NYC Recap Day 3

Finally, shopping day rolled around. My sister started the day with "I don't want to spend the whole day shopping. I want to do other stuff, too." What did we do? We spent the entire day shopping. And she loved every minute of it. We literally shopped from 10am to 1am. I think it's just in our genes - we can't help it!

We decided to go to SoHo to do the majority of our shopping. My sister and mom really wanted to ride the Subway, so we asked the concierge to map out our route for us, and she did. We bought our metro cards and went on our way. When we first got in and started to wait on the train, all I knew was to take the N-Q-R line downtown. Okay, there were no signs anywhere that said "downtown." So the first train rolls in, and it's the N. My mom just runs and jumps on. I start screaming at her to get off. "MOM! You're going to Coney Island! GET OFF NOW! COME HERE! You're going to get lost! GET OFF!" I may have spazzed a little bit. After she gets off, I started yelling about not knowing where to go and started shaking the map at her, and telling her she almost got herself lost. I had a bit of a "mom" moment, myself. It wasn't my best moment, and other tourists were definitely laughing at us. That was my only spaz of the entire trip, but it was a bad one! She could've gotten herself lost!

What do I do now?

Elmo & the cookie monster also ride the Subway!

Post-spaz, waiting on the train

When we finally did get on the right train (the R, btw), they made an announcement about running behind and then something no one could understand. Apparently they said they were skipping a stop, because we needed to get off at Prince Street and they cruised right past it. It was most definitely a stop on my map. Thankfully, Canal Street was the next stop before the Manhattan Bridge, so we were able to get off there. It put us on the south end of SoHo, so we had to walk quite a bit, but we were able to venture into Chinatown a bit.

While we were in SoHo, we went to a couple of no-name stores that had some really cute, inexpensive clothes, and we also went to H&M (twice), American Apparel, Quiksilver, Volcom, an assortment of shoe stores, & the markets in Chinatown. My sister told me that American Apparel was the strangest store she's ever been in. :-)

This was my favorite purchase of the entire trip. I tried this dress on at a random store, and once I lifted my arms up past my shoulders, the dress slipped up around my waist. I put it back for that reason, and we left. Both my mom & sister kept bringing up the dress, so I went back and got it and bought some black leggings to go with it. This one is now hanging in my closet. I mean, where else would you find a dress like this but NYC? I had to buy it.

An underground art studio

These people were doing an acro-yoga exhibit in a store-front window.

After we shopped ourselves out in SoHo, we took the subway (uneventfully, thank goodness) back to the Times Square area. We went off to find Crumbs, which was on my list of "must-do's." We got the address from the concierge & took off. We walked about 9 blocks out of the way to find it, but couldn't find it anywhere. We finally asked a cop, who pointed us in the right direction. We had walked by it three times. We finally stopped where it should've been & looked up to find that it had been closed for remodel until Spring 2011. :-( So no cupcake goodness for us.

After dark, we went up to the Marriott's revolving restaurant to have drinks. I don't get motion sickness very easily, but it was awful up there. The center console of the restaurant is stationary, and the area where the tables are revolves veeery slowly. I couldn't read the menu or even look at the map on the napkin without feeling like I was going to pass out. I had to keep looking at the table and couldn't look out the window except for about 5 seconds at a time without falling over. Our waitress even took a tumble. She went rolling, head first into a table after walking from the stationary part to the revolving part. It was horrible. Add in an alcoholic drink and you're dunzo!

We each had one drink and our bill was $90. Yikes!

After our drinks, we hit up the 5 story Forever 21 in Times Square. That place is crazy! It's open from 8am to 2am and it's busy the entire time! I was hoping to find AJ some cool stuff in there, but it was all a little too fruity for his taste. He likes manly man clothes & surf-style clothes, none of which they had. He puts his own holes in his jeans through his own wear & tear, he doesn't need them to come with holes in them! I found a couple of cute dresses & outfits for myself, though!

The next morning, I woke up still dizzy. I couldn't blow dry my hair or turn around to grab something without holding onto the wall. And I know it wasn't a hangover - I only had one drink!

Funny story of the day: When we were on our sight-seeing tour, my sister thought our tour guide said something about a Smithsonian museum in the financial district. I didn't give any thought to what she was asking me to do when she said, "Ask the concierge where that Smithsonian musem is, so we can go visit." So I say, "Can you tell me how to get to the Smithsonian?" This was my Here's your sign... moment. The concierge looks at me every so patiently and says, "Well, you're not in the right city. That's in Washington DC." This entire time, my sister is hiding around the corner, so I'm the one who looks like an idiot! Thankfully we tried to save-face a bit by explaining that we meant a satelite museum of some sort, but we never did figure out where my sister was talking about!

Next up, Day 4.