New York Christmas Lights...

Here's a little video of some of the twinkly lights we saw around New York this Christmas.

Christmas Eve Evening...

After taking in the rooms at the Plaza we went out for something to eat at The Brooklyn Diner in Times Square, where we just got a little snack...

!

Then we walked up from Times Square back to the hotel, along 5th Avenue to see all the beautiful Christmas lights, and to stop off by the Rockerfella to see the tree, passing Radio City Hall along the way...

Some of my favourite lights were the ones wrapped around all the trees, I had no idea how they manage to wrap them round so well, but they make every part of the trees glow, right down to the tips of the branches!

It was really reeeeeally busy by the tree, with hundreds of people all going to see the lights and take in the Christmassyness like we were doing.

But despite it being busy, everyone was so friendly and festive, no one was shouting or getting annoyed at the crowds, there was no pushing or shoving or fighting, it was lovely.

We hung around the Rockerfella Center for a few minutes and waited to see the light show at Saks 5th Avenue. Each year they do something different, this year the had an amazing 3D mapping projection thing on the side of their building. I didn't take a video of it, but I managed to find someone else's on YouTube, so here it is...

Then we carried making our way up 5th Avenue, passed all the fancy shops with their fancy window displays. I think each year they get more and more extravagant and creative with their window displays. This years Bergdorf & Goodman windows were getting quite a crowd outside them...

Then it was time for a Christmassy Cocktail night cap in the Rose Club at the Plaza.

It was a very relaxing bar, with soft green lighting (which we found out changes colour each night) and red candles on the table, it felt very Christmassy. They were delicious cocktails and they were placed on leather drinks mats! No cardboard jobbies here, Oh no. Brown leather with the Plaza crest debossed on them. 

Bizarrely they seemed to go missing from the table though?

Then we went to our rooms for a Christmas sleep, only to find that the maids had turned down the beds, removed the fur rugs from them and put slippers down, on a sheet, by the bed!

But then it really was time for the Slipper Gang to go to bed, otherwise Father Christmas wouldn't have time to visit!

The Plaza...

The Plaza Hotel was absolutely AMAZING!

Everything was so grand and special, from the wreaths and lamposts outside, to the amazing lobby inside, to the lifts, to the corridors, to the bedrooms and bathrooms, it was all just so perfect!

 

We were immediately greeted at the doors and had our bags taken to the check in desk for us, then after getting our lovely door cards we got into the very grand lift, with the mosaic floors, and went up to the 9th floor to find our room.

Even the coridoors felt special, with no stuff carpets, no creaky floorboards - it was all so bright and fresh and clean. The colours were lovely and the carpet was squishy and soft and there were even lights in the ceiling cornices (or corni?)...

Then we found our room...

and then the bathroom...

It was all stunning. The bathroom was especially impressive, with double doors to enter, heated floors, double basins, the biggest shower head in the world, the deepest bath in the world, and real gold leaf tiles on the wall and floors. Incredible!

The temptation to take one of the bathrobes was very high, but we were a wee bit worried that $100 might show up on the room bill if one went 'missing'.

The bedroom had a very grand chandelier which, along with other lights, could be controlled by the iPad in the corner of the room. You could customise the lighting and temperature just by touching a few buttons on the iPad. I want that set up in our apartment! Or better still, I want to live in the Plaza.

Every detail in the room had been thought about, and nothing had been left out, from the door handles in the bathroom, to the coat hangers...

 But rather than let me write about the rooms, I'll let my very good friend and room mate Tinsel Tommy show you around, in a very special Christmas edition of Cribs...

Christmas Eve...

Tommy Toot and I woke up on Christmas Eve very excited knowing the Mops and Pops (as well as Father Christmas) were making their way through the skies to New York, but we had a little bit of time to wait before they arrived.

So, after some pancakes for breakfast we went to Brooklyn Bowl for a spot of (free!) bowling.

It was free for the first two hours of opening, so we managed to get in three great games and a pitched of Brooklyn beer, all for a bargain price!

In the battle between Tinsel Tommy and Ollie & The Ivy, Tom came out victorious, winning two games out of three (although there was only 1 point in the last game!). Then it was time to make our way over to the Plaza to meet Mops and Pops and check in to our rooms!!!

Just A Little Longer...

I had started writing an excited post about Mops, Pops and Tom arriving tonight, but I'm going to have to wait a weeeee bit longer before Mops and Pops are here as their flight was cancelled (Delta, you're rubbish!).

The good news if that Tommy Toot is in the air as we speak and will be here, in the flesh, in 2 hours time!!! I CAN'T WAIT!

It won't be very much longer at all, and we'll be simply having a wonderful Christmas Time!

(I was going to put the Fairytale in New York song up, but it didn't really seem right!)

This time tomorrow Rodney, we'll be sipping cocktails in the Plaza Hotel!

New York Types...

I found this great little video that was made to support the 'New York Types' exhibition I went to the other day...

I love hearing people talking about New York like this and hearing people regaling their New York stories. It makes me feel very lucky and very proud to be able to live in such an amazing place.

The Chevin...

Last night Ben, Tet and I went to go and see The Chevin play at the Rockwood Music Hall in Manhattan.

The Chevin are a fairly new band from Otley! It's funny being all the way over here in New York and going to see a Leeds band with an audience half full of Leeds people - it's a small world.

I'd not really heard much of their stuff before going to the gig, Ben had seen them before in a small pub in York and noticed that they were playing New York. They were absolutely amazing though! Despite the fact that they were playing in a tiddly room at the Rockwood, to about 100 people (if that), their songs made it feel like there were 10,000 people all in an arena! They write such anthemetic songs already - I think they're destined to play to huge crowds!

They sound a bit of a cross between U2 and The Killers, and the singers voice is incredible! He was really belting out each note and had an amazing range. I didn't take any videos as my phone almost ran out of juice, but this video's off their website...

At the end of their short set (I wish they played for longer, but it was a free gig so I can't really complain!) they were selling their EP so I immediately went to get one, we've been listening to it all day at work! It's blummin' great.

We had a bit of an eventful journey home after the gig. Ben and I jumped in a taxi to head back to Brooklyn and as the taxi turned at the crossroads it got sideswiped by another car! It was veeeeeeeeeery minor, just a slight shunt really, but both cars had to stop in the middle of the busy Manhattan crossroads, much to the annoyance of all the other drivers.

Ben and I swiftly jumped out to leave the taxi driver to it and found another cab. It's funny, only the other day Abi and I were talking about how you never see any car accidents happen in New York. You very occasionally see cars that have had a bump and stopped - but never see them actually happen. I suppose we spoke too soon, as we got front row (or back) seats to one.

Apart from the wee crash, it was a fantastic night. I love seeing live music in these little places around New York. I have a feeling that'll be my last gig of 2011, so it was great to finish on such a high!

It Writes Itself...

This lunchtime I was mooching around up near 29th Street and stumbled across the Art Directors Club building, and saw that they had a special exhibition on - New York Types.

The exhibition is in conjunction with New York Writes Itself - which is a fantastic project about the stories and the people in those stories, in New York. The idea is that New York is a massive story, full of characters, all with their own plots - but it's real life. The idea behind the exhibition was to take some of the things that these 'characters' say and produce super limited edition letterpress posters out of them.

This big statement sits above the desk at the entrance to the exhibition, and it's completely true! Some of the things you hear as you walk the streets of New York, you just can't make it up!

 Some of the prints were brilliant (some of them not so brilliant) and they were all done by a collection of artists. The majority of the prints had a little explanation of where the quotes were heard, so it's great to be able to imagine where these people where and who those people were who were saying these things.

It was a really lovely and inspiring find for a Tuesday lunchtime, I think I'm going to look into New York Writes Itself a bit more, and I think Abi and I might do a little project like this ourselves - we hear so many weird things when we're on the subways or when we're walking around town, there must be a poster series or a book in there somewhere!

Lively Up Yourself...

Marley's One Drop All Natural Coffee...?

Well I never.

Mini Christmas...

Yesterday we had ourselves a lovely little mini early Christmas together.

We had a Christmas breakfast, watched Christmassy films and opened some very lovely Christmas presents. One of mine was this very handsome looking purple giraffe vinyl toy...

Then we went for a Christmas Day stroll through McCarren Park. Oddly enough, it really did feel like Christmas Day, all day, and especially when we went out the park and saw that it was almost completely desserted...

But it looked lovely in the afternoon sunshine...

After some Christmas Crif Dogs we made our way back to our warm snug apartment for a Christmas nap and then start preparing the brussel sprouts!

It was a really lovely, relaxing day and it really did feel like a mini Christmas, especially by bed time when we both felt absolutely stuffed of lovely food looking at our presents. We're very lucky that we get to enjoy two Christmasses this year - I don't think either of us can wait for the real Christmas Day to come now!

The Nutcracker...

After our lovely meal at De Santos, we went to see the New York Ballet's The Nutcracker at the Lincoln Center for Abi's Christmas present...

Abi had no idea we were going, so it was a great surprise when the taxi pulled up outside the Lincoln Center. The Lincoln Center itself is a beautiful place, we'd never been there but we'd been passed in a bus once, so it was great to finally be there...

It was really busy with people going to see the Nutcracker, but also the other plays that are on at the moment - I think Warhorse is one of them. There were lots of people in their theatre finery, including us!

Once we got in the theatre, we went to find our seats - I was a little worried that we'd have a rubbish view as we were on the very top balcony, but I don't think it's possible to have a bad view in that place. It turned out we were on the very very back row, but it didn't matter, we could see everything perfectly... once we got passed the vertigo!

I'd never been to a ballet before, and it had been ages since Abi had been - so it was very exciting sitting there waiting for the performance to begin. Also, when Abi was 10 she was the lead flower in dance of the flowers, so we were both looking forward to see if the New York Ballet were as good as Abi!

The whole thing was absolutely amazing, some of the production was so so clever. It starts with the two children who have fallen asleep on a chair outside their sitting room. There's a big wall behind them with the sitting room door on it, then as the children look through the key hole into the sitting room, the wall became transparent! It revealed the beautiful Christmas tree in the sitting room behind the door.

There were some other very clever bits - when the Marie (the little girl) gets shrunk down to toy size, the Christmas tree in the sitting room starts to grow, and grow, and grow, and GROW! It went on forever, getting higher and higher and wider and wider, all coming out from underneath of the stage! It reminded me of the Radio City Hall tour we went on when the explained how much space there is below stage and in the ceiling. It was so clever.

The dancing was amazing too. All the children were fantastic and the music was absolutely incredible. I think Act 2 was by far my favourite, when they have all the different dances, and all the short snippets of music - I think the dance of the candy canes is one of my favourite pieces of classical music ever.

Some of the dancers were incredible, balancing of their tiptoes for ages, and at one point, when The Sugarplum Fairy and Her Cavalier were doing their dance near the end - the Sugarplum Fairy went up on one foot, on the very tips of her toes (or on point as my ballerina tells me it's called!) and stayed perfectly still as the Cavalier pulled her along. She glided so smoothly on her toes... I still don't understand how she did it - there were gasps in the audience as they did it. We've not practiced it at home yet, but I think we might tonight!

It was a really special night and a wonderful start to our Christmas!

De Santos...

Last night Abi and I went for an (early) anniversary meal at De Santos in the village.

(I didn't take this photo, it's off their website - I forgot to take one)

We first went to De Santos in the summer nearly 2 and a half years ago, for our 6 month anniversary meal. So it was very special to go back for our nearly 3 year anniversary, and to think about aaaaaaaall that's happened in those 2 and a half years in between. It REALLY doesn't feel like I've been out here that long!

De Santos is a lovely restaurant, and we've talked about the food a lot ever since the first time we went (we had some curried pasta thing!). This time though they'd completely changed their menu (it'd probably have been strange if they hadn't in 2 years!), but it was just as delicious. We had some popcorn shrimp to start (in this delicious saratcha type sauce) and then Abi had an amazing herb crusted swordfish with creamed corn and spinach and I had a delicious duck with apricot glaze. Then we shared tiny mini little lemon cheesecakes for pudding... it was all absolutely amazing.

It was such a perfect start to the evening, the music was great, the lighting was really lovely, the food was amazing and the company was... well... Okish I suppose.

T minus 168(ish) hours...

NOT LONG NOW!!!!

This final week can't go quick enough.

Barbie Foosball...

This creepy looking foosball table in FAO Scharwz is a bargain at a mere $25,000!

I wonder how many people have one of these on their Christmas list?

Out & About...

 I've been out and about and away from my Mac today doing an audit of some shops. The audit part's a bit boring, but being able to wander around and enjoy New York has been fantastic!