Lizzie and Scott

Well, here we are! I've finally got a new computer and it's time to start catching up with the updates!

Today we joined a five day guided tour with Marco, who runs the tour business My Christmas In New York. Let me say right from the top that Marco's tours are an amazing adventure, both informative and fun, and well worth seeking out if you come to NYC during the holiday period.

On our way to meet the tour group, we happened to spot a most unusual police car - I'm not quite sure if it was for small police officers, or just for dealing with little crimes!
Our first stop for our first day on the tour just happened to be The Dakota building and Strawberry Fields in Central Park - you'll recall that Lizzie and I showed ourselves these two historical points of interest with their links to the late John Lennon.
From Strawberry Fields we ventured further in to the park and looked at Bethesda Terrace, again a place we had found ourselves earlier.
From there, we headed downtown and in to the thick of it, taking a walk down 5th Avenue. Marco pointed out these tree displays that were scattered along the sidewalk - apparently they are part of a marketing ploy for a new scent to encourage people to buy. At the base of these boxes were small hoses that piped this new christmassy scent in to the air. It was truly a delight to walk along 5th Avenue and smell this beautiful piney odour instead of the pungent stench of marijuana!

Back on the bus we ventured downtown and in to Little Italy, where we found the most amazing Christmas store. It was two stories high and FULL of everything you could possibly imagine - wall to wall Christmas!!!
From there, we came back in to the city and found ourselves on Wall Street, and looking at the New York Stock Exchange.
Whilst we didn't get to see the world famous Wall Street bull (the wait was about an hour!), we did see the statue of the Fearless Girl which I actually knew nothing about before this trip.
Nearby we found Trinity Church, with the sun lighting its beautiful stained windows.
Then we were off again, and came in to Rockefeller Plaza where we met THE GUY who chose the tree for the plaza this Christmas, as he has for the last 20 years!
Lizzie and I had already seen the tree, surrounded in scaffolding, when we went skating at the plaza. Well, today, they had started to remove the scaffolding!
Whilst we were in the area, Marco took us by the world famous toy store, FAO Schwarz, where he introduced us to his friend the Nutcracker! He was a lovely gentleman who embodied the Christmas spirit in New York.
That concluded our tour for the day and we were left with free time for the evening. Lizzie and I decided to stay in the city and explore. Lizzie also indicated she wanted to have dinner from a famous Halal food truck in the city - more on that in a moment!

We wandered around the city for a bit, and found ourselves outside Radio City Music Hall. In the immediate area were a number of different Christmas decorations that were really quite remarkable.
Keep in mind that despite how dark it appears in these photos, it was still before 6 pm!!!

Speaking of 6pm, you recall the Halal food truck that Lizzie wanted to try? Well, we knew that they opened at 6pm, and we also knew that rumour had it the queue to get food from the truck was around an HOUR long! At about 5:45 pm, there was still no sight of this truck, so we had a bit of a look around, and I found the beginning of a line of people just standing on the sidewalk for no0 apparent reason. I mentioned this to Lizzie and we went and joined the end of the line. At this stage, we were about 50 people from the front of the line, and Lizzie asked someone what we were all lining up for. Sure enough, the answer was "Halal truck". So, there we stood and waited and before long, there would have been about 150 people waiting in this line on the side of the road!

Bang on 6pm, a big black van appeared towing a trailer behind it. Within minutes, this trailer became the famous Adel's Halal food truck, and they immediately started serving the waiting crowd!
We waited for close to an hour to be served and I can't lie, I was wondering why we would wait so long for street food. But I have to tell you, if you are ever in NYC and looking for a very tasty dinner at a very reasonable price, get yourself to the southwest corner of 6th Avenue and West 49th Street from 6pm. It is well worth the wait. A word of warning though - if you think you'd like it spicy, perhaps get the spicy sauce on the side. It does carry a bit of heat to it!

After dinner, we started our walk home and stopped off at The Shops At Columbus Circle. We were told by Marco that the Christmas lights in this little shopping centre were very pretty, and we weren't disappointed!
We finished our walk home (12 km's for the day!) and crashed! Tomorrow is a new day!

What an adventure. Pity you didn’t get to rub the Stock Exchange Bull. Maybe your run of unfortunate mistakes and bad luck would have ended. Great story to read.

Very interesting couple of days you’ve experienced, can’t believe you got Liz out of the Christmas decoration shop before dinner! Enjoy reading about what you’ve seen.xx

Glad you’ve got a new laptop Scott, we’ve missed your blogs. You’ll have covered the whole of NYC by the time you leave!!!