Sleigh Ride & A Movie

I was extremely sad about being forced to cancel our travel plans. But the snow storm had affected every inch of the North East and we had no alternatives. JFK was at a standstill the past two days. Trying to cheer me up Nelson took me on my very first sleigh ride. After making several inquiries Nelson found Cedar Knoll Farm in CT, that actually offered sleigh rides today. It was a beautiful day of be outside. Though it was a bit pricey and didn't actually go on for the full 30mins as promised, it was a lot of fun.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we saw the best movie of 2010, The King's Speech. Colin First and Geoffry Rush were amazing as King George the VI and his eccentric speech therapist. I saw they have the acting category locked up for the Oscars!

Image courtesy of: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/images/2010/11/The-Kings-Speech-Poster1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/11/26/first-poster-for-the-kings-speech/&usg=__CimeHudvQpxoEJiCIVX

Christmas!

On Christmas eve, we went to Ludlow for a traditional family celebration. After continuous eating, talking and lots of presents we were back in NY to prepare for our upcoming trip. We had no idea that the snow storm had other plans!

Remembering Germany

Our first trip outside the US was in May 2007. I was away for a week at the University of Bayreuth for research and Nelson came to visit afterwards. We had both been to Germany before but hadn't explored the main cities. So Berlin & Munich were on our agenda. As we were planning out second European trip together I began thinking of our five day adventure.

Berlin: I don't remember where we stayed but the subway system was so easy to navigate and made our trips in and out of the city very convenient.

Pergamon Museum: One of the must see museums in the city. The architectural exhibits were magnificent.


We did hop & hop off tour which made seeing the key sites of the city easy.

The co-existence of the East & the West Germany was apparent and gave this city its unique flavor. On the West side, it was very commercial with the biggest department store int eh world, Ka De We, and H&M stores in each block. The East side had many austere stately buildings. Seeing the 'The Wall" was one of the highlights of the trip. Checkpoint Charlie was another site that fascinated me.

It was about a 5hr train trip to Munchen. We arrived late the at the English Garden Inn. Next day we started our site seeing at the city center with a private walking tour.

We had lunch at the famed Chinese Beer Garden and went for a paddle boat ride at the English Garden. We went to two museums, one a small but unique Spielzeug & Teddy museum, while the other was Alte Pinakothek, a gallery housing paintings before the 19th century.

Travelling in Europe is quite different from all the places we've been to in the last few years, so I'm really looking forward to our upcoming trip.

Exploring Fishkill

The past two weeks have had a number of holiday lunches that has enabled me explore the area. Here is a list of places:

Lo Stilvale- Great Italian lunch buffet with soup, plenty of vege options and a couple of entrees

Sapore- Steakhouse with an amazing seafod platter to start with.

The Blue Fountain- Though not typically open on Mondays, we had a specially catered holiday lunch. The cannoli cake was more than icing on the cake!

Last Saturday, I was trying to scope out the area with a friend and decided to have brunch in Beacon. It was a typical small town with restaurants, coffee shops and a variety of small stores. We spent hours at the Brother's Trattoria sharing a pizza before heading to a coffee shop near by.

Christmas in the City

On Saturday we headed to one of the busiest places in the city; Times Square. But seeing the light in all its splendor did put us in a great holiday mood. We met p with some friends from Cornell and started walking towards the West side hoping to find a good restaurant. Not wanting to walk too far, we settled on Brazil Grill. It was not too crowded and offered many seafood inspired dishes with a southern twist in addition to all the meat entrées. I had ceviche served in a coconut shell, which was very refreshing.

We took advantage of being in Times Square to visit the Pop Tarts Store, which was following the trend of the M&M store. We decided $5 was too much for a pop tart and walked away empty. On our way to a friend's holiday party on the UES, we decided to walk through 5th Avenue and see the much hyped store fronts. Saks was elaborate with several scenes depicted at each window. With a bunch of tv screens, Bloomingdales was boring and lazy. I loved this light fixture from Dior. The glimpse of the Rockefeller tree was festive as expected.

What I really enjoyed were the stalls at Bryant Park that seems to be the closest thing to a christmas market in NY. We had a few different things to eat and browsed through a few holiday stores. The skating rink had a very long waiting line. There were even ping pong tables set up on one side of the park. It was a great, relatively warm winter night, perfect for enjoying the sights of NYC.

In between activities in the evening,, we watched Black Swan, one of the most notable movies of the year. Natalie Portman was excellent in this role with shades. It was a thinking movie and I couldn't stop myself from reading as many reviews afterwards.

OMG! Usher!

Nelson got me tickets to see Usher at the Prudential in Newark as another birthday surprise. I have been a huge Usher fan this year and it was that his be my first real concert. On our way, we stopped at Bhoj restaurant in NJ as we had in the summer. The food was really good. The best chicken dish ever!

Due to the traffic a few blocks from the theater, we arrived almost 30mins late. We had missed the first act, we were time to see the second opening act Trey Songz, a singer who I had not heard of until that evening. But he seemed to draw as large and maybe even more devoted fans than Usher. We were completely entertained by a young girl who sat beside us, who was a diehard fan. Trey Songz was an entertaining singer and played to his audience with his sensuous shirt removing act.

Usher rose from the ground on a moving platform and performed till the end with very few breaks in between. The highlight of the show was his performance with an audience member to a very slow song. Though shy at first, the girl got in the groove and did a great job. My most awaited moment came at the end when he performed my two hits of the year!

Christmas Shopping

Our goal this weekend was to finish most of our gift shopping. Though we had thought of going to Woodbury, we settled for the indoor comfort of Palisades. With the ongoing sales and store coupons we got soem great deals and accomplished our taskes with hours to spare. Hence, we treated ourselves to a movie in a long time. We watched Love and Other Drugs. Anne Hathway and Jake Gylenhaal did a good a job on this different take in the romantic comedy genre. On Sunday we dropped into the Westchester and made more headway on our shopping list.


Image from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758752/

Old Town Scottsdale

After some pampering at the Dolce Spa, we ended our stay in AZ with a visit to Old Town Scottsdale. It was completely touristy with a Western feel to it. There were souvenir and jewelry shops in every corner. It was a cool part of town to spend the evening. We had some great Thai food at a relatively new restaurant called Malee's. The entrees and desserts were really good. The Scottsdale Shopping Center which was close by was a large upscale mall. The Microsoft store which was obviously modeled on the Apple Store was one unique feature. It was a great way to end our fantastic adventure in Arizona. We arrived in New York having experienced no body scanners, pat downs or travel delays. So much for all the paranoia about thanksgiving travel!