It all started when I was a little girl & watching Home Alone 2 : Lost In New York. When I watched the movie (several times every year...duh) I knew I wanted to someday go to NYC at Christmastime.
When you think about it...a lot of Christmas movies take place in NYC. Home Alone 2, Elf, Miracle On 34th Street, tons of Hallmark movies, etc.... It's just a very Christmas-y city.
ANYWAY. I knew ever since I was little that I would go to NYC at Christmastime. I just didn't know when. And to be honest, I didn't know we were going to NYC until a few weeks before we left.
It started when Taylor Swift's album 1989 came out. Of course, I got it on itunes right away. The first song on the album is called "Welcome To New York". I got about halfway through the song & I had to pause it. I called up Alex & basically the conversation was like this:: "Hey...wanna go to New York City in December?" Alex : "This December?" Me: "Ha, yeah!".....and that was when we began planning. It was mid to late October at the time.
We were leaving the week after Thanksgiving. I couldn't believe how fast it got here. Before I knew it we were up at 4 in the morning getting ready to head to RDU Airport for our flight to JFK. Traffic getting to the RDU airport took longer than we thought it would (thanks to traffic) & it took forever to find a place to park in the parking garage.
We were thinking we would have time to relax at the airport...grab some starbucks & watch a movie on the ipad. Well, we had time to get a little something to eat, but that was about it.
Here we are on the flight to NYC.
Alex has always been obsessed with flying. He made friends with the pilot once we landed & the pilot let us go in the cockpit.
I have never been to NYC before. Alex has been a couple of times, but the last time he was there was when he was around 12 or 13 years old. We could see the city from the plane & both of us were so excited! Once we landed, Alex had got us a private car & driver...so we were driven in to the city. Taking in everything around was kinda crazy. It seemed unreal to actually be in NY. Of course...once we left the airport...it looked like we were in the "hood" of NYC. But the closer we got the better we could see the buildings & before we knew it we were at our hotel. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express...a couple of blocks down from Times Square.
