Thanksgiving Weekend (11/26-11/28)

The Thanksgiving holiday was a much-needed break. I spent Thanksgiving day with my family, which currently, of course, means my Mother and Father. We had our dinner at the Richards, a very nice family my parents know from church, plus a couple other lovely folks. I admit I was a little reluctant about having Thanksgiving dinner with people who to me are just acquaintances, but it turned out really enjoyable because they are a very warm bunch of people. After dinner, we watched a bit of the hilarious movie Galaxy Quest. Mom, Dad, and I sadly had to leave that party early though and we reunited with some extended family of ours--a couple of second cousins whom I have not seen in probably a decade. It was so great to see them again and reconnect. We took a stroll in Riverside Park and then escaped the evening chill in our apartment to eat pie and chat. Talk. Discuss. Converse.

Okay, so the rest of the weekend was pretty fun too. The parentals dragged me out to Tarrytown again, but this time we stayed over Friday night at the Tarrytown House hotel thingy. It was a pretty snazzy joint. Friday we visited a couple historical sites of the Hudson River Valley: Van Cortlandt Manor and Washington Irving's Sunnyside cottage. I got some pictures as you'll see below, but they're really not very exciting. Ah, well. We also checked out all the beautiful but somewhat creepy graves at Sleepy Hollow Cemetary. On Saturday, we took a very brief tour of Philipsburg Manor before we had to return our rental car and return to New York City! Which is where I live. Which is awesome. Can you tell I feel like being brief? It's very late at night right now and I'm tired.

PS: I love Adam Lambert and his album For Your Entertainment, which came out November 23. I've been listening to it non-stop. Highly entertaining. You should buy it. You know, a little holiday treat for yourself. Allison Iraheta's album Just Like You also rocks. Grab that one too. That's my plug for the night.

A Rainy Day in Tarrytown

The title sounds familiar, no? Damn, it rains a lot here. I'm not used to this.

Well, it was still a fine Saturday. Mom and Dad decided to rent a car and we drove north out of the city into a small, very quaint village called Tarrytown, which is adjacent to the legendary Sleepy Hollow! We visited a charming antique shop called Pretty Funny, which mom adores of course. It was actually a fun place though. I found a non-antique book about Wabi-sabi that I wanted, and Dad graciously got it for me. Mom was indecisive about whether to buy a gold vintage coat that she liked, and before we almost drove off and left, she decided to dash back in there and get it! That's my Mama for you. We proceeded to drove around town and looked at all the charming homes and fall leaves. We didn't really have a plan, and I admit I kind of got frustrated because Dad was just randomly driving around according to the direction of Mom. Of course, the ominous rain clouds weren't helping our options of stuff to do.

We stopped by Washington Irving's home among other places until we finally settled on checking out the Lyndhurst mansion. It's a spectacular gothic-revival style historic mansion on a huge lot. We made it to the last tour of the day. I took lots of photos outside, as you'll see below, but we were prohibited from taking photos inside the mansion. Too bad, because it was stunning! I love Gothic architecture. I felt like I was in one of those vampire mangas. Well, after the tour of Lyndhurst it really started raining harder. We drove off again and looked for a place to eat dinner. We settled on a bustling tavern type restaurant called Horsefeathers. Funny name, huh? We ordered off the burger and sandwich menu because everything else was uber expensive. The food turned out to be quite delicious! After dinner, we drove home, which took a while because Dad got us lost in the Bronx, although he probably won't admit it!