I’ve decided to have somewhat of a blogathon and catch up on the past say… 6 months. If you follow my Twitter, you may not feel as left in the dark than if you just rely on my blog. So I shall start at Christmas (!!!! – DO NOT LAUGH!! ) and then chuck in posts here and there. Deal? Sweet!
To get to Albany we had planned to hire a car and drive up Christmas Eve. Now to say we had some luggage is an understatement – as well as clothes we had so much food to take as Bill was preparing the Christmas lunch and of course, had to bring all the food from Manhattan! 😉 We also had a Trifle I had made and a whole batch of sausage rolls. Then we also had presents as well. So between clothing, food and presents – it was going to be a full load in the car. Here is how my trifle looked –
(Making trifle from mums recipe that we make a zillion times a year was SO DIFFICULT here! Luckily my little Irish shop in Sunnyside, the Butcher Block, actually stocked swiss roll! Mum sent over Cottees Port Wine jelly and I had a stash of custard powder.)
My job was to get to his apartment, bring all the stuff downstairs and then wait as he was picking up the car in Midtown. When I got downstairs there was not a sensible sedan with lots-of-luggage space to be seen. Instead we had – a Mustang Convertible! Eeeek! Now the roof down would be an awesome prospect in summer but it was freezing. So the the roof was staying on and we only just squeezed all of our belongings in the back. This car was a beast! Before we knew it we were on the road. This car has internal floor lights that you can change the colour of. It was that cool!
This is how Bill drives with ‘tude when he is in a Mustang –
I was picturing the usual holiday traffic that you see on news broadcasts – traffic jams for miles, not getting to Albany until after 10pm and crawling along a major highway. The traffic was nothing like that. In no time we were up 9th Avenue, onto the Holland Tunnel and we even did the real American thing of stopping at a rest stop called the Vince Lombardi Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike.
We travelled on Interstate 87 and the best thing was how we paid the tolls for the roads. We got this card –
And then that lets you know how much you have to pay when you get to the place where you’ll be exiting! The view for most of the way as we went through the Catskills looked like this –
Seeing this as a view you can’t help but get a Christmassy feeling!
We got to Albany at about 6.30ish – we made GREAT time as there was hardly any traffic. The hotel that we picked was in a perfect location and was just absolutely lovely inside.
Bill’s sister Pauline and his brother-in-law Rob host the Christmas Eve dinner. My one regret was that I didn’t take a photo of their Christmas tree. Honestly – it was so beautiful! The decorations and the lights were just spectacular! When we pulled up in the Mustang, I opened my door and saw that right beside me was some ground that was going to be slippery. I have developed somewhat of a phobia of falling over on snowy ground so I told Bill “Eeek I cannot get out here!” He was very noble and quickly said he would walk around to the side of the car and help me out. Then I heard a bang and he had fallen into the muddly slushy icy mess and landed against the car. By this time I was screaming from inside the car “Bill nooooo I cannot walk in that!!! I’m too scared!!!” By this time I could also see Bill’s dad standing on the front porch. I could only think to myself that his first impression of me was screaming in a Mustang that I was too scared to walk in the slush!
I eventually made it up to the house and we sat down to a great feast of roast pork and a stack of vegetables. Also – the Johnson Family Desserts were fabulous. Home made goodies and a banana cream pie that was just delicious. We also had another mishap with Bill being accidentally sprayed with Cranberry soda (could you get any more New England than that?!) and poor Bill had to sit there while everyone laughed. Awwww!
We got back to the hotel and decided to check the goods in the boot of the car. Oh dear. My perfect trifle had fallen over in transit and was one big ol’ mess. The beauty of trifle is it taste the same regardless but still part of trifle is how gorgeous it looks!
We decided to open our presents on Christmas Eve and I got a toaster! Yay! Poor Bill got some flack for the toaster choice but this isn’t just any toaster. It has LED lights, lots of selections and I needed a toaster badly. Bill said he has never met anyone who eats as much toast as I do…!
For Bill’s gift, I got him a hint.
Before Christmas, we decided to be ultra Christmassy daggy. I wanted some matching Daryl Somers style Christmas knitwear… like this…
Or this…
Instead, we settled with matching Old Navy Christmas pyjamas. We got up in the morning and got into our matching jammies, walked through the hotel lobby to the mustang and headed on a Christmas morning adventure around Albany. We had to pick up Bill’s sister Eileen so on the way I got Bill-history tour of Albany. One stop included Bill’s old high school (which looks like a university!). Upon driving up to the car park, we were greeted with this sign-
Before long, we were at his parents place preparing for Christmas dinner. We missed breakfast but Bill’s parents have a stash of the most AMAZING English muffins EVER. They are by Wolfermans and seriously – they are just heavenly.
We did a Secret Santa for Christmas presents and Eileen had to buy for me – she got me the most gorgeous collection of kitchenwares for my little apartment kitchen… all in a fabulous bag. I had to buy for Rob – he wanted a Home Depot gift card… so we got him that and hid it in a Boston Bruins bobble head statue!
I made home made sausage rolls to have as a starter and Bill was making two of the most humongous Beef Wellingtons ever. He prepared the duxelles in advance so their flavour was amazing. I got dressed into normal clothes at about 4pm… oops. And due to the chef being busy, Bill didn’t get changed at all.
When the Beef Wellington came out of the oven, Bill had made a kangaroo in the shape of pastry on the top of one of them… awww! A little bit of home!! The Trifle Mess was served with other goodies for dessert – I had my first American Christmas!
Here is a photo of myself with Mrs B before dinner –
We then relaxed around the table and played Pictionary for the rest of the night where Eileen supplied prizes. It was just awesome… we were exhausted and headed back to the hotel where we watched A Christmas Story. This movie is shown on TV on repeat right throughout Christmas.
Unfortunately, Bill had to work Friday in the Albany office so we partook in another American ‘good thing’. My first Cracker Barrel for breakfast! Woohoo! I remember Cracker Barrel restaurants being everywhere when I was in Texas but I never went to one. I now loveeeeeeeeeeee Cracker Barrel!! I still could not believe that here, people have Christmas day and then it is right back to work the next day. It just seems absolutely bizarre!! Imagine having just one day off for Christmas! It isn’t right!!
Anyway, this is what the walls are like at the Cracker Barrel –
After breakfast I went back to the hotel intending on doing this blog entry (!) and catching up on Library reading and chilling out. But then I fell asleep and ended up having the best long sleep ever. I was awoken with a startle when the hotel phone started ringing at 4pm – it was Bill! With my iPhone on silent, I slept right through all his calls. Eeek!!
For dinner we were headed back to the family home for pizza as it was Boxing Day and pizza comes in… boxes!! We decided to utilize the Mustang and have a drive around Albany. In Washington Park they have the Capital Holiday Lights display. This is where you drive through the park, with your radio tuned to a special Christmas station and you look at all the lights on display throughout the park. Unfortunately, we got stuck behind a car where they were taking photos through the windows of EVERY. SINGLE. LIGHT. DISPLAY. IN. THE. PARK. This killed the holiday spirit as I wanted to scream “YOUR PHOTOS ARE GOING TO LOOK TERRIBLE… STEP ON IT!!!!!”
Even though it was about minus 200 degrees (well it felt like it) we put the top down of the Mustang and put the heater on full and drove around at 1 km/h with bad bad bad Christmas music blaring through the speakers.
Here are some photos of how the lights looked –
Awww Sydney!
Snow makes everything look beautiful!
We also made a stop at Target… it was here I stocked up on Pepperidge Farm Tim Tam Cookies and I also spied… Gloria Jeans coffee. That was a bit strange…!
On Saturday morning it was time to head back to the City. We resumed my tour of all of the Bill-places-of-importance… including a trip to drive-through Starbucks for hot drinks.
Before we left, we were going to catch up with some of Bill’s friends for Brunch at a new-ish restaurant in East Greenbush called Chez Mike. It was fabulous finally meeting the people who I have heard so much about and it was a great way to end my first visit to Albany.
Bill and I (and you can see why he got ‘the hint’ for Christmas!)
Brunch at Chez Mike – Jenelle, Bill, Paula, Dawn, Fred, Dan, Steve and Collette.
Top down in the Mustang – Dan, Steve, Bill and Fred.
We did a couple of extra visits on the way to say goodbye to people and then headed on our way back to the city with a few detours.
We went past Martin Van Buren’s house in the most gorgeous little town called Kinderhook and then went to the most adorable apple shop (apples that you eat… not type on!) called Golden Harvest Farms which was in the village of Valatie. We got Apple Cider Donuts, some jams and some Apple Cider and headed on our way. Here are some pics from the Apple shop –
The traffic back to the city was slow moving yet after a few hours before we knew it we were in Harlem! Also before we knew it… we were driving the wrong way down a wrong way street. I was dozy and just said “Um.. Bill… I think this is one way… and it was!” We quickly got out of that situation and had the most beautiful drive down through the Upper West Side and then… through Times Square. Driving through it and being able to enjoy the lights is one of the best things to do… it was so much fun being able to watch everyone from the seclusion of your own car. Just awesome.
By the way – this is my super budget Christmas tree that I put up. I bought the tree and all the decorations and lights and the little 99 cent store around the corner for a total cost of $25!
So with that… Christmas was over! I was made to feel so welcome and was so looked after I couldn’t have got homesick if I tried. Only six months to go and I’ll be typing something like this again…!