The ship was actually quite small, but one of the benefits of the field trips was that I got to eavesdrop on the tours that were already being given. One cool thing I learned was that the ship didn't actually have a steering wheel, rather there is a large wooden rod coming out of the board that they used to steer with. In other words, the ship seen in Pirates of the Caribbean is not an accurate portrayal of ships of the time, or so the guide told these screaming rambunctious children!
After my ship tour I went over and saw the actual, the one and only, the real rock that the pilgrims apparently did something with. Below is Plymouth Rock. It is a relatively small boulder set down in a pit. At high tide the water comes through those bars and floods the rock and at low tide it looks like this. There is a large fence built around the top of the pit, that you may look at the rock over, and around the whole thing are several white columns and a roof. It was a little over the top if I say so, simply for a rock. I'd almost rather have been able to touch it or something and have them replace the boulder every few years and just stamp 1620 into it. It was cool to have seen, but not the most impressive.
Finally, after stop and go traffic for three hours I arrived at Josephine Ryan-Celantano's house, or rather the Celantano house. To preface, Jo Ryan is my mother's best friend from high school. She is married to a lovely New Yorker turned New Joisan named Bob, and they have three sons. Rick is in his 3os, Rob is 29 and Andrew is 27. Anyways, on with the story. I arrived relatively late after crossing the Tappan Zee bridge in more stop and go traffic. Jo and I hung out for a bit and caught up a little, then her son Rob picked me up for Guinness's and food at Davey's Irish Pub there in North Jersey. Jo can usually beat me in staying up late, so after dinner we hung out chatting until 3:30 in the morning.
The next day was mostly focused on the Thanksgiving preparations. She took me to this very cool store which had lots of very colorful produce, meats and all of the like. I loved these peppers in the photo above. I wanted to buy an entire barrel because they were so pretty. This store even had a small petting zoo out in back past the garden center. It was quite cool, but my favorite part was that a company called Picklelicious had set up a booth in the back with pickles in the barrels. I always loved that about this area and PA, getting to go to farmers markets and such and buying homemade pickles. And all of you, for the most part, know how much I love pickles! So I sampled every single one of them. I bought dills and sweets, and had finished the dills before we made it back to Jo's. Granted, Bob did eat one of them. It was so exciting. That night, Andrew stopped by after work and we all had dinner. It was a really good sausage pasta ordeal.
Finally, the next day was Turkey Day, known to the majority of the population as Thanksgiving. Above is a picture of Jo, Rob and I. Jo spent most of the day cooking, and she let me help on occasion. It was fun to see how they did thanksgiving as I hadn't had one with lots of people in quite a while. They did the cranberry sauce, the stuffing, carrot salad, yams, sweet potatoes and then all the rest of the stuff that we actually do. Rob also made macaroni and cheese because apparently it's a necessary piece of Thanksgiving and his girlfriend brought stuffed artichokes which were really good. We didn't actually eat until around eight or so, as all of the boys had to work that day. It worked out well though. Right when the triptophan was kicking in, we were all ready for bed, not just a nap.
Above is Rick, Rob, Bob and Andrew from left to right. And below is Bob, Andrew and Rick all passed out after Turkey and before desert, so yes, some people did sneak in naps. You can even see Cocoa curled up at the foot of the couch trying to rest as well.
The day after Thanksgiving, everyone was lazy and laid about most of the day. In the evening, Jo and I hopped in her convertible (top up unfortunately... it was super cold though). She took me to this very cool Christmas store which again had animals to feed (like goats and things) and then had an amazingly good smelling christmas tree lot, as well as these really cool animatronic christmas displays complete with moving elves, santa claus, reindeer and other holiday characters. On the way back we did a home tour looking for Christmas lights. The houses back here are so beautiful with brick and stone work. That's one thing I do love about the east coast. We didn't see many decorated houses though.
That night, Andrew took me into the city, and of course that means New York City. We drove in and for it being black friday, it was shocking how little car traffic there was. We parked close to Times Square and he put up with my gawking at all the lights of broadway, in the street and along all the stores. It was really cool, not as bad as Vegas though in the sense that you could tell it was actually dark when it was dark out. The lights weren't that powerful. After Times Square, we swung in for a beer at an Irish pub called the Playwright. It was nice and warm and on five of their six t.v.s they were playing the Oregon game, so I got to witness another Duck victory as well as see the sight of my unfortunate trampling incident almost one year ago exactly. haha. After the pub, we went to Rockefeller Center, because I love Christmas! So we went and saw the tree, which you can see above, through the angels and in front of Rockefeller Center itself. It was also very exciting.
We finished the night in a comedy club called, Ha!. It was a lot of fun, but we were watching Dueling Pianos rather than comedy. Someone had left just before we got there so we got a table right in front. It was a lot of fun. People could write down a request, add some money and the pianists would try to play it. We heard piano versions of, Welcome to the Jungle, The Beatles and so many others. This entertained us for a good 2 1/2 hours. The guys were really good and they looked like they were having so much fun. It was a good time, and we got in free which was awesome. After this we headed back across the GW Bridge in time for 4 am. This morning I had a lovely lunch of Thanksgiving leftovers before setting on my way back to Pennsylvania. It was so much fun, although I definitely missed my family for the Turkey Day and both of my parents birthdays which happened this last week or so. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving though and that we only gained like five pounds each. We have to save some weight for Christmas! 
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