Christmas in New York

On the countless lists on the internet concerning the top Christmas destinations around the world, New York seems to always show up. Good thing, because a few days before Christmas, I ended up in New York City and did some Christmastime sightseeing. The adventure started out in Bryant Park with their giant Christmas tree...

It was cold. The fountain in the park was covered in icicles.

They had a huge ice skating rink in the park. Being that I was in New York at Christmastime in below freezing temperatures, I decided I had to rent some skates just for the experience.

Didn't plan on skating for long, but I ended up being on the ice for about two hours!

After skating, I wandered over to Rockefeller Center while looking for food.

Rockefeller Center had a bigger tree, but Bryant Park's ice rink was better!

I finally ended my night by buying a potato knish from a street vendor on the corner in front of Rockefeller Center. Earlier I went looking for the 53rd & 6th Halal Cart that I've read good things about, but they weren't there. So at midnight in the freezing weather, I decided to end my adventures with food for the night and settled on the knish to hold me over.

I've had much better knishes in the past, but I wasn't expecting too much from a street vendor. It was tasty enough. I should have bought some chestnuts too!

Merry Christmas!

Space McDonald's

On August 28, 2009, the Space Shuttle Discovery was making it's third attempt to launch on mission STS-128. Although I can see the shuttle just fine from where I live, I decided to go out to Titusville, FL to get a closer look. I arrived about an hour before the launch and some sort of dessert seemed appropriate to pass the time.

I initially thought of going to this Ice Cream Truck. I've noticed that most ice cream trucks in Florida are pretty sad. They normally involve a guy in a van selling prepackaged ice cream bars out of a freezer. These are the same ice cream bars that you can buy a box of in the supermarket, probably for about the same price as one pop. Up north, they have soft serve ice cream trucks like Mr. Softee where they do more than pull a frost covered ice pop out of the freezer with a big markup. When I saw this particular ice cream truck parked on the side of the road in Titusville, I got excited. It looked like it was a soft serve truck. Unfortunately, when I walked over, it seemed the truck and another car got in a fender bender and ice cream was no longer being sold.


The next dessert choice within walking distance was this Mcdonald's with appropriately decorated windows. I had a strawberry milkshake, which was okay for what it was and where it was from. It really couldn't compare to milkshakes from a soft serve ice cream truck though!





At 11:59 pm, the Discovery finally launched. I love night launches, especially when you can hear the roar of the engines! It's a shame the shuttle program is coming to an end pretty soon. I really hope NASA gets it's act together and goes through with completing the Orion Project, but somehow I have my doubts that we will see it happen any time soon.