Call on your Angels, come down to the city.
Crowd around the big tree, all you strangers who know me. Bring your
compassion, your understanding. Lord, how we need it on this New York City
Christmas.
- Rob Thomas
We’ve been incredibly lucky with the weather so far this trip. You want cool and clear skies, and no rain. Even snow’s okay – although, it isn’t so much fun when it’s melting. New York City has been good to us. Whilst the Midwest is being battered by a fierce winter storm, causing hundreds of cancelled or delayed flights, and creating hazardous road conditions, the northeast is experiencing the second coming of summer.
It was warm
today, around 9 Celsius, and will be warmer still tomorrow. Sunday, when we
leave, the forecasters are scheduli8ng a temperature of nearly 20 Celsius. This
is winter, and it feels like spring. It will probably mean an end to the snow
that’s been sitting in Central Park since the big blast of snow last week. It’s
strange to be walking around with my parka undone or not on at all. It is
winter, after all.
From
Newark, we got an early start, and were in the city around 9.00am for one of
New York’s great Christmas traditions, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. My
brother and his girlfriend joined us for the show at the famous and beautiful
Radio City Music Hall. Hosted by Santa Claus and featuring the Rockettes and
some very impressive visual effects and great Christmas music, it’s hard to
watch the show and not come out feeling very festive.
 |
| The Radio City Rockettes |
Christmas
is a great time to be in New York City. When you read those travel articles
about the best cities to visit for Christmas, the Big Apple is always there.
From the Radio City Christmas Spectacular to skating in Central Park, the
Rockefeller Center’s Christmas tree and the incredible window displays in the
shops up and down Fifth Avenue and the Avenue of America’s, it’s unmatched in
America – and, I think, in the rest of the world – for festive cheer. At this
time of the year, it’s great to just wander the city to take everything in.
 |
| Nativity |
For lunch,
we took the subway across the East River to Brooklyn and went to the famous
pizzeria, Grimaldi’s (another New York City institution), which sits just under
the Brooklyn approach to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a good choice. My brother,
who is a fierce food critic, decided it was perhaps the best pizza he’s ever
eaten. That’s high praise, coming from him. And it wasn’t an exaggeration. It
tasted better than I remembered.
 |
| Boys at Brooklyn Riverfront Park |
The good
thing about Grimaldi’s is that you can eat a lot and then walk back across the
Brooklyn Bridge to burn off at least some of the calories. The pedestrian
walkway/cycleway is actually above the traffic flow, and you get wonderful
views looking down to the mouth of the East River and into New York Harbour,
where the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are both visible. It’s one of the
great views in America.
 |
| Thao, :auryn, Grimaldi's |
Back in
Manhattan, we walked over to Times Square – a very busy place, being a Friday
night at Christmastime – to Dave and Busters, where we met up with my two
favourite New Yorkers, Erol and his wife, Arbena. I met Erol about five years
ago when he was the audience coordinator for FOX’s The Morning Show, and we
catch up every time I’m in town.
 |
| Arbena, Erol, Me |
On Dave and
Busters: imagine a Timezone from back home combined with a restaurant and beer,
and that’s what you get here. There are wall-to-wall arcade games, everything
from shooters to air hockey. I won a $5 game card by donating one dollar to the
Make a Wish Foundation and spinning the prize wheel, which started me off
beautifully. I discovered how much I enjoyed the Ghost Recon game, and the
NASCAR racing simulator was pretty cool, too.
But the
important part of the night came after dinner. Erol is an Islanders fan and I’m
a Rangers fan. It just so happened that the Rangers and Isles were playing at
Madison Square Garden. And we had tickets. It worked out perfectly. Of all the
games Erol and I have been to together, we’ve never seen our teams play each
other. So this was a first, and after Thursday night’s disappointing shootout
loss to Pittsburgh, I was hoping for a win.
 |
| Erol, Kevin, Me |
There’s
nothing like a Rangers/Islanders game at the Garden. There was plenty of
action, and a rowdy crowd, but my curse continues, because the Isles came away
with a 5-3 win. That drops me to 1-8 all time on Ranger games at the Garden.
Apparently I’m very bad luck. They’re going to want to take my photo and nail
it to the front entrance and deny me entry from now on. Even with the loss, it
was a fun night. Friday night hockey is awesome.
 |
| Working on US-Aussie relations! |
We headed
back to Dave and Busters after the game for more food, drinks and games, and
didn’t leave until about midnight for our NJ Transit service back to Newark.
That was when disaster struck. The Amtrak train in front of us down, resulting
in a delay of more than two hours – no one’s fault, just plain bad luck.
Instead of being in bed by 1.30am, it was 3.30am before I got into bed.
Tomorrow,
we’re booked in to visit the Statue of Liberty at 10.00am so there won’t be
much sleep before our last day here.
 |
| Stars and Stripes atop the Brooklyn Bridge |
No comments:
Post a Comment