New York Diary – 29th December

Got up bright and (very) early but it was raining : ( Every other day had been bitterly cold but the sun was always shining – I think we started taking it for granted so weren't expecting to wake up to rain.

We got a taxi to Bloomingdales and arrived there at 8:30am – however, we weren't to know that it didn’t open until 10am! Of course, being the bossy, organised one – I got blamed! So, we went to a nearby café and had lots of tea and a little bit of cake. There was a dog parlour a couple of doors away from the cafe and the cutest dog ever – it was sooo tiny, could have just put it in my pocket! Anyway, at 9:50 we went back to Bloomingdales and were waiting for the store to open in the porch area with a few posh/snobby american people. It was very funny when Emily was leaning against the wall in the porch and knocked a massive picture down. Luckily it didn't break but all of the posh people were frowning and looking less than impressed! Emily was laughing – I was cringing!! When the store opened, I was going to tell the attendant but this snooty woman beat us to it which made us look even more naughty!

We had a little look around and Mary and I bought some Escada perfume – mine was for Mom – and collected our free gifts from the visitors centre. It's quite good – you can get tickets from the concierge at the hotel, and it entitles you to discounts and free gifts in the larger department stores.

We then got a subway to Greenwich Village to have a look around the area. The guy in the hotel gift shop had told us to go there and have a look around the quirky shops and cafes and stuff but when we got there it was still raining so we couldn’t really see very much of the shops and walking around the streets was not very enjoyable. We decided to get a taxi to Macys instead and planned to visit the Empire State Building which was nearby. When we go there visibility was awful because of the weather and we couldn’t even see the top of the Empire State Building so we decided to put that off until another day!

We went into Macys and had lunch in Au Bon Pain – yummy. We then decided to split up and have a proper look around Macy's so Lau and I went off and Mary, Anna, Em and Rose went around together. After about half an hour in Macy's, Laura and I decided that we didn't really like it that much so we left Macy’s and went to explore outside. People had told us that the shopping in New York was great and it was so cheap etc but we didn't really agree with that. Macy's was nice but the clothes were still fairly expensive and then there was a really cheap area where the clothes were just really poor quality and common. Anyway, outside Macy's there was a store called Journey’s which had some nice clothes and trainers etc. We went to Foot Locker, H&M, Gap etc and then we discovered the Manhattan Mall which was nearby and contained lots of smaller shops. We got some shoes – $30 for two pairs – and bought some I Love NY t-shirts and keyrings etc and Lau got a jumper and scarf for Gav. We met back up with the others who had spent about three hours trapsing around Macy's. They did buy a few things but agreed with us that Macy's wasn't as great as they had expected. Apparenty they didn't think to leave Macy's and explore outside so instead they had carried on wandering around inside – and even visited the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream stand in there.

We got a taxi back to the hotel to get ready to go to the theatre. We had booked well in advance to go and see Beauty and the Beast at the Lunt Fontane on Broadway. We were going to go the Ben Bensons Steak House for tea but when we got there it was really expensive and the queue for food was pretty big and we didn't really have time to wait so we went for a wander around and found a TGI Fridays nearby. We then went to the theatre and Beauty and the Beast was AMAZING. I think it was one of my best things in New York. I actually cried it was so great – should I be admitting that?! Because the shows in New York run for months/years on end – the set etc on stage is so stunning and the actors have got their performances spot on. It was brilliant – I definitely reccommend it.

After the show it was pretty difficult to get a taxi as everyone leaves Broadway around the same time. Anna, Mary and Rosie managed to get a taxi but Em, Lau and I had to walk around for a bit before we managed to find one – we were almost tempted to get on one of those bikes with the funny cart thing on the back but they could only hold two people and we decided we would have looked slightly stupid! It was also slightly weird when some man stuck his face in my cousins face and sucked his teeth at her(!) – don't know what we did to provoke that but glad we managed to find a taxi and escape the weird teeth-sucker!

So, after our third full day we were really feeling at home in New York and were starting to feel sad that our hoiday was already half way through!

Eleanor Lovell : 29 Mar 2006 13:26 |  Tags: Family Holidays Nyc Theatre |  Comments (3) |  Report a problem