Let it snow, let it snow......

Tubing was awesome! Tubing is travelling down a slippery snow slope at break neck speed on a rubber tube – because you can!! Similar to an Aquaracer back at home in Australia, racing down water slides, but if you fall off the snow ones, it’s gonna hurt!!  We had no idea what to expect, but it was SO much fun. Had a little wait in line to purchase tickets, about 40 mins, but then it was 2 hours of up and down the mountain. It was great to catch up with our other friends Karina and Erica whilst there. Only for a short time but lovely to see them both again.

The next day at Anne & Priscilla’s house, we were treated to a beautiful down pour of snow. An amazing sight for Australian eye’s. Jackson and David made snow angels and had snow ball fights. We were happy to walk around in it, taking pictures, as it didn’t seem that cold.  In the evening, we met some more friends of Anne’s – Michael and Jason. Loads of laughs, wine and appetizers – a fun time had by all.

Our final day in Boston, a Fenway Park baseball field tour (home of the Red Sox) with Kevin. Fenway Park is  the oldest baseball field in the USA and 1 of only 2 baseball parks left, the other being the Chicago Cubs Wrigley Field, all others are classed as stadiums. 

This was followed by a meal at Walburgers, (a franchise started by Mark Wahlburg the actor and his brothers) to say ‘Goodbye’ and ‘Thanks so much for having us. After finishing our late lunch, it was off to the airport, heading  to Orlando tonight to enjoy some warm weather.

Christmas at Boston..!

We left Washington D.C. 5am on Friday morning. Our destination was Boston for Christmas. Our lovely Brazilian friends are taking us in for the week, to celebrate Christmas with their families. 

We had a fairly long lay over in Chicago – 9 hours so we saw this as an opportune time to catch up with our other friends Tom and Carol. As per our Brazilian family and our Orlando families, we too met Tom and Carol 5 years ago on our big trip in Florida, same holiday apartments – Driftwood Beach Club. We caught a train/bus from the airport to Navy Pier on the water front of Chicago looking out over Lake Michigan. We enjoyed a great lunch, chat and a few drinks at Margaritaville, although it was only 11.00 am, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere!

Lake Michigan was starting to freeze over in parts and there was plenty of snow still on the ground from the deluge that had taken place the week before.  Jackson enjoyed making snow balls out of the left over snow and throwing them at us all, before it was time to say goodbye, head back to the airport for the next part of our flight. We took the term planes, trains and automobiles to a new meaning by the end of the day. Our flight slightly delayed due to having to ‘de-ice’ the wings of the plane before take off – a term the Australian’s have NEVER heard before!!

After arriving in Boston safely at 10.30pm, collected by Anne, this was the start of our most enjoyable time with her family and friends. 

Light snow covered the grounds and Christmas lights on almost every house. Christmas Eve we were treated to a Brazilian feast! Welcomed with open arms, an amazing meal, great conversations, a beautifully decorated tree, lights across the mantle piece and a wood fire. The ambience was incredible. Although I couldn’t be home to share this time with my own family, this was certainly the next best thing.

Christmas day was a little slower thankfully, kids waking up to stockings and gifts Santa had left them and eating left overs all day. A great experience to sample a ‘white Christmas’. We took a walk to a lake behind Anne’s Mum’s house and skimmed rocks across the frozen water, we played in the snow and built a snow man.

A longer walk was in order the next day to get rid of some ‘Christmas cheer’. That simple task done so often at home, proved to be a little more difficult here in the snow! Two steps out the front door the sidewalk was iced up, and the sliding started. Snow had been pushed up the street every few houses like speed humps, so it felt like an obstacle course more so than a stroll..!!

Tomorrow we are off to the Snow fields to ride in some tubes. I have no idea what that is…..

Ocean City and Washington D.C.

We had some ‘down time’ out here in Ocean City, after the very sad news of the passing of my dear Mum back home. On the upside now we feel she is watching over us each and every day now on our adventures and her memories will be treasured forever.  We spent most of our time in the apartment as the minus 6 degree celcius temperatures inhibited what we could and could not do. We enjoyed being able to make some home cooked meals, play cards together and get back on our feet. One day we did venture out to the beautiful Boardwalk at Ocean City and took a stroll on the empty beach and viewed all the closed up stores for the Winter months.

Off to Washington DC – National Harbour. What a BEAUTIFUL place. Very classy, very clean, lots of families, convenience stores, restaurants and attractions all within walking distance (not the 35 block walking distance that we have become accustomed too either)! At National Harbour they have the largest, Christmas tree we have ever seen. Every half an hour at night they have a light show on the tree. National Harbour is the fastest growing area on the East Coast, with MGM opening a casino just 4 days before we arrived and they already have extracted money from me –( David) !!!!!! WE had an appointment to drop the car rental to Downtown D.C., the next morning, about 20 mins from our hotel. Easier said than done with the roads all frozen over and the Aussies way out of our depth in driving these conditions, so we found the closest drop off point, about 5 mins away and at a very slow cautious pace we made our way there without incident, although many others weren’t so lucky.

We have spent the first 3 days in Washington mainly exploring the area we are staying and shopping for some more winter clothes before the cold weather really sets in, at our next stop Boston. We also shared a Dinner with a friend we used to work with back home in Maryborough – Marty Noonan and his lovely partner Jenny. 20 years since we would’ve seen each other and through the wonders of Facebook it allowed us to reconnect earlier in the year.

Monday night football at Fed Ex Field tonight, Redskins V Panthers, then sight seeing for the next few days, stay tuned………..

Well, let’s not focus on the football, have now been to 2 redskins games at Fedex Field and they have lost both times, so I don’t think I’ll be going again anytime soon………

Sight seeing has been different this time around, a 45 min. train ride in, get off in the middle of the city, walk to any site/attraction/museum we want and away we go. Last time we did the hop on/hop off tour and as detailed it was, it felt rushed, so has been great to actually take it all in. Have visited 5 museums, all of which are free entry, as they encourage students, tourists and anyone else to be able to learn without having to pay. Last time they had only just started work on the Martin Luther King Jr. monument, so was actually nice to see it finished. We have also been to the ice sculpting exhibition here in National Harbour, 6000 lbs of ice, 32 semi trailers to bring the ice in and countless hours of sculpting by the artists, not to mention the -13 degree temperature to view it, felt like I was at work driving the fork lift back in the McCains freezer. Finished our time in Washington with some more shopping, mainly for Xmas stuff and sorted our gear, packed our bags, look out Boston, here we come ………..

Had logged on with too many devices at the hotel, so had to wait till we hit the airport for some free wi fi, that's why it's taken awhile for this post.......................

NYC and Ocean City - Maryland

The Yankee Stadium tour was interesting for the boys, girls went shopping in Harlem.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it is bizarre being in the minority of white people in the district shopping area.

In and around our area on the Upper West side, most high rise apartment blocks are around 5 stories high. That is because anything 6 and above requires an elevator. Our last day in NYC saw us have a lazy time, wondering Central Park playgrounds and visiting Strawberry Fields, a

part of the park dedicated to John Lennon, so his Widow - Yoko Ono can look out of her penthouse window and view it. It got too cold at -1 degrees Celsius and we headed back to the apartment to watch the NFL games.

Our room consists of only 2 double beds, a TV and a basin. As we don’t have a fridge to keep our food and drinks cool, at minus 1 degrees Celsius, the window ledge did the job! The sun sets here at about 4.40pm. Snow began to fall at 5pm! Our doorman laughed because we hadn’t seen much snow before and built the kids a small snowman. The snow all turned to slush by morning. 

Up at 6am and onto our Greyhound bus out to Ocean City – Maryland. All buses equipped with wifi and charging stations, much to Makalea’s delight for 8 hours!! Our plan is to have 4 days of peace and quiet – off the grid to recover and recoup our finances after Manhattan, living on take out and snacks for the 6 days, we were looking forward to be able to cook.

Ocean City is an Atlantic coastal resort town – an absolute entertainment mecca in the Summer time.  Home to about 8,000 residence, this town swells to around 350,000 people on weekends in the Summer, hosting around 8 million visitors annually. 2 amusement parks line the Atlantic Boardwalk, which lasts for 37 blocks, copious mini golf centers, restaurants, bars and surf shops – all closed for the season! You could fire a cannon up these streets today in Winter and not hit anyone. The Connor’s thought they could walk a couple of blocks to find a Grocery Store and buy some food, but unfortunately 'no', 30 blocks later, we found the only Supermarket open in town in Winter. We do have ocean views from our apartment though and it is just beautiful.

We're back... New York December 2016

After saving up again for another 2 years, to be able to travel back to the U.S, our early morning start to the airport was not without it’s problems! 

Firstly a flat car battery, so had to make a mercy call to a good friend at 3am for a lift to the airport, followed by our 13 hours flight time of the poor kid behind us throwing up the entire way across the Pacific to Los Angeles. The 2nd flight across to New York the guy next to us decides to pass out cold! 

Anyhow moving on…….checked into our accommodation at our first stop New York City about 11pm local time, thankful we arrived safely and slept well!

Staying on Broadway, just 2 blocks from Central Park, on the Upper West Side, we spent the day wondering around. Totally enjoying not having to be anywhere in particular for work, appointments, school pick ups, sport drop offs….just us and no pressure to run to schedule!

The weather here was not dissimilar to a Ballarat day of about 8 degrees. Coats and scarves on and walked for about 7 hours around the park. Beautiful lakes, ponds that freeze over, park lands, bridges, sports grounds, playgrounds, Zoo and of course a skating rink. Not to mention the gorgeous ‘Bouthouse’ restaurant! Took loads of photo’s and have popped them on for you all to enjoy.

Day 2 – getting a bit colder now. Today saw us take on the Empire State Building. Went up to the observation deck to take some great photo’s over New York City. Then off to Madison Square Gardens for a tour. Home of the New York Knicks (Basketball) and the New York Rangers (Ice Hockey). Seats approx. 20,000 people. To create the ice hockey rink they only have enough time to freeze and melt the surface area once a year. When they have a concert or basketball game straight after a hockey game they just place the court straight over the top of the ice, taking only 3 hours to do so. Very interesting! At night we had tickets to the New York Islanders Vs St Louis Blues ice hockey game over in Brooklyn at the Barclay Centre.

Day 3 – Caffeine required! Grabbed our standard Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to start the day and off to catch our ‘Hop on hop off’ bus tour. 241 Starbucks coffee shops in New York but prefer the Dunkin’s coffee. However to our Tour Guide’s credit he took us to a Pastry Shop that he said had the ‘best’ coffee in New York City. Yes – he was right. It was comparable to a ‘good’ Melbourne coffee back home. So am happy now we have somewhere to go on the Upper West Side to have great coffee.

Covered the Harlem area this morning then back down to the Rockerfella Centre to see the infamous Christmas tree! Yes very beautiful but I was disappointed at how small the skate rink was, so chose not to skate here like I’d wanted to. Took the Ferry out on the Hudson River to see the Statue of Liberty and the amazing Manhattan Skyline. 

Very, very cold today. -1 degrees celcuis and I’d hate to think what the wind chill is. We have nearly all our clothes on today, thermals, t.shirts, jumpers/sweaters, coats, hats, scarves (and now gloves have been added to our collection)!! 

It gets dark about 4.30 – 5pm here, so headed to the Central Park Skate Rink to skate under lights on the Trump Rink. Amazing time, just beautiful. Then walked from 57^th Street back to 101^st Street to home.

Tomorrow see’s a day of shopping for the girls and a baseball field tour of the New York Yankee’s Stadium for the boys.