Christmas in NY

Last weekend I visited New York for the christmas season: beautiful store decorations, snow in Central Park, and the 72-feet high Christmas Tree next to the Rockefeller Center. While we were there, we also saw the Top-of-the-Rock: the roofdeck of the Rockefeller Center. While it's not as high as the Empire State Building, it does have a beautiful view over Central Park!

I also ran into a Dutch Eatery, named DankU (Thank you). They sold poffertjes (small pancakes) and kroketten (a fried roll filled with minced meat / mashed potatoes - very fat and very delicious). In case anyone is going to NY soon: it's on 57th Street, next to 6th Avenue!

After all the shopping and Starbucking (it was 18 degrees) the Eagles played Sunday at 4.15 pm. Being addicted to American Football already, I had to see the game! Unfortunately, the New York Jets played at the same time, which made it hard to find a bar to go to where they'd show the Eagles... A search on Google however, told me that Tony Lukes (a -locally- famous Cheesesteak restaurant owner) owns a bar in Manhattan, which is always filled with Eagles fans! That was indeed the case: the bar was all green, and the Cheesesteaks were delicious! Too bad the Eagles lost against the Redskins. Here are some pictures from NY:

 

Weekend in the Pocono's

Last week, I´ve spend a long weekend in the Pocono´s, a mountainous are in PA. After a two hour drive from Philly, we arrived in the most cosi house in the US: with four bedrooms and three entertainment-rooms, there actually wasn't any reason to leave the house! I spent the weekend with a group of people from Philly & the suburbs. A pool-table, air-hockey and about seven tv's made it even more comfy.

But the fun part was the environment: the city was traded in for 'pure nature'. It snowed right before we arrived, deer walked by our house, and the house was next to a nice (but frozen) lake. Next to walking and driving around, pooling, air-hockey'ing and chilling, not much happened! But we did make some pictures:

 

Thanksgiving

Last Thursday, Novermber 27, was Thanksgiving day in the US: the day on which everyone gets all their family together to eat as much (turkey) as possible. Because it was my first thanksgiving, I tried to get the most out of it!

My co-worker Blair invited me to his house for a dinner, that started around noon in his house in the suburbian area of Newark, DE. His son 'Little John' celebrated his first birthday! With a gefeliciteerd (congratulations) decoration, I tried to give him an international experience at a young age. After we filled the 6 feet table with all the turkey & other food, there was barely space left for the plates! We managed everything and enjoyed a great meal while watching the Macy's parade and Football games on his 50' TV.

The next meal was scheduled in Philly's southern suburbs at 4pm. Again turkey, this time combined with potatoes, carrots and mais. After too much (but very good) food ând some great conversations on the differences between the holidays in the Netherlands versus the US (for example, try to explain the Sinterklaas story in the US...), we left to go back into the city for the Eagles game!

By now, I am completely addicted to all the sports in the US. Therefore I wanted to go to another Eagles game this year! Since they haven't been playing very well the last few games, the tickets dropped in price, which was a great opportunity to see them on Thursday. And although it got kinda cold, it was definitely worth it: they beat the Arizona Cardinals with 48-20!! After 6 touchdowns, the stadium was going comletely crazy.

Summarized: a long, gezellig, and entertaining Thanksgiving day which I won't forget! Thank you Blair, and Carrie's parents for having me over! Here are some pictures of the day: