M&Ms, dining with strangers, and other holiday stuff
It's been a great Christmas week, even if it's been a bit of a whirlwind. It started on Sunday, when Mädchen's Ama arrived at the airport from North Carolina:
Her arrival allowed us the rare treat of getting to go on an actual dinner date Monday night at a restaurant downtown we've been wanting to try for awhile, and it didn't disappoint. Tuesday morning we were in the car for a relatively easy drive to NYC. Even though my brother's family lives out in Queens, it's such a rare treat for us to get up to NYC (where I was living when Gretchen and I met) that we decided to stay at a hotel in Manhattan. I don't really care for Times Square all that much, but the central location and easy access to the subway to Queens made it a logical place to stay. Besides, you can do worse than having this view out your window:
Mädchen couldn't get enough of staring out the window at the sights:
She was enthralled by the sights outside as well:
What was she so excited about seeing? Was it the taxis? The bright lights? The throngs of people from all over the world? The three-card monte con men? The crazy drunk men urinating in the subway stairwells? No...it was the M&Ms. (Did you know there was a store devoted to M&M products? Well, there is. And judging from the crowds inside, the number of people taking pictures outside, and the amount of time Mädchen spent asking to see the M&Ms, it's a big draw.):
Christmas Eve was the one day we had to wander the city, but unfortunately it was pouring rain so all we could manage was a quick walk around Soho before realizing that maybe a two-year-old would rather be seeing M&Ms from her hotel window than wandering cold and damp past expensive shops. Oh well, I guess that just means we need to go back soon. Later that afternoon, my brother brought Mädchen's four-year-old cousin in to meet us. Despite having only met each other once before, and despite Mädchen's general shyness around people she doesn't know well, they immediately bonded as if they'd known each other forever:
That night we went out for an amazing dinner at a trattoria near their house, where we had a sublime "Feast of the Seven Fishes" and too much red wine. At one point we realized Mädchen's cousin (who can be as gregarious as Mädchen is shy) was no longer at the table, but was instead seated by himself at the bar. Before long he had moved over to befriend a guy who was eating his dinner alone at the bar:
The next morning it was back to my brother's place for Christmas Day. Mädchen tore into her presents like there was no tomorrow, not even really stopping to look at what she got:
And her stocking, which wasn't actually a stocking but was instead a bag that was almost as tall as her, required great effort to get to the bottom:
After presents we stretched our legs and walked down to the East River, where we had a nice view across to Manhattan:
And after another big meal we tried to take a self-portrait with the timer on our new camera (despite Mädchen's usual reticence to be in the photo):
Alas, the next morning it was back on the road with seemingly half of the people in the Northeast for a long, traffic-filled drive home. Hopefully everyone else had happy holidays as well!
Her arrival allowed us the rare treat of getting to go on an actual dinner date Monday night at a restaurant downtown we've been wanting to try for awhile, and it didn't disappoint. Tuesday morning we were in the car for a relatively easy drive to NYC. Even though my brother's family lives out in Queens, it's such a rare treat for us to get up to NYC (where I was living when Gretchen and I met) that we decided to stay at a hotel in Manhattan. I don't really care for Times Square all that much, but the central location and easy access to the subway to Queens made it a logical place to stay. Besides, you can do worse than having this view out your window:
Mädchen couldn't get enough of staring out the window at the sights:
She was enthralled by the sights outside as well:
What was she so excited about seeing? Was it the taxis? The bright lights? The throngs of people from all over the world? The three-card monte con men? The crazy drunk men urinating in the subway stairwells? No...it was the M&Ms. (Did you know there was a store devoted to M&M products? Well, there is. And judging from the crowds inside, the number of people taking pictures outside, and the amount of time Mädchen spent asking to see the M&Ms, it's a big draw.):
Christmas Eve was the one day we had to wander the city, but unfortunately it was pouring rain so all we could manage was a quick walk around Soho before realizing that maybe a two-year-old would rather be seeing M&Ms from her hotel window than wandering cold and damp past expensive shops. Oh well, I guess that just means we need to go back soon. Later that afternoon, my brother brought Mädchen's four-year-old cousin in to meet us. Despite having only met each other once before, and despite Mädchen's general shyness around people she doesn't know well, they immediately bonded as if they'd known each other forever:
That night we went out for an amazing dinner at a trattoria near their house, where we had a sublime "Feast of the Seven Fishes" and too much red wine. At one point we realized Mädchen's cousin (who can be as gregarious as Mädchen is shy) was no longer at the table, but was instead seated by himself at the bar. Before long he had moved over to befriend a guy who was eating his dinner alone at the bar:
The next morning it was back to my brother's place for Christmas Day. Mädchen tore into her presents like there was no tomorrow, not even really stopping to look at what she got:
And her stocking, which wasn't actually a stocking but was instead a bag that was almost as tall as her, required great effort to get to the bottom:
After presents we stretched our legs and walked down to the East River, where we had a nice view across to Manhattan:
And after another big meal we tried to take a self-portrait with the timer on our new camera (despite Mädchen's usual reticence to be in the photo):
Alas, the next morning it was back on the road with seemingly half of the people in the Northeast for a long, traffic-filled drive home. Hopefully everyone else had happy holidays as well!
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