Gone traveling,
Back shortly.A Travel Journal by Scott Hargroves & Heather Noonan

Well she might not have been miming but there were definite moments where her mouth wasn’t moving in time. Who cares though. It’s freakin’ Aretha Franklin.

Let’s rewind a little shall we. Yesterday was our last full day of our first stop here in New York. We had pretty much ticked every box we wanted to do, barring the ice skating. So we had woken up early with the plan to do this in Central Park, instead of the Rockefeller Centre, as Wednesday is the day of the Tree Light switch on and Skating was closed for that reason.

So we headed out for the day, after eating some crazy Dunkin Donut croissant that had sausage and egg inside. Surprisingly nice when you wake up starving. We decided to walk to Central Park because its much more fun doing it this way and as Heather mentioned in the last entry, we have been really enjoying it. Glastonbury has proven useful for being able to walk ridiculous distances in one day. With the motto of trying to see as much as possible we decided to walk up a few different avenues (ones we hadn’t already walked up) to get to central park. It’s about a 20 minute brisk walk from where we are staying but on the way we were side tracked by F.A.O Schwarz which is a large toy store that is famous for the Big Piano from the classic Hanks movie, yeah you guessed it, Big. Having found memories of this film we had to have a look in. As you will see in the photos, that place sold 90% teddy bears and about 10% real toys. On a whole it was a bit lifeless but the Big Piano was awesome (Heather: I disagree….I found Spot the Dog, Elmer the Elephant AND the entire range of Where The Wild Things Are wild things. It was worth it just for them…) We couldn’t take any photos of the Piano because it was overrun buy kids who couldn’t string any kind of musical sequence together. I wanted to unleash Heather on the unsuspecting crowd, so she could reenact the scene but (being overrun with REAL kids) it didn’t happen.

Some of the shops in New York seem to have the temperature cranked up to the max. It can make it unbearable in some, especially when you are quad layered already with big hats and scarves. We made our exit from F.A.O Schwarz when the heat was just too much and wandered over the road to central park, passing all the Horse and Carriage tours. Im sure it would be pretty romantic to take a ride around and through the park, but all the horses seemed to be a little over worked and worse for wear, so we gave them a miss. One funny thing about them though was the carriage that was white and red and was adorned with the Liverpool FC badge. It would seem that a theme here in New York is that they love english football. Mainly Manchester United and Liverpool.

After wandering into the park and meandering through the carved out paths we finally bumped into the ice rink. This one is much bigger than the Rockefeller one but still highly extortionate. Working out at just under $50 for the two of us. We finally got the balls to stump up the cash when they said that it was only open for another 15 minutes before the resurfacing. This helped up make up our mind and give it a miss. As magical as ice skating in New York at Christmas would be, we just couldn’t justify the extreme costs involved. So instead we climbed the biggest rock in sight and sat there while the machine resurfaced the ice. It was nice. The weather was a bit milder as well because of the overcast sky, so sitting there and soaking in the atmosphere was pleasant.

We decided to nip into the Apple store (which is on the corner of the park) to check emails, double check our flight details, see what the best transport out of the city would be and to kill a bit of time before when went to the Rockefeller for the light switch on. Just down the road from Apple Store on 5th is a huge Disney Store which Heather had eyed up earlier in the week, so we went in to kill some more time. Heather was in her element for over 3 floors of Disney magic. (I’m regretting not buying both Max, from F.A.O, and Gonzo from the Disney store =( ) When we had done too much looking, we headed out back towards Rockefeller.

I (heather) have a habit of consistently feeling the need to arrive far earlier to things than necessary. I guess I just don’t like missing out on whatever might be happening. The trouble is, is that sometimes you arrive early and the waiting around becomes a problem, because of rain, and Angry Americans. Now, the people of New York have generally been indifferent. It hasn’t bothered us. Everybody has their own life to be getting on with an a bit of indifference and impoliteness is to be expected in such a big city where everybody is going somewhere and everybody has something to be getting on with. However, what proved a bit irritating for the first time all week, was the fact that, despite having made the choice to stand with 99’999 other people in order to wait, and watch the Christmas Tree lighting, a lot of people surrounding us seemed to be come abject with anger and annoyance at the fact that there were 99’999 other people daring to have the same idea…and God Forbid, stand next to them.

Not even my loud proclamation of “where’s the christmas cheer, everybody?” drew the faintest smile. It was rather disheartening. Especially considering the “warmth, excitement and love” of the event that NBC tried so readily to emit to the millions of people watching on TV. We also discovered the harsh reality that the best things happen to the worst of people. A woman next to us, apparently visiting from Virginia, insisted on shouting at every single person in the vicinity. Making loud, obnoxious comments about standing by her, “No you CAN’T go that way” “WHAT do you think you are doing?” “MOVE back!” “What are THEY doing?” “Why are THEY there?” “I’d just like you to move your umbrella MAM,” despite the fact that my umbrella was keeping her dry…

I really wanted to tell her that “I’d just like you to stop smoking in my face, MAM, I’d just like you to chill out and have a little bit of happiness and respect, MAM, but I have the manners and understanding not to, as we are in a crowd of thousands, and these things are to be expected, MAM.”

Well, that lady, and her Husband were subsequently given two VIP tickets by a Guard, to move from where they were stood and go to the VIP area.

I don’t know how it happened, but my heart died a little inside at the injustice of it all. Torrential downpour and mean ladies aside, and though there were a few hesitating moments of “shall we leave? is it worth it?” we DID stay and we DID revel in the momentary glory of a 76ft tall, 10 tonne Christmas tree being lit up by 5 miles worth of multicoloured lights. It was brilliant. And, when else in our lifetimes would we have had that opportunity?

Ignoring the headaches and achey legs, we went home thoroughly content (though I desperately needed a wee) and our last night was complete (though not before a Chipotle Mexican Grill Burrito – the biggest you’ll have ever seen).

Well, New York has kept us well, and beckons us to come back. We’re just closing this post up as we are getting the bus in twenty minutes and soon we’ll be Dr Who-ing it across the globe. That is, time-travelling. It is Thursday afternoon, and in 20 hours we’ll be landing where it is saturday.

Crazy times.

It’s been pretty wonderful,

Thank you, New York.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!