travel

Thumb twiddling

New York, New York, United States
Sunday, August 27, 2006

I woke after about 7 hours solid sleep. I had a shower without soap or shampoo and got dressed into the same clothes. The BOSS was reluctant to get up citing that she was still ill. I managed to get her down to breakfast (pancakes) but she immediately went back to bed afterwards. I wandered down the street and bought toothbrushes and toothpaste from a corner store but I have been informed that we have to venture into town if we want to find clothes. So here we are in New York - we have 3 days - we have $500 each to go clothes shopping with - and the BOSS is too sick to get out of bed!!!!

Later...

I let the BOSS sleep for a few hours and then dragged her out of bed to come shopping/sightseeing. We walked three blocks to Central Park and then down 5th Avenue to meet up with the sightseeing bus. It was very overcast and threatening to rain - exactly what we didn't need.

We hopped off at 34th St and began our shopping spree by ordering a very strong coffee in Starbucks. Thus fortified, we hit the clothes shops. For those readers who don't know me personally, clothes shopping is not one of my favourite activities. On my list of "things I like doing" it would appear somewhere between sticking darning needles in my eyes and Sound of Music tours.
However, needs must.
Our first stop was Conways where the BOSS managed to find quite a large portion of her "necessary" items and yet didn't really make any sort of dent in $500. Of course, there was nothing for my size but I was happy to sit in a corner and watch the BOSS forget that she was sick. American sizing for women's clothes is really stupid - they label them S, M or L. The BOSS is a standard size 12 in Australia, but the "L" in America was far too small for her. That would make me an XXXXXL and they don't label clothes like that - they call them OSFM or One Size Fits Many.
What I would like to know is who, in the fattest nation on earth, buys the smalls.

Kmart yielded undies and bras (these turned out to be the world's comfiest undies so I went back and bought another 2 packets). I managed to find one t-shirt, one jumper and a pair of sneakers before I gave up shopping for myself. The BOSS has more stamina for shopping even when sick. She filled another 4 shopping bags before we decided that we had better see more of New York than the inside of shops.

Loaded down with a gazillion plastic shopping bags we boarded the open top sightseeing bus, but as it was still raining we had to sit downstairs and view New York through rain drenched windows. We got caught up in the evening peak hour traffic so it was close to 7pm by the time we got back to Central Park. We were still 60 blocks from our hotel and after 2 hours on the bus we felt like a walk - we also needed to find a restaurant for dinner.

We began lugging our booty north, but soon discovered that we had chosen the wrong street to find food. Madison Avenue is not renowned for restaurants - only super expensive clothes and jewellery stores. After about 10 blocks of window shopping we hailed a cab for the remaining 50 blocks. We dumped all our shopping and then immediately set out to find a restaurant in Spanish Harlem. We found a Spanish restaurant (surprise surprise) and it was very very good.

For a second night in a row we crashed out as soon as our heads hit the pillows.

01 It's raining
It's raining
02 It's still raining
It's still raining
03 The BOSS contemplating the rain
The BOSS contemplating the rain
04 Central Park in the rain
Central Park in the rain
05 Empty wet green seats
Empty wet green seats
06 A wet fountain
A wet fountain
07 A wet empty road ??
A wet empty road ??
08 A wet building
A wet building
09 Washing basket sculpture
Washing basket sculpture
10 A wet bridge
A wet bridge
11 Cool glass sculpture
Cool glass sculpture
12 Another cool glass sculpture
Another cool glass sculpture
13 Cool boots
Cool boots
The BOSS's share of the insurance money would cover the cost of one boot
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