looked just like the lady.

Liam and Erik saw a sign stating that if you adopt a tree, you get your name on a paving stone that will be placed in the park.

As we entered the terrace, there were tons of people, but there was also a guitar player.  The boys were very impressed with his playing.

We entered a section of the park that was mostly trails.  There were very few people, and the boys could run and play.  They made up games to play on the trails.

We marveled at the beautiful homes that lined 5th Avenue.  Most of them were decorated for the holidays.  We all thought it was interesting how they were sandwiched between much larger buildings.  At first they looked out of place, but then we saw the pattern and thought that it made perfect sense.

We had very recently completed the audiobook From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and the boys really wanted to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see some of the things that were mentioned in the book.  We were too tired and it was getting late, so we opted to wait for another day to tour the enormous museum for that would take an entire day in itself.

We walked a few blocks to get to the subway station, chose the wrong entrance, rode further south, got off, and got on the right train to the Bronx.  When we got to the Bronx, it was dark.  Luckily our truck was parked nearby, and we began our drive home with hopes to return soon to see the museum.

The next day we had a visit from some of our Houston friends.  They stayed the night with us, and we went to lunch and had pretty milkshakes for dessert.