The out of towners

Getting back to the airport proved to be a lot easier than getting away from it had been Friday night, but we did wind up seeing just a little more of Newark than we had planned. Our bus connection from the airport, however, went off without a hitch, and we were at our hotel by 4 that afternoon.

I had found great internet rates at the Grand Hyatt, adjacent to Grand Central Station, and our room was small yet clean and comfortable. Mike was entranced by the television screens in the elevators:



After we checked in, we set off on a walking tour. Our goal was to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Plaza lit up at night, which we managed to do:



It was a madhouse though, and not only did we not ice skate, we didn't even get close enough to see other people ice skating!

As we walked up Fifth Avenue on our way to the tree, we enjoyed the decorated store fronts but were aghast to see people standing in line--30 people deep--just to get inside. We stumbled across American Girl Place and were able to get inside to do a little reconnaisance work for the next day when Annabelle would launch a full-scale retail assault. Shop and awe, baby!

From the Christmas tree, we walked down towards Times Square. The kids were impressed with the Charmin restrooms on Broadway:



For supper we stopped in at Bella Vita where $50 cash bought a very large 3-topping pizza, a huge plate of spaghetti and meatballs, and 1 rootbeer (water for the rest), plus tip. After everything I had heard about what a cash suck NYC is, I didn't think that was terribly unreasonable. Heck, a trip to Chick-Fil-A in Elizabethtown leaves us $25 poorer!

We were back at the hotel and asleep by 9 that night in order to rest up for the days to come.