Happy Holidays!

Snow on the morning commute

As we begin our 2013 Christmas celebrations here in New York City, I can't help but be reminded of our recent Christmases. Last year we celebrated in London; 2011 we were in Rome; 2010 we were in Paris; and, in 2009, when this trend of travelling over the holidays began, we celebrated with family in Kaohsiung. This year, similar to last year, we find ourselves staying in the city where we live, which isn't a bad thing but not as exciting as previous years.

Although not necessarily our first choice, New York City has been really great during this time of year. First of all, the city is deserted, making normal tasks a bit more pleasant. Like today, for instance, I was almost the only person on the bus during my morning commute.

Secondly, the weather has been all over the place, hitting all the extremes, providing a bit of excitement on a day to day basis. Although today it appears to be back to normal, hovering in the 30s (F), this past week was more like a Roman holiday, even hitting 70 degrees over the weekend. Two weeks ago we were way below zero and had a pretty heavy snow storm, which we didn't really get to take advantage of because we were both sick.

Christmas trees are being sold in pop-up shops on almost every corner, providing a pleasant pine scent and special festive note, allowing us to feel festive even without decorations of our own. And, surprisingly, if we avoid certain areas of the city (between Park and 6th Avenues in the 50s), we're not even overwhelmed by the worst part of the season, consumers and holiday tourists.

As we prepare to begin our Christmas celebrations by brewing vin chaud and wandering the country's number one neighborhood for holiday lights, we wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy holiday season. Although we probably won't be celebrating Christmas in the traditional New York way - with a movie and Chinese food - we do plan on wandering the city, taking pictures at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, meandering through Central Park, viewing the window displays at Saks Fifth Avenue and Barney's, and otherwise just absorbing our surroundings. Even if this isn't our last Christmas in New York, it's definitely our first and we're looking forward to making it a memorable one. We hope you have a memorable and joyous holiday season too.

November

Bronx River Trail

On the first weekend in November, we ventured north, to the border of Westchester County in the Bronx, to ramble the Bronx River Trail.  We started at Muskrat Cove and almost made it the full 9.5 miles before heading towards the nearest subway at Bruckner Blvd, just north of where the Bronx River joins the East River, due to waning daylight and no clear path across the rather busy expressway. The ramble was mostly disappointing as it's not very well marked (hence our early departure), still under construction in parts (which caused us to miss "one of the most striking features...the roaring waterfalls at River Park"), and not terribly picturesque due to all the litter.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon inflation

Moving on towards the end of the month, our Thanksgiving celebrations began on Wednesday night when we ventured over to the Upper West Side to watch the balloons get prepped for the next day's parade.  We wound up missing the actual parade on Thursday morning but still had a lovely day, leisurely wandering down to our restaurant in the Financial District.  We had such a great time stuffing ourselves full of salmon, beef and turkey that we completely forgot about giving thanks.  Though we didn't think to take a moment over dinner to give thanks, we are of course thankful that we were able to stuff ourselves full of salmon, beef and turkey.

Sleepy Hollow, Old Croton Aqueduct trail

We rambled the rest of November away, venturing north to Sleepy Hollow to walk the Old Croton Aqueduct trail and out to Queens to visit the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.

Westchester County, from Tarrytown to Irvington, was just lovely.  The people were super friendly, the towns we passed through were super charming, and the vibe was super artsy (craft ales, art house theater, etc.). We can't wait to venture back up to Tarrytown again, this time heading north to the Rockefeller State Park Preserve and beyond.

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge was disappointing.  The refuge itself was hit rather hard by Superstorm Sandy and parts of the main loop trail were completely washed away.  Though the view of Manhattan was rather interesting, the views in the other directions were dismal at best, with a lot of orange construction tape in the bay on one side and JFK airport on the other. Overall, I couldn't believe this was actually a national park. We went to a similar arrangement in Mallorca, the S'Albufera Natural Park, which was exponentially more impressive in regards to the facilities alone. One would expect a national park in New York City to be better maintained than a similar situation on a small island in the Mediterranean, far from any major city. Very disappointing.

Lyndhurst, Westchester County

As we wrap up November and begin the final days of 2013, we'd like to wish everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving, a delayed Happy Hanukkah and a preemptive Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Happiness and good health for all!

October Travels

Our October was filled with travel.  The fall colors have been particularly intriguing to us and we're doing our best to see them before they're gone.  Beyond the changing leaves, the weather has proved very interesting as well.  The month couldn't decide if it was summer or fall, which caused much confusion for the locals.  It'd be 70 degrees (F) and you'd have people commuting to work in their winter coat, boots and scarves because the day before was in the 40s.  Poor confused locals. Mike & I, for our part, are doing just the opposite.  Holding tightly to summer, we're the ones wearing short sleeves and sandals when it's 40 degrees out.  We're awesome.

Bear Mountain Oktoberfest

Our first trip of the month was up to Bear Mountain for their Oktoberfest celebration.  We took the bus up early one Saturday morning, hiked to the top and then celebrated upon our return to the base with some delicious beer and brats.  Bear Mountain is gorgeous and it was such a fun day out.  Definitely a highlight and something I'd definitely like to do again.  If we were staying, this would be an annual trip.

Watkins Glen State Park

Our next trip was up to the Finger Lakes region for Columbus Day weekend.  We were particularly interested in Watkins Glen state park.  We had seen a picture of this park on the subway, as part of the NY tourism campaign, and were so enamored we immediately began making plans to check it out.  It was as amazing in person as advertised.

Ithaca Falls

We stayed in Bath, just south of Keuka Lake. Though we didn't have a chance to explore Keuka Lake at all, we did enjoy roadtripping around Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. We also had a chance to explore Ithaca and the beautiful Cornell University campus.

The Finger Lakes region is well known for its wineries but we didn't have the opportunity to check any of them out. Since we were driving, and the wineries were charging for tastings, we opted against investigating this aspect of the region.  Hot tip: not one of the many wineries we visited in the Sonoma region of California charged tasting fees.  They're samples, folks. One shouldn't charge for samples.  Nor, for that matter, should one be willing to pay for samples.  Greedy vintners.

1999 (left) and 2013

On our return drive from the Finger Lakes we noticed we would be traveling very near where we had honeymooned back in June 1999. Thus, we made a slight detour.  It was fun returning to the area and discovering that our memories were surprisingly accurate.

Oyster Bay, Long Island

Our final trip of the month was out to Oyster Bay on Long Island for the Oyster Festival. Oyster Bay is beautiful and, although it was a relatively short distance from Manhattan, felt like a world away.  It was such a great way to spend one of the last summer like days of the year.

Summertime, and the living is easy

outside the Staten Island ferry terminal

So, if it's not clear by now, I am absolutely loving summer in New York.  We're having the best time!  We started off August, and ended our Urban Camping adventures, with an overnight stay at Blue Heron Pond park on Staten Island.  This was our first time on Staten Island, beyond the ferry terminal, and it is lovely.  I'm not sure where its bad reputation stems from but I'm thinking it's like the naming of Iceland, self-perpetuated propaganda to keep out the riffraff.  Blue Heron Pond park was such a nice camping adventure and a great one to end with.

Voice Tunnel at Summer Streets

Among some of the other memorable events from August was definitely Summer Streets, a street fair on Park Avenue.  This year the showcase item of the event was Voice Tunnel, which shut down the Park Ave tunnel to cars for the first time in its history.  It was pretty cool.

One of the major treats of the month was having our buddy from Dundee come and visit; our first house guest since Seattle.  We got to play host and take him to our favorite bars, to a free Toni Braxton concert in Brooklyn and to The High Line.  He even came to watch me teach my ESL class at Columbia.  It was so much fun having him visit us we can't wait until he returns (he's promised he's coming back before we leave next year).  House guests are fun (especially if they don't care if they sleep on an air mattress in, basically, a corridor)!

enjoying The High Line with
our first NYC house guest

Speaking of free concerts, in addition to the awesome Toni Braxton one, we also got to see Huey Lewis and the News perform at Coney Island. They're currently touring for the 30th anniversary of Sports, playing the whole album from start to finish.  They were awesome!  We had so much fun dancing and singing like it was 1983.  At the end of the concert, after an encore, Huey Lewis says, "I'm Huey Lewis and you've just heard the news" and then lights went out and the show was over.  He's so cool!

Old friends in Southport, CT

There are a couple of other highlights from this summer that must also be mentioned.  One, our old friends from Seattle (the same ones we lived with prior to moving to the UK) were on the east coast visiting family and, because being on the east coast is much closer than where they're usually located, we got to see them!  We met half way in Southport, CT and proceeded to have a lovely evening, picking up almost precisely where we had left off almost exactly 3 years earlier.  New friends are amazing and fun but nothing beats the comfort and joy of being surrounded by old friends.  GD we've missed them!

Road Trip!

The other highlight was definitely our first mini-break since returning to the States.  Over Labor Day weekend we rented a car and headed north, into the Adirondacks.  We stayed in Lake George where we experienced rainy and cloudy days which allowed for lots and lots of scenic byway driving.  We spent nearly the whole trip driving around and exploring an area we've never been to before.  It was fantastic!

at the fair

On Sunday afternoon we made our way to Syracuse where we spent the day at The Great New York State Fair.  It's been so long since we've been to a good ole American state fair and we were really looking forward to it.  Our main reason for going was to see the demolition derby, though we enjoyed the farm animals too.  Unbeknownst to us, the demo derby also included Figure 8 races, which I can't remember ever having been exposed to before but which turned out to be our favorite part.  GD I love watching cars crash (when safety harnesses are in use and no injuries occur).  Merika!

Figure 8

And with that, now we're up to date.  Though there's hopefully still many more days of summer remaining, I can't help but acknowledge that my favorite season's demise is imminent.  I'm not sure how New York handles autumn but I'm expecting brilliant colors and crisp days along with the requisite griping about the weather and how short the summer was and can you believe it's already fall.  But, not to be deterred, we already have one day trip planned and purchased and we'll hopefully have at least a few more before the end of the year.  Now that we're able to afford them, getting out of the city is almost as fun as being in it and, if all goes to plan, we've got less than a year to explore this part of the country and we've already wasted 8 months.  We've definitely got to make up for lost time with no more time to lose.