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25/12/12 (Tuesday)
Merry Christmas everyone
We started our day not long after midnight talking to the family at home during their Christmas get together beside the swimming pool at Valjene and Graham's house. It was great to see everyone, especially my Mum and Dad. Dad has been in hospital again and was told he could go home Christmas morning so Noel went and picked him up so he managed to get home in time to celebrate with the family. After a chat with everyone, including my beautiful Alyssa, we left everyone to their celebrating and Danielle and I went back to bed. We got up around 9am and cooked bacon and eggs for Christmas breakfast followed by chocolate marshmallow santas for breakfast dessert…………. Danielle feels that chocolates for Christmas breakfast is a tradition that shouldn't be changed just because we aren't at home J We then went to Carmine's Italian Restaurant for Christmas lunch. We were packed in like sardines and as a table emptied it was filled again. Even though we had a reservation we still had to wait half an hour. The food was good although we couldn't finish it all. After that we went for a walk up to the Rockefeller Plaza and looked around at the special Christmas tree, decorations and the ice skating rink. There were thousands of people doing exactly the same thing! We went to the Top of the Rock lookout which was just amazing looking out at New York. It is such a huge city. We looked down on the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building and everything else - amazing. We then went for a walk around more areas looking at their Christmas decorations before heading to the Radio City Music Hall where we went to see the Rockette's Christmas Show. That was absolutely wonderful and really topped off our Christmas Day. After the show we headed back up the Top of the Rock to see New York by night and it was even more amazing than during the day. It was absolutely freezing up there but worth it. We decided to catch a taxi back to our apartment because it was so cold, but we talked as we walked and eventually walked all the way home. We got back around 11pm tired but happy with our Christmas Day. It definitely wasn't the same as being at home with the family, but it was still a great day.
26/12/12 (Wednesday)
I woke up around 7am and finally got the blog from our cruise up on to the website and finished just as the alarm went off at 8am. We headed out and collected our tickets for the Hop On Hop Off Double Decker bus which we had booked. We then boarded the bus for a trip around the Uptown Loop. The bus we had was a wreck and didn't even have a cover over the top deck plus the PA system didn't work. It was so cold on there so we eventually got out at the top end of Central Park and walked all the way through the park, criss crossing our way across the park as we went. After a couple of hours we boarded a bus again and went back to the Time Square area and had some lunch. While we were having lunch it started to snow!!!!! J This turned into rain and sleet and wind and snow and rain and wind and rain and YUK! The weather was absolutely horrible for the rest of the day/night. After lunch we boarded another Hop On Hop Off bus which took us on the Downtown Loop. The snow was coming down really heavy in some areas as we travelled and in other it just rained. We eventually got off the bus in East Village and walked 4 blocks through the rain, snow and wind to where we were to meet the bus that was to take us on our night tour which was to see the Christmas Lights of Brooklyn followed by hot chocolate and canoli. We got to the meeting place at 5pm (for a 7pm tour) so had time to thaw out in a little café and had some dinner while we waited. There was a 6pm tour also and we managed to get a seat on that tour, so didn't have to wait that long. The tour took us through areas we hadn't been to before and through the tunnel over to Brooklyn. We looked in various areas at the Christmas lights at people's houses. The majority of the lights were done by the householders but a lot of the houses in some areas have their lights professionally installed. As you can imagine, those houses aren't the average house! Some of the displays were amazing. We got off the bus a few time but it was pouring rain and really windy so we didn't spend too much time off the bus when we stopped. The tour ended in a little café where everyone had hot chocolate and canoli. The most we knew about canolis was that they make them at Carlo's bakery on Cake Boss on TV J We had no idea what they actually were but they are a cone type shell filled with an icing/cream mixture. They weren't as nice as we were expecting though, especially with the rap our tour guide gave us about them. Obviously an acquired taste. They were ok though. Because we didn't spend as much time off the bus as they usually do, we got back from the tour a bit earlier and because it was still raining, we caught a taxi back to the apartment. We've done so much too and we're both totally exhausted and Danielle is fast asleep already as we have another big day tomorrow!
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