When Holly Came To Stay - Part I

Holly landed late on Monday night.  My boss had taken me out for a lovely Thai meal for my birthday with my friend Amel so that I was able to stay in the city.  After this, and many 2 for 1 cocktails, it was time to make the journey to JFK to meet Holly at the departure gate. 

After taking two trains, and waiting for 45 minutes, and feeling like an idiot for approximately 90% of those minutes as I clutched in my hand a sign saying 'Holly "Vole" Patton', and making friends with a grand total of 4 drivers...  After all of that, Holly's tired little face came round the corner and we were back together again!

We got back to New Jersey at bout 2am and went straight to sleep. 

The next day, we got up fairly early, and decided not to waste the day!

First stop was Starbucks (of course) to pick up some coffee, and take photos with said Starbucks under the Empire State Building.

PS, doesn't Holly look like she was superimposed on this photo, like those lame "Put Yourself In the Picture" fake backgrounds you can get in photobooths?  I assure you she was actually there...

I then had some Mountbatten coursework to hand in, and as the Mountbatten office is right by Grand Central Station, we took a wander in there:

We eventually made it all the way up to Central Park.  I love Central Park and the way it changes throughout the year.  This day was cold, but bright and fresh.  The Mall looked like it would be ready for spring any second. 

Instead, it got us two losers haha:

We were heading for The Boathouse, which overlooks this lake (yes that is the same lake I did the rowing on back in September):

At The Boathouse, we had some lovely food overlooking that lovely view.  There is less rowing this time of year, but it's still beautiful.  I had the Seafood Salad, which was more seafood and less salad. And Holly had the Goat's Cheese Cake. Oh and I think we both had the Lobster Bisque as well. It was yummy.

After this we did some shopping on 5th avenue (this will become a re-occuring theme of this visit!) and as the sun looked like it was getting lower in the sky, we made our way to the Rockefeller Center.  If you are going to go up some sort of tall building in New York, that is the best time to do it in my opinion.

We got there and watched the skaters at the ice rink (yes, it's still there) and had a quick look at the neon fountainy thing that is where the tree goes at christmastime:

Then we made our way to the Top of the Rock.  I haven't been up the Empire State Building yet (I know, shocking!) but I think if you're just here for  short time and only want to go up one, I've been recommended to choose the Rockefeller.  I've now done it twice, and I'm sure the view is spectacular from the top of the Empire State, but when you're at the Top of the Rock, you get to have the Empire State in all your photos too! Bonus!  So without further ado, I present to you, Holly and Lj get ridiculous on Top of the Rock:

It started off all nice like:

And, well, here's what I mean about ridiculous.. I mean you really can't take us anywhere without us creating some kind of comedy drama for the sake of celluloid documentation, (a.k.a we pose a lot, and it makes people stare, but I love it haha).  In the following example we are "falling" of the tall building, and looking damned scared about it.  I mean, if there were some kind of photo oscars, I think we should win best comedy double act. Our abilities are second to none.  I impress even myself sometimes I really do haha!

Here we are looking hardcore in front of Central Park:

I probably should mention that while we were messing about and being silly, literally within yards of us, we think, we think two people were getting engaged... it was so cute, they were just off in a corner on their own, talking in low hushed voices, and the girl was crying, but like happy crying and she kept putting her hand over her mouth.  And me and Holly go and ruin it all with our "No, look more scared... like you're actually going to DIE!!" and shizzle.  You really can't take us anywhere.

But we take nice photos too:

As does New York, you won't catch her mucking about and being silly.  World's most professional poser: