Day 5 - New York City

First of all, many apologies for the late posting - it's been quite a rush of late and it's been very difficult to find the time to post any blogs (and I was without internet access for the laptop during our stay immediately following New York). I've decided that rather than posting "all over the place", I should still post chronologically, so here's the next in line... again, sorry for the delays :(

In hindsight, this past week has been the most fitting way to end 2009 and to start 2010 – when we count the days we’ve spent in New York City since Sunday, we’ve had it all! Fittingly, quite a lot of it happened on 31 December 2009.

I woke up around about 8:30am after a much needed and much desired snooze in our new hotel, The Tudor. Actually, that’s not entirely true – I didn’t wake up so much as I was woken up (seems to be a pattern on this trip). I perhaps need to provide a bit of context before I continue: Kat and I had agreed to keep the window open during the night because we didn’t want to run the thermostat / air-con while we slept. Instead, we opted for the icy cold (but relatively “fresh”) Manhattan air over the recycled and dry air from the ventilation system. We were in room 1105 so we were high up enough to not have all the street noise.

So now that I’ve provided you with the context, let me continue. A nice comfortable snooze in a King-sized bed was abruptly interrupted by my wife exclaiming through an abrupt inhalation of air “huh! Bryan! Look!” … naturally, a husband’s (in fact, ANY man’s) first reaction to an abrupt inhalation of air followed by an exclamation is to enter fight mode, and as I was scrambling to commence my ninja defence maneuvers I muttered “What? What?” and she gleefully chimed “it’s snowing!” … and when I comprehended that it was all a false alarm, I rolled over, murmured “that’s cool”, checked out the window and admired the beautiful scene. Manhattan coated in a blanket of snow, and frosty flakes gently drifting over the landscape.

Our last full day here, and despite the beautiful snowfall, I was feeling very sad that it was almost all over so soon. We took a little time getting ready and waking up, enjoyed some instant oats (my cheap solution I brought across from Queens) and got on our way. Originally, this was to be our "free day" to fill in anything we want to lazily do, but owing to our unfortunate and unexpected illness in the party, Monday was lost, and Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday became the NEW YORK PASS days!

Day 4 - New York City

Late night, early start today, and for me, a little emotional too. Emotional, because it marks the first phase our US trip coming to an end and from now on, memories will be slowly overtaken by more checkouts, more moves, and a slowly increasing pace of closure to our holiday. To mark the bittersweet moment, the morning sunrise was beautifully captured by Kat's handy photography skills and gives a great indication of why I love Manhattan so much!

Day 3 - New York City

Tuesday 29 December 2009. Day 3 in New York City.

Today was a much more adventurous day than day 2, but probably not as much excitement as day 1's novelty and adrenaline-filled exploration of the financial capital of the world. Besides, day 1 lasted effectively 40 hours or so for us (if you factor in that we woke up Saturday 9am SA time, flew to NYC 8am Sunday NYC time (that's 26 hours + 7 hours time difference + we stayed up until 10pm which is another 14 hours... that makes the entire day 47 hours for us).

Here's what our day consisted of:

1. 
   
   Kat woke me up this morning with a very cheery "good morning!" and I had to beg her to let me sleep in a little more. She had already opened up the curtains to display our wonderful Manhattan view.
   
   
   
2. 
   
   Experiencing truly frigid New York City weather.
   
   
   
3. 
   
   Did some walkabout in Central Manhattan.
   
   
   
4. 
   
   Shopped at World of Disney's 75% off EVERYTHING.
   
   
   
5. 
   
   Broke a bauble at World of Disney
   
   
   
6. 
   
   Visited St. Thomas Cathedral.
   
   
   
7. 
   
   Visited MOMA
   
   
   
8. 
   
   Trekked to USS Intrepid Museum
   
   
   
9. Visited Hershey's
   
10. 
    
    Visited M&M's World
    
    
    
11. 
    
    Played with Winnie (the Pooh)
    
    
    
12. 
    
    Visited Nintendo World
    
    
    
13. 
    
    Looked at the Rockefeller Centre Christmas Tree, Ice Rink, and ...
    
    
    
14. 
    
    Went to the Top of the Rock
    
    
    
15. 
    
    Experienced jazz sax. music in the subway
    

Day 2 - New York City

Two days have passed since our arrival in New York City, and Monday was our first proper glimpse of a thriving city "that never sleeps". The weather was colder today, but surprisingly, the sun was still up despite the forecasts predicting snow and clouds.

Sadly, I woke up at 7:30am to the distant cry for help from the bathroom, where Kat had just been sick. This marked the pattern for the day, with Kat having to purge whatever remnants of yesterday's food was in her system. She was bundled into bed, where I made her rest for the entire day.

While Kat slept (she's still sleeping now), I decided to do my best to plan our remaining days and venture out on my own briefly...

Day One - New York City

Here you have it, ladies and gentlemen - a report back of our Day one in New York City. This is a long report, since our "Day One" began on December 26 3pm in South Africa and ended December 27 11pm in New York City! Plus, of course, there's always more to report on your first day out :)

New York City... we're heeeeeeere

We have landed! We have arrived! We're now a part of it... New York, New York!

Hooray - what an exciting time this is! It's an adventure and a half and we haven't even started. The hotel is great (see picture from our bedroom attached), and we're a block away from the subway. We're on our way now to Time Square for some Starbucks coffee and a Big Mac from McDonalds, and then it's off to Planet Hollywood to collect our city passes, and maybe - hopefully - we'll spend the evening at Tim Keller's church.

More to follow!

(photo's of me are not at all flattering, but that's how it goes after 20+ hours of flying)

Goodbye South Africa!

See you guys on the flipside!

News - Science: Huge US storm curtails Christmas celebrations

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=nw20091225134940241C170933

We are leaving for USA tomorrow afternoon and look at what we're in for!

Stare at the centre of this image for 20 seconds...

...And then look up! What do you see?
(HINT: you may require some faith)

Sunrise Chip 'n' Ranch

The time is correct!

From boardgames with friends, and rounding off with Johnny's (in)famous Chip & Triple Cheese "with mutton gravy" Roti's*.

Good times become great times! In this photo, Allen's "ruptured his roti".

* our wives are asleep, and three of us actually had beans + chips + cheese, only Chris ventured out into the dark realm of "mutton"

South Africa - the land of braaivleis and bil...

...Gates!

Yes, you heard me - Bill Gates!

A brief update from Kat

Bryan is once again nagging me to post something on our blog and although I love reading blogs and especially Bryan's Blah Blah Blah, I find it tough sharing news without some big event having happened. Anyway here is a brief update on what we have been doing from my perspective:

busy busy busy sums up the past few weeks/months/year!!!

Bryan and I have, for some unknown reason (possibly it's end of year madness) been super busy; late to bed and early to rise (unless like yesterday I forget the alarm clock!). I believe this is dubbed burning the candle at both ends...I think we're at the point where there is just wick curling up into cinders :P

I don't know why but every year Novemeber and December became this stressful rush to get everything done. Along with the pressures at work and totally insane work loads (I love my job but it's about 3 jobs in one); Bryan starts freaking that we still haven't got Christmas presents sorted because gone are the days when a few painted pegs, homemade truffles and Christmas cards are sufficient. We end up planning and thinking up gifts (which of course HAVE to be recorded on pages and pages of Google docs) before we leave the house because the alternative is a glaze eyed stagger around a horrible mall bumping into equally zombified shoppers and resulting in lots of money spent and not the equivalent value in spectacular gifts for everyone. All the work parties and church ministry events are happening at the same time so we have tons of events and parties to attend - all of which require you to dress up (which is a pain seeing as my clothes seem to have all shrunk!) and bring something ...food; R50 gift and energy...all in all I feel exhausted at the thought of the weeks ahead and the festivities have barely begun.
Our additional and distracting busyness is exacerbated by the excitement of planing our trip to the US (we leave on Boxing Day) which is a great opportunity afforded by my work, it is however super stressful for too very cautious decision-makers to book flights; hotels and plan the itinerary without breaking the bank and throttling each other.

I'm the only one left at work on Friday afternoon and it's 4:54pm and although I was really looking forward to a peaceful weekend, I had forgotten that I'm helping set up a stall at our church ministry fair (this involves preparing a fake snake..I'm stuffing a pink stocking; baking and icing 50 cupcakes without eating a whole bunch and finding a tree in a pot --- our stall's carnival game is bite the apple with a Garden of Eden theme); there is a YA picnic at Michell Park; I am going to a image consultant event in the morning and along with manning the stall on Sunday morning, I'm watching my adorable 3 year old niece/goddaughter (Gracie) being a moo cow in her first ever play early Sunday.

It is pretty much mayhem and although Bryan and I keep muttering to each other that we need to bring balance back into our lives as we rush past, more like speedboats than slow ocean liners in the night, we can't seem to gear down to park!

Here's hoping that somehow we get the balance back and I get a chance to sleep in and stay in pyjamas for a day!

To all you merry, slow moving people, I hope you rub off on Bryan and I :)

Waffles! A fine way to end a retreat down the coast...

Mmmm... Tasty!

Retreat time!

We've arrived!

Supper time :)

Thanks Layle & Emz!

Kids... We can wait :)

I think this picture says it all...