Home for the Holidays

I'm not sure where the past month or so went really.  There is some sort of weird phenomenon that happens whenever you go home I think, where you almost forget about the life you've temporarily left wherever.  This time I hadn't been to this home in nearly a year and a half, and yet everything seems to be just as it should be, with the exception of new babies, kids a bit older, and some friends in new places.  So much of this month was a bit unremarkable I guess, I was mostly just excited to spend time with friends and family and revisit many of our favorite hangouts and activities.  Of course as with any other time-limited trip, there wasn't any way to see everyone or do everything which is a bit sad, but just more for next time I suppose! 

Even from being stuck in traffic on the Whitestone bridge I love this skyline

While I was in the city a bit, I was most excited to just hang out at my Granny's in Connecticut.  Thankfully she's only about 45 minutes from Manhattan, so the trip in and out is easy, but this was the number one thing I missed by travelling over here last Christmas.  There were 9 of us staying in the house over Christmas and the surrounding days, with a nearly constant revolving door of other visitors (both planned and unplanned) which is one always a highlight of the holidays at Granny's.

The tree, complete with the same ornaments which have been on here as long as I can remember, topped off with icicles which despite being many decades old, still glow once the lights are turned off.

Our annual Christmas Eve photo in front of Granny's tree.  I'm sure at some point we'll make some compilation of all the years of this, but we aren't allowed to leave the house Christmas Eve without many attempts at this photo.

Christmas Eve is always first spent with my Dad's side of the family, and my Aunt always does an amazing job transforming both her table and the entire house into a magical place at Christmas.  We're a bit of a loud bunch...this dinner ends with us each carefully being assigned numbers and singing the 12 Days of Christmas.  After this dinner we head back to Granny's and all open presents (gasp! yes, on Christmas Eve!) which this year was made better by the addition of a large batch of homemade glühwein.

A nice Christmas morning dusting of snow after the previous accumulations had melted.

I grew up in the town next to where my Granny lives, which is still home to one of our favorite inexpensive jewelry stores of all time, so we have to be sure we go over there a few times whenever everyone is in town.

The movie theater in town

After a night in Brooklyn visiting friends...Grand Central post-Christmas.  We had every intention of going back into the city before the decorations were taken down and seeing the Rockefeller Center Tree and all that, but everyone who went just said the crowds were impossible and it was really cold...so we passed.  I think maybe I should feel bad about that, but I suppose I can look at my pictures from previous years and get the same idea. 

New Year's Eve. We opted for everyone coming up to Granny's and cooking yummy food and playing Joker and watching all the Times Square festivities on TV, an excellent choice.

The day after New Years I headed down to Virginia with Mom, just in time for more snow down there.  We left CT a bit earlier than planned to miss the blizzard they were getting.  Spending a month at home isn't all fun and relaxation though, Mom got a call the day before New Years that her hot water heater had broken and flooded the entire basement, so some of my time here was spent shoveling snow and ice and helping facilitate the water clean-up. 

The DC Metro

Mom and I still had a bit of time for some shopping and an outing to the National Geographic Society to their museum before meeting a friend of mine for dinner in DC.

Celebrating 125 years of National Geographic Magazine

After a week in DC it was back up to NYC to try to cram in some visits with friends, some of whom had been travelling for Christmas so it was nice to finally overlap with them.

A visit to Cafe Sabarsky to see what this Viennese Coffee House in NYC could possibly be.  Perhaps not exactly like the original but the cakes here are delicious, as is the coffee, I would definitely recommend it if you're ever around there. 

Grand Central.

Times Square.

Then it was somehow already time to fly back to Vienna!  Which I did on the A380...which is gigantic...over 500 passengers gigantic...and while this large space between the window seats and the window is great for not at all feeling claustrophobic, it is less great for sleeping against the window on these transatlantic flights. 

Flying back over Austria.  Notice the distinct lack of snow...

I guess that was about it.  Of course the other half of this travel phenomenon seems to be that once you're back you sort of get this weird dream feeling about ever being back over there.  Thankfully I was properly reintroduced to Austria with an evening of good Austrian wine and good company, I suppose there really is no better way.  Now it's time to hit the ground running on all sorts of school work and other projects going on, but the rest of this winter and spring should be a pretty exciting time.  Fingers still crossed that proper winter finds Austria soon and there's some good skiing in my future...although if not skiing then at least a good trip to the mountains...I'm getting antsy for them.