This holiday makes me wonder when I got the medicine bug and why couldn't I have chosen something simpler where I don't have to study and I can schedule more time off? :) . I know every doctor thinks about that multiple times in their careers, and it's gonna take me a little while to get the "yeah, this is the only thing for me" feeling back.

The first week of my holiday I spent in Dublin, visiting friends and attending an alumni dinner for my old rowing club. I stayed in the Hilton Hotel for the weekend which I'd recommend to anybody, and then for a few days after, stayed in some friends' apts. It was nice, was like I never left and I was free to do whatever I wanted (ie. some training, even sculled for a trip!) like the times before I started working. I ran and cycled around phoenix park which was just like old times, and phoenix park is much bigger than central park so it was nice to get back to that.

I really miss sports and being able to train as much as I used to. Definitely have a few squishier spots now that I want to get rid of, but doing 2-4 hours training a day is now not possible!

Then for the second week of holidays, one of my Irish friends and another good Norwegian friend (both through rowing!) came over to visit. The first night, went to a Knicks vs. Wizards game which was boring for the first half but much more exciting the second half, so I'm glad they got to experience the atmosphere of Madison Sq. Garden even though they were both horribly jetlagged.

The next day, did the NY Movie and Tv tour, which was interesting and informative, took us through most parts of NY, but I don't think any of us were that into it and it took a good 3.5 hours. Our finishing point was the Palace hotel, which we went into to look at the christmas decorations, and a guy there gave us free tickets to see this year's Gypsy reprisal! Great seats, was an interesting musical (not my favorite sondheim even though everyone raved about it) a little funny on the plot (but i'd never really seen/heard about it before), but I thought the acting was amazing, especially by Laura Benanti who transforms from a tomboy into this gorgeous burlesque dancer / stripper. Well she's won herself a new fan anyway!

Unfortunately, one of my friends became ill and we came back early after wandering Times Square a little (I love Times Square, all the lights! I wouldn't even want to see their electricity bills!). Two of us went to this lovely euro-caribbean restaurant near me and then slept off more jet lag. Up early the next morning to the Statue of Liberty which we felt we had to go to just to satisfy the tourist requirement, so now we've done it and we didn't bother with Ellis Island. Then shopping up 5th avenue! After playing in FAO Schwartz, we were starving so had a great burger at Mickey Mantle's. I don't think my friends had been in that kind of sports restaurant before!

Took my friends to see the Guggenheim (interesting exhibits), and one of them became museum'ed out fairly early so she took off for some shopping while the rest of us went to the Metropolitan museum. I'm not an art connoiseur but I definitely am not really a fan of the Dutch style painting. Perked up a bit when we got to the more modern sections, and then came across a fabulous exhibit of modern British prints (including rowing!) which we loved. Made a hasty bee-line for the exit, then wandered around Soho for a bit and the outskirts of chinatown, chilled in a nice Soho bar then walked in search of food to the west end where we found some dodgy steak outfit where the waitress couldn't describe the food to us. I found this hilarious, but then again I was drunk off two glasses of wine in the soho bar, so I couldn't talk.

After a lie in on wednesday, we returned to the theatre district to see Wicked, which is a fantastic production. Not a huge fan of the music (I must have an "older" musical music taste), but the story line, setting / props and dance were terrific! It made funny allusions to the wizard of oz and the plot / dialogue was quite clever. I'm sure it was amazingly fun to write the play and see it pan out on stage! I'd love to know how to do that! Then went up to the top of the Rockefeller center, which is a terrific view, a little more shopping and then to the Hudson Hotel for dinner (they do lovely steaks, and the dessert portions are enormous!). The rest of the night was a little dodgy, as we went to two bars on different sides of town but they weren't very club-y. A friend of mine joined us, as well as one of the more laid back attendings and some lads also on vacation who my Irish friend knew.

Thursday - Thanksgiving, hurrah! We stayed in bed the whole morning, didn't even watch any of the Macy's parade, had a bit of brunch and I went back to sleep while the two girls trudged through central park. Had Thanksgiving dinner at Tavern on the Green, which I was glad to go to as the decor was interesting / funky / a little tawdry?, but don't think I'll be going back there again. The queue for those who had reservations was 45 minutes! On the way out, i got waylaid by a lady who said I had terrific karma (what does that mean exactly?!) and gave me her business card, for some tarot / psychic thing. But perhaps it was true because the Chase 1 in 500 free worked to my advantage that night!

We chilled for a little, and then I thought it'd be a great idea to go to woodbury commons for some black friday midnight shopping. Well apparently, so did a million other people because traffic to there was nearly standstill for about 3 hours. It took us 4.5 hours in the car to get to this place and there's no where to turn around to go back! On a normal day would take 1 hour. So after getting there at 3:30 am, at least my friends got tons of shopping done and everyone came back wrecked, but happy. That is definitely something i will avoid in the future, I will pay higher prices like everyone else :).

After coming home at 9 am, we slept for a couple hours and back to 5th ave / madison ave for some further shopping (notice a theme here?). New York is absolutely amazing for shopping, you can basically find everything here! since being here, I have definitely contributed to the profit margins of Bed Bath and Beyond and well as Banana republic (I must like B's) I've spent so much it's ridiculous! and I still don't have all the christmas presents ready! From what I saw and the amount my friends got, america is not going into recession this Christmas at least! Then we had dinner at this absolutely fabulous westernized asian/fusion place called Phillipe's, which I am definitely going back to.

Unfortunately, the holiday came to a close and after some last minute shopping, my friends returned home with very full bags and emptier wallets. But we fit in some tourist attractions, sight-seeing, good restaurants, Broadway shows and a lot of shopping, so all-in-all a very productive trip! I wish I didn't have to work so I could just spend all my days going to see all the Broadway (and off-Broadway) shows, museums, wandering around central park and doing some training for once, but 'tis not to be. At least I'm in the city where everything happens, so maybe eventually!

Back to it tomorrow...dun dun dun....