A New Year in NYC

After 13 years of bringing our kids to New England for the holidays we finally thought they would be deserving of a trip into the Big Apple. It is so easy to jump on a train in New Haven and end up in Grand Central Station. We were excited to show the girls the city during the holidays especially. Grand Central Station certainly impressed them with its size and constant activity. They have been to a few cities in their day, but NYC is different.

We headed right to Rockefeller Center because we knew we wanted to see the Christmas tree and the store displays. The tree looked great, but the stores had already moved on from Christmas, which was definitely a bummer. But it didn't keep us down long. We were off to the next sightseeing activity.

We knew we wanted to see Central Park before the sun set, and as we approached it Sarah got to talking with one of the many pedi-cab guys hanging around. Before we knew it we had negotiated for a ride around the park. Although it is fun to walk around, sometimes when its cold it's nice to ride around with a warm blanket over your lap. And we got to see a lot of the key spots in park, or as our driver kept telling us, all the various spots where scenes from Home Alone 2 and Ghostbusters were filmed. However, the girls were quick to point out that Elf was also filmed in a few locations there too. 

Our driver was such a delight to spend time with. He had different songs queued up for the different parts of the tour. We heard the Friends theme song when we stopped by the fountain from that show's opening credits, we heard Imagine when we stopped by the shrine to John Lennon, and he played Country Roads by John Denver as we wrapped things up. Maybe because we are from Kentucky? It made for a great experience overall.

After our tour of Central Park we checked out FAO Schwartz - new location and smaller size, but still loads of fun. Then we went to the M&M store for some must have candy rewards and a bathroom. Both were very welcome at that point in the day. After that we headed to Times Square to check out all the lights before heading back to Grand Central Station. We did our best to pack as much fun as possible into the quick trip, and we were pretty happy with the results. On our next trip we will have to see a Broadway show.