When my aunt called me a few weeks before Christmas and invited me to go with her and my cousin Allynn to New York for Christmas, I was ecstatic! I had never done anything like that before! Soon I traveled all the way to West Virginia, where my aunt and cousin live, so we could drive the rest of the way to New York.
Driving into the city through the Lincoln tunnel was amazing. Shortly after entering the tunnel, we realized we had no idea where we were actually going. There were public busses and taxis everywhere flying past us at 65 mph and we looked like such tourists actually going the speed limit. My aunt had been relying on her GPS to tell us where to turn, but when we got into the big city, the GPS could hardly keep up! We ended up in a "bus only" lane with no way out. We got stopped by a Russian cop who barely spoke English who let us off with a warning since we had never been there before. She had to stop all of the busses, who were all honking in rage at the slight delay, so we could make a U-turn.
Despite all of that, we eventually made it to the parking garage to park our car and walked three blocks to our hotel, Hotel Deauville http://www.hoteldeauville.com/, which was a wonderful hotel in walking distance from the Empire State Building! The first night we got there, we were restless and could hardly think about resting. We walked down the street to the Empire State Building, http://www.esbnyc.com/, and went all the way to the top. That's 102 floors up! It was so cold up there, but thankfully we had bought thick wool coats before we left. Being from Florida, I had to buy my warm clothes online.
The next morning we popped into a random cafe for breakfast and then headed off to Rockefeller plaza! The journey there on the subway was just as interesting as the destination. It was dirty, smelly, and very loud down there, but we didn't care. We couldn't believe we were going to be able to ride an actual subway train! When we got there, we headed over to the Top of the Rock, http://www.topoftherocknyc.com/, where we got to see a breathtaking view of the city in the daytime. After that we went to Central Park and saw all of the famous statues and buildings. We walked straight through the park and headed toward Times Square. By that time it was dark again, so the lights in Times Square were so dazzling, we couldn't stop looking up. It was so beautiful, like something out of a movie. That was, by far, my favorite part of the trip.
The next morning, we headed over to Rockefeller again really early in the morning so we could watch the taping of the Today show. We were actually on TV in the background waving! That night, we went ice skating in the rink next to the big Christmas tree in Rockefeller plaza. We could see right through the windows of the rink, into the fancy restaurants in the building. The people eating would watch us fall and slip on the ice and laugh along with us as we stumbled around. After that, we returned to our hotel, sore feet and all, and packed for our departure in the morning. I definitely plan on returning to the big city and I can't wait to see what's in store!
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