My SECOND Lovely Little Holiday

So from 26th Nov to 1st Dec I was on holidays. As an aupair we get 2 paid hols a year, my first was when I went to Niagara etc and this holiday I decided to stay in New York. Monday and Tuesday I stayed in the house, Monday was my cleaning/sorting/practice packing day and Tuesday I blissfully stayed in bed allllll day!

Wednesday I spent the day in the city by myself. I decided to start at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) which normally costs $20 to get in, but my host dad knows someone who works there so I got in for free. They had a Tim Burton exhibit so I checked that out as well as some other paintings, sculptures and photos. The Tim Burtone exhibit was awesome, I loved seeing all his work together and all the characters & ideas he had created but have not yet come to the screen. After the morning at MoMA, I walked around the area and had some lunch.
Then at 2pm I had tickets to see the 'Radio City Hall Rockettes Christmas Spectacular' which is a famous New York Christmas show thats been playing for years and is a big tradition. It was a huge theatre with the biggest chandelier I've ever seen in the lobby, and 3 mezzazines (balconies) inside, with a great big stage. The Rockettes are dancers and they performed '12 days of Christmas' purely by tapping it out and not singing until the last line! It was amazing they did movements to go with each number and tapped it so beautifully. They also told different Christmas songs, did different Christmas songs and Christmas dances. Another great dance was they all dressed up as toy soldiers and fell over in a huge line - it was fantasic!
It was cold and rainy when I came out of the theatre but I headed up to the Upper West Side to watch them blow up the balloons for the Thanksgiving parade the next day. I arrived an hour and a half after they started but they were unfortunately already all blown up and it was a bit of a waste of time!

That night I didn't go to sleep at all because I had to take a 5.20am train back into the city! I met the other girls at the station at about 6am and we headed back over to the Upper West Side about 76th street just a few blocks after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade would start. By the time we had arrived (detouring to get breakfast & coffee, coffee, coffee) it was around 7am and we got a fantastic spot right on the corner, about 3 people in from the sidewalk. WHen the parade FINALLY started at 9am, it was well worth the wait =) It was amazing they had dancers, marching bands, cheerleaders, jumpropers and random walkers...plus lots of floats. Castles, M&M theatre world, central park, sesame street...with different celebs on them Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Gaynor, Boys like Girls, Miss America. Plus of course the giant balloons! Dora, Horton, Buzz, Santa, Spongebob oh they were so huge and so awesome! They finished with Santa and it was definitly one of my top 5 New York moments and everything I'd hoped =).
I got home around 1pm and had a little nap before Thanksgiving dinner which we had at about 5pm. It was all my host family, one of their cousins & uncle plus a family from around the corner. We had a huge giant turkey, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, green beans, corn and all the cliche televised Thanksgiving food! It was delicious and we barely had room for the pumpkin pie, chocolate cake and ice cream for dessert. It was a beautiful meal and we had some great conversations and it was a really lovely holiday.

The next day (Friday if you lost count) I had a very early birthday present! My host mom took me and my host girl to Harlem's famous Apollo theatre where a special performance of 'Dreamgirls' was playing. We saw the matinee and it was spectacular - especially Effie's 'I'm not going' which gave me goosebumps!Then we went to a soul food restaurant 'Sylvia's' and I had the most delicious meal - catfish, yams and garlic potatoes mmmmmmm.

Saturday was a big day in the city for sarah, Steph and I we took some tour buses around the city. One downtown then one night tour, which was great to see all the lights of the city (we viewed it from Brooklyn). In between these two tours we had lunch at a quite little tavern, and had a few drinks. It was a really nice day but very long and tiring.

Sunday was my last day of holidays - rest day until dinner that night at our fav restaurant the Cheesecake Factory for Christina's birthday. It was such a fun celebration with alot of the girls there - me, Sarah, Steph, Christina, Emily, Dani, Emma, Alice and Olivia.

HOlidays over, and back to work (blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah) bright and earlyish Monday morning =)