Welcome to the Truly Expat Travel Podcast, where I chat with expats about their favorite holiday destinations. Let's be honest. Expats are some of the best travelers around, always planning the next adventure, exploring hidden gems, and finding the best spots wherever they go. So who better to ask for travel inspiration? Welcome back to Truly Expat Travel Podcast. I'm your host, Paula, and today I'm going to talk to you about my favourite Christmas holiday destination. This month it's going to be a little bit different. I've got a few people on to talk about their Christmas destination. I know it's November and I know it's too late for you to be thinking about booking a trip for Christmas, but hopefully these episodes will give you a little bit of inspiration for next year's trip. So let's start this or kick this off with my destination. So my destination is going to be New York. You did not do Christmas in New York at least once in your life, and I tell you why I fell in love with it. It stole my heart because sure, when we were there it didn't snow, and if it would have snowed, it probably would have been absolutely perfect. But to be honest, we really engulfs everything you can think about Christmas to be. You've got the beautiful lights, you've got all the Christmas shows, you have all of the cold winter, you know, nights. It's um it's definitely one place that I think I would go back to again for Christmas. And I know my kids loved it as well. So let's start from the beginning. I took we went with the children. So when the children, the kids are in their 20s now, but when the kids were I think my eldest had just finished school, so they were still young enough to have a little bit of fun at Christmas. Not that it's not fun with them now, but the youngest was only in year seven, so I think that's like 12, 11, 12, something like that. So it was a little bit a while ago, but it's something that we've always remembered, and it's because it's such a fun place to be. I mean, I've been to New York in summer and spring and even in fall, but Christmas just is a little bit, it hits different, it's a bit bit more special. It was easy enough to get there, I guess. We did something a little bit different. We went from Sydney and we flew to Hawaii and we spent the day in Hawaii before we flew on because we knew that on the way back we were gonna spend a week there and New Year's there. So we decided to kind of go to you know break it up a little bit. I think for me, I've been to New York before via Amsterdam once before, and I've been via Qatar, Qatar? Was it Qatar? I think it was Qatar I went before as well. I've gone direct to actually I've I've gone via Dallas as well, direct to Dallas from Sydney. So there's a there's quite a few ways. I didn't you know the one thing I didn't realise, I didn't realise actually how far it was from Hawaii. It was actually an overnight flight to get there. But once you get to Manhattan, it's actually pretty easy to get anywhere from there. We stayed at Christmas, we actually stayed downtown near Madison Square Garden and we hired Airbnb, which is was actually pretty cool. The one thing we did do is we did ask the Airbnb owners if they could get us a real Christmas tree. It was only tiny because the apartment was small, but it just made it feel a little bit more Christmassy. The one thing I didn't realise was that at Christmas time, most people in New York go out for lunch or for dinner in restaurants, which we were a little bit taken aback. So we were trying to find so what we did was we ended up hiring a catering company who then brought us the food the night before and we just heated it up because I found it really hard to try and cook and stuff there. So we were able to have, I think, ham for like the whole week. We had so much food, but it was nice to just stay indoors for the day, and we just opened our presents and played board games, and it was freezing cold outside. So we were gonna go to a basketball game, but we changed our mind and we went to a wrestling at Madison Garden the next day instead. We just literally spent the whole day indoor just doing Christmassy stuff, which was really lovely. What we did do was we then we actually went to a Rockefeller show, which was really cool. For those who don't know, there's a like a Christmas special one during that period of time where the Rockefellers do this whole dance show what they do. But it was all Christmas themed, so that was very cool. We did that couple of days before Christmas. What we did on Christmas Eve, which I would never do again, is we went Christmas shopping. Do you believe it? Went Christmas shopping. We were Macy's and you couldn't move. It was literally like it was just it was bumper to bumper. You couldn't walk without touching someone, it was so busy. So the kids had had enough, so they went back to the apartment and we decided to soldier on, keep going shopping, because we decided that we would instead of bring gifts over there, we would go Christmas shopping and would have been fine, but Christmas Eve was crazy. A couple of days before that, we did go to the big Christmas tree. That was quite cool, that was beautiful actually. Then there was ice skating around there as well, which was lovely. I think Christmas time, it's weird, right? So I've been in Asia for 19 years, and in those 19 years, 10 of those have been, or nine of those have been in a country that is cold for Christmas. Being Australian, we're so used to having a hot Christmas that to me now it it just feels I like both, but Christmas and winter is just a little bit more special. You know, I love the mince pies and I love the eggnog and the hot the mold wine. I just love all that and you know cooling up. Last year we were pretty we we actually had snow. We were in Hakuba in Japan, which was very cool. Which we're going back again this year. We loved it so much. So Christmas when it's winter is just feels a little bit more special. So New York for us was I think we all just loved it. We did go yeah, we went Christmas shopping, we went into Central Park, which was I don't know if Central Park was the right place to go during Christmas because there's nothing there in terms of like it's not green, it's really black, and I guess because it snows, it's it all the trees were all not dead, but they looked dead, they had no leaves and stuff on them. So I guess what I would suggest if you had two days there, if you're only spending two days or say three days and it was Christmas, I would hip highly recommend going to the Rockefeller show. I would highly recommend staying away from Macy's because it's so busy. But the lights all around there are so pretty. We also went on a so the boys went on a tour of the stadi Yankee Stadium, whereas we, my daughter and I went on a gossip girl tour. That was very cool. You were in the bus most of the time anyway, because it was it's quite cold. So that would be fun to do. That I would highly recommend that. And in terms of eating out, I mean there's loads and loads of restaurants. We stayed in a few times because we had an apartment, but we mainly ate out. And the streets are just buzzing, so I I think the first day you can go shopping and stuff and then then go off and do a Rockefeller show, and then the next day I would definitely go and do something at Madison Gardens. There's the basketball's on Christmas Day, I think, and then we went to the WWE wrestling. Yeah, I'm not sure if that's your thing, but if if it is, it's it's fun. And it we only it was walking distance, so we had to do that. I think for us the standout experience was just that there was just a buzz about New York in Christmas, you know. We the Christ so Christmas Eve, I tell you funny story, so Christmas Eve, I told you that it was super, super busy, so the kids went back. We were going to mass, there is quite a few churches and stuff there, but before we went home, we decided to stop in a little bar and we had a couple of drinks, and it's so cool. So in Australia, you don't sit at a bar and chat to people, you just don't. I don't know, it's just not a thing that you do. Maybe, maybe some local bars you took, I guess, but you just never do that. But we decided that we would because it was just busy, so we sat at the bar. We met all these people, even the bartenders were really lovely. And so we ended up standing a lot longer than we should have stayed there. But it was just a really cool atmosphere. Hey, it's Paulie here. Just popping on to tell you about a quick way you can support the show. If you love this podcast, head to the link in the show notes. Any contribution helps me, keep creating episodes just for you. Plus I'll send you a thank you email and give you a shout out in the next episode. The link is also on my website and social media, so support really does make this possible. Thank you. I would highly recommend if you ever go to New York and if you go to New York or just in US in general, and you go to a bar, sit at the bar. That's where you meet a lot of cool people. But it was funny because there was an Irish lady behind the bar and I had said to her, she kind of free poured the gin and tonic and it was really strong. And I said to her, Would you mind if you put it in a tall glass because it's a little too strong? She said to me, Well, you should harden the F up and refused to give me a second and put it in a tall glass. So yeah, it I just thought that was quite funny, but that was my experience at Christmas Eve. And then obviously we went home and did all the Christmasy stuff. If you I guess for me the standout moment was it have to be the Rockefeller. I guess I guess that show in general, it's just so it's what you know about New York and that time. I would have liked to have gone and done the tour. You can do like a a tour there, but you can only do that when they're not playing. And obviously they were playing. And it was very, very busy. The every job is a surprise. What was something unexpected? It was unexpected that it was so busy. I mean Times Square's busy anyway, but Christmas, he was so busy. I can't even explain to you that the pe the amount of people we were looking for a Christmas sounder, that's my thing. Even at this age I still get Christmas sound, I just love it. And we went everywhere and we did find a Sandry and Macy's, but you have to book. You had to book. The line was huge, so we just decided not to. So that was one thing that I would suggest if that's something that you want to do. I'd also have a look around if there's mass and stuff that you want to do, see if it's open and what times it's open, because that was something that we we struggled with. For Christmas, if I was to do it again, um there was no real standard dish or any drink that you have to have, but I would suggest maybe booking in a restaurant way in advance, if you're thinking of doing it, because I it although the catering was a great idea, we had like ham and turkey and some dessert and stuff. It um never isn't as good when you have to warm it up the next day as it it would have been if it was because the only time that they could deliver it was the night before and he came on his little pushbike. So it just kind of didn't feel like I think I would have rather stay, I think I would have rather at a restaurant just because if that's what everyone else is doing, maybe that's what we should have been doing as well. I didn't have any cultural experiences or experiences as locals. The one thing I wish I knew before I was going was probably about the the Macy's, I already said that. And if I could give you one tip, it would be go, I think New York. I think you know, going ice skating around the big Christmas tree, going and doing a tour of the area, going to the museum. We didn't do the the museums. The museums were really lovely, especially when it was cold. It was a really nice time to do it. You can do like a little around the park on the little horse and carriage, you can do that if you don't want to walk it. You everything I mean, people are still in the park, it's just not as busy as it is in summer or in spring. The other thing is we caught taxis everywhere and subway because every other time I've been to New York we walk everywhere, but it was just too cold. It really was. We also you know what else we did? We did go to Ellis Island and we went and saw I thought that was really, really interesting. I would definitely go back again because for me it was even more interesting because we found the old so for those who don't know, Ellis Island is where all the immigrants went first before they might were able to migrate to New York or to America and all of the old books are there, little the like from the boats and the ships that came in and the names of people that came. So my grandfather arrived in New York many, many years ago, and he originally was going to migrate to America but ended up coming to Australia instead. So that was pretty cool. For me, that was a little bit of a, you know, sliding door mo and motion where potentially that's where he would have gone. I would definitely do that, and I would definitely book online to go and do that tour and the ferry because it was busy. Like really, really busy. I don't know how busy it is in the uh every other month, but it was really busy. We stayed in New York for six days, I think it was. I think it was about six days, because what we did do, we did like a we drove from Manhattan down to Washington, DC, did did that, and drove up through Philadelphia, stayed at a friend's place, and then came up to New York and stayed, I think, five nights, six nights in New York. The kids loved it. And it was a really good family holiday and it was a very good place to be for Christmas. Christmas Eve, oh Christmas uh New Year's Day No, sorry, not we didn't stay News Day because we knew that it would have just been too hard on the children, so we left the day two days before so we could spend New Year's Eve in Hawaii. That's about it. I would I would recommend going to New York. It was one of those fun places. A very different trip to other places that we've been for Christmas, you know, it's there's no skiing and there wasn't any snow, but snow came the week after. That probably would have made it a little bit more special, but it was it was great. It really was. The food is great there, the people are great there. The shopping was great, there was great sales on and after Christmas. So yeah, if I think New York needs to be on your bucket lift list for Christmas. If you're a summer plate person and you're rather somewhere else, then you should listen to a couple of the other episodes because they um will focus on other places. Anyway, I will see you next week on Truly Expat Travel Podcast. Bye for now. So join us again next week on Truly Expat Travel Podcast, where I have another exciting destination in a world that's too big to be left unexplored. Chaffanel