We got up early this morning and prepared to face the day, unpacked the rest of our things, drank Ben’s kick-you-in-the-teeth coffee, and had breakfast in the cafe at our B&B – I enjoyed the waffle-iron frittata, and Ben loved the French toast.  We could have spent hours talking to Kipp (our innkeeper), who has had many careers – actor, furniture maker, playhouse owner, and probably a zillion other things we haven’t gotten to yet.  I honestly think I could spend a month talking to him about life experiences, from Hurricane Sandy to building furniture to thoughts on pride of residence… oh, wait, we did that this morning!

 

We left Jenny in the room to rest and recover for an hour or so, so that we could locate the Subway stop(s) closest to our B&B.  We got our Metro cards, and decided to take a train ride just for fun.  We took the E train to Penn Station, and got off to see where Madison Square Gardens is, and fulfilled our desire for hot dogs from a street vendor.  I got a chili dog that leaked everywhere, no matter how straight I held it… thankfully we had a ton of napkins!  Then we picked up a couple things from a pharmacy, which is where we heard our funny quote of the day.  I keep forgetting that American money includes pennies, and I made a comment about that; the cashier was surprised that we didn’t have pennies.  Ben showed her a toonie and told her it was worth $2 in Canada.  Her response was priceless: “That’s $2? Here, that’s a souvenir!”

 

We made our way back to our B&B, called friends and families to wish them merry Christmas, rested a bit, and then Ben went out to take some pictures.

 

 

We have been looking forward to a holiday lights and movie sites bus tour since we first heard about it.  The normal meeting spot was closed today, but we met up with Max, our tour guide, across the street, after enjoying lamb gyros and pretzels from street vendors for dinner.

 

 

 

 

It was an interesting way to see the city, but unfortunately traffic in some areas was insane, Jenny decided the little tiny spaces on the bus floors were GREAT for scavenging (aided by a spilled bag of jellybeans), there were too crying babies on the bus, and Max (our tour guide) only have a finite number of movies and trivia questions to choose from to fill the time.  We ended up at Macy’s, where Ben took this great picture of the Empire State Building.

 

 

We caught the train from Penn Station, where thankfully Jenny had mostly gotten over her case of the munchies (thank goodness for the Halti!!!) and arrived back at our B&B, where we are planning tomorrow’s itinerary.  On the docket?  New York Water Taxi, The Intrepid, and the Inside Broadway Tour!  This will be our first time using our new York Passes, which (according to our calculations, will get us in to see a ton of attractions we are either too inexperienced or cheap to take advantage of without it 🙂