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laylee in new york: day three
I just found out that while I was away my favourite shoe shop in Brunswick burned down. Never mind the building, what about all of those shoes??? I'm traumatised just thinking about it!
Day three stared out with a visit to the CVS pharmacy next to the Gap on 8th. Not because we were sick or anything, but because makeup is so much cheaper in America and we were determined to stock up while we were there.
OMG, I was in sheer girly heaven! The lipsticks and eye shadows I usually pay $20-30 for in Australia were between $5-8 a pop! Seriously I came home with ten new eye shadows and twenty-seven lipsticks, as well as foundation, mascara and makeup brushes. Helen bought even more, if you can believe it. I swear she ended up with about thirty eye shadows and fifty lipsticks. Neither of us will need to buy makeup for at least the next two years or more, and at the moment I'm carrying around about five different lipsticks in my handbag simply because I can!
After we dumped out loot back at the hotel, we grabbed a bite to eat at the cafe we'd had lunch at the day before and then we decided that we should do something touristy so we jumped onto the subway and made our way uptown to the Empire State Building. As with most major tourist destinations in NYC these days, getting in there is fun, what with the endless corridors and security check points and the confusing number of elevators. Then there's the New York Skyride, the simulated aerial tour of NYC narrated by Kevin Bacon that ticket holders are herded onto before the even get near the observation deck. It's all very amusing and cheesy, but also kind of worth it for the sheer camp fun.
But once you've done the Skyride, found the toilet and bought an over-priced bottle of water from a vending machine in the gift shop, you finally make your way up to the observation deck and step outside and Oh. My. God. The view is just exquisite. Simply exquisite. And for once we were so glad that we came in the truly off season because instead of having to line up for hours to shuffle outside with the rest of the teaming masses, we were able to walk straight on and stay for as long as we liked.
I have to say, the view from the observation deck of the Empire State Building is one of the most breath taking things I have ever seen. You could literally see for miles and the photos you see in books and on TV do not do it justice. I really wish we'd gone back at sunset for another go-round. It would have been even more spectacular, even though the afternoon view was pretty damn fine. In the gift shop I managed to find Empire State Building Lego for F, and I also bought a sweet snow dome for myself. I'm not usually in to snow domes, but this one was really pretty with the the building nestling in a cloud of golden stars and glitter and when I saw it I couldn't resist it.
After we'd gone inside and defrosted a little, Helen wanted to go to the Walgreens at the bottom of the building to see if they had a particular lipstick that they'd sold out at CVS. So we wandered around there for a while, finding a couple of gifts for people back home and a few necessities. Even though I'd slept soundly on my first night at the Chelsea, my second night was plagued with noise from the constant gurgle from the ancient old heater in our room, the buzzing of the refrigerator and the rumbling of the buses as they drove past outside. I needed ear plugs and something to help me sleep, I decided. And another lipstick, cos why not?
By the time we'd done all that, we were both busting to go to the loo again, but of course there's a dearth of public toilets in New York, isn't there? They wouldn't let us back up to the toilets in the ESB without buying another ticket, so our only other option was to go across the road to the McDonalds where we could buy something to eat and utilise the facilities at the same time. It was just as well that by that stage we were also starving.
You would think that, out side of a few regional and/or cultural differences, McDonalds restaurants are the same the world over. And on the surface they are. This one looked no different to the 24 Maccas on Swanston St. But then the local differences crop up when one is ordering a meal and somehow one ends up with two cheese burgers instead of one. Or when one wonders why the fries taste odd until one realises that they haven't been pre-salted like they are in Australia and that one has to add one's own salt. Post-mix diet coke, however, pretty much tastes like crap whether you're drinking it on 5th Avenue or in Melbourne's CBD. And the less said about the loo, the better. But at least it had paper, which cannot always be said for the toilet at the Maccas on Swanston street.
Continuing on our way, our day got even classier when our next stop was the Museum of Sex. Neither of us can believe that the first museum we visited was the Museum of Sex, but what the hey. It was there, our New York Passes got us in for free and even if the exhibits made us go O_O we still found the experience 'educating'.
After that we toddled on down to the Flatiron building, which was just down the road, and attempted to take pictures of it in the fading light, but they didn't quite work out. What next, we asked? Why not Madame Tussauds on 42nd street, we surmised. Yep, class all the way.
But since we were in New York, where the shops never seem to close, of course we got distracted by the shiny. First there was perfume from and odd little perfume shop on Broadway (and once again, the perfume was so much cheaper than it is down under) and then by Macy's! I managed to restrain myself in the shopping department - although I was sorely tempted by this one bag and wish I'd bought it now - and simply amused myself by riding up and down on the old fashioned wooden escalators. However Helen's shop til you drop mentality had her walking out with a new bag and a few other odds and sods. Yeah, we're both pretty hopeless, but I never knew anyone to be more hopeless than me until I met Helen. Her capacity to shop is truly remarkable!
Madame Tussauds was hilarious and cheesy and vaguely creepy. I swear their eyes follow you around, but that could have also been me starting to feel the effects of a full day on my feet. We'd been at it since 10am and it was getting on for 7pm and I hadn't had anything to eat since the cheeseburgers that afternoon. So we wandered around there for a while, taking camp photos of ourselves with Prince and The Spice Girls and then we really decided to call it a day. A side trip to Whole Foods saw me with curry and rice for dinner and a trip to the liquor store on the other side of 8th procured us some Californian Syrah, a fruitier version of the Shiraz we normally drank at home.
Once we'd eaten and had a couple of glasses of red, we cleaned out teeth, I took my drugz and put in my earplugs and that, as they say, was that until we started over again the next day.
Day three stared out with a visit to the CVS pharmacy next to the Gap on 8th. Not because we were sick or anything, but because makeup is so much cheaper in America and we were determined to stock up while we were there.
OMG, I was in sheer girly heaven! The lipsticks and eye shadows I usually pay $20-30 for in Australia were between $5-8 a pop! Seriously I came home with ten new eye shadows and twenty-seven lipsticks, as well as foundation, mascara and makeup brushes. Helen bought even more, if you can believe it. I swear she ended up with about thirty eye shadows and fifty lipsticks. Neither of us will need to buy makeup for at least the next two years or more, and at the moment I'm carrying around about five different lipsticks in my handbag simply because I can!
After we dumped out loot back at the hotel, we grabbed a bite to eat at the cafe we'd had lunch at the day before and then we decided that we should do something touristy so we jumped onto the subway and made our way uptown to the Empire State Building. As with most major tourist destinations in NYC these days, getting in there is fun, what with the endless corridors and security check points and the confusing number of elevators. Then there's the New York Skyride, the simulated aerial tour of NYC narrated by Kevin Bacon that ticket holders are herded onto before the even get near the observation deck. It's all very amusing and cheesy, but also kind of worth it for the sheer camp fun.
But once you've done the Skyride, found the toilet and bought an over-priced bottle of water from a vending machine in the gift shop, you finally make your way up to the observation deck and step outside and Oh. My. God. The view is just exquisite. Simply exquisite. And for once we were so glad that we came in the truly off season because instead of having to line up for hours to shuffle outside with the rest of the teaming masses, we were able to walk straight on and stay for as long as we liked.
I have to say, the view from the observation deck of the Empire State Building is one of the most breath taking things I have ever seen. You could literally see for miles and the photos you see in books and on TV do not do it justice. I really wish we'd gone back at sunset for another go-round. It would have been even more spectacular, even though the afternoon view was pretty damn fine. In the gift shop I managed to find Empire State Building Lego for F, and I also bought a sweet snow dome for myself. I'm not usually in to snow domes, but this one was really pretty with the the building nestling in a cloud of golden stars and glitter and when I saw it I couldn't resist it.
After we'd gone inside and defrosted a little, Helen wanted to go to the Walgreens at the bottom of the building to see if they had a particular lipstick that they'd sold out at CVS. So we wandered around there for a while, finding a couple of gifts for people back home and a few necessities. Even though I'd slept soundly on my first night at the Chelsea, my second night was plagued with noise from the constant gurgle from the ancient old heater in our room, the buzzing of the refrigerator and the rumbling of the buses as they drove past outside. I needed ear plugs and something to help me sleep, I decided. And another lipstick, cos why not?
By the time we'd done all that, we were both busting to go to the loo again, but of course there's a dearth of public toilets in New York, isn't there? They wouldn't let us back up to the toilets in the ESB without buying another ticket, so our only other option was to go across the road to the McDonalds where we could buy something to eat and utilise the facilities at the same time. It was just as well that by that stage we were also starving.
You would think that, out side of a few regional and/or cultural differences, McDonalds restaurants are the same the world over. And on the surface they are. This one looked no different to the 24 Maccas on Swanston St. But then the local differences crop up when one is ordering a meal and somehow one ends up with two cheese burgers instead of one. Or when one wonders why the fries taste odd until one realises that they haven't been pre-salted like they are in Australia and that one has to add one's own salt. Post-mix diet coke, however, pretty much tastes like crap whether you're drinking it on 5th Avenue or in Melbourne's CBD. And the less said about the loo, the better. But at least it had paper, which cannot always be said for the toilet at the Maccas on Swanston street.
Continuing on our way, our day got even classier when our next stop was the Museum of Sex. Neither of us can believe that the first museum we visited was the Museum of Sex, but what the hey. It was there, our New York Passes got us in for free and even if the exhibits made us go O_O we still found the experience 'educating'.
After that we toddled on down to the Flatiron building, which was just down the road, and attempted to take pictures of it in the fading light, but they didn't quite work out. What next, we asked? Why not Madame Tussauds on 42nd street, we surmised. Yep, class all the way.
But since we were in New York, where the shops never seem to close, of course we got distracted by the shiny. First there was perfume from and odd little perfume shop on Broadway (and once again, the perfume was so much cheaper than it is down under) and then by Macy's! I managed to restrain myself in the shopping department - although I was sorely tempted by this one bag and wish I'd bought it now - and simply amused myself by riding up and down on the old fashioned wooden escalators. However Helen's shop til you drop mentality had her walking out with a new bag and a few other odds and sods. Yeah, we're both pretty hopeless, but I never knew anyone to be more hopeless than me until I met Helen. Her capacity to shop is truly remarkable!
Madame Tussauds was hilarious and cheesy and vaguely creepy. I swear their eyes follow you around, but that could have also been me starting to feel the effects of a full day on my feet. We'd been at it since 10am and it was getting on for 7pm and I hadn't had anything to eat since the cheeseburgers that afternoon. So we wandered around there for a while, taking camp photos of ourselves with Prince and The Spice Girls and then we really decided to call it a day. A side trip to Whole Foods saw me with curry and rice for dinner and a trip to the liquor store on the other side of 8th procured us some Californian Syrah, a fruitier version of the Shiraz we normally drank at home.
Once we'd eaten and had a couple of glasses of red, we cleaned out teeth, I took my drugz and put in my earplugs and that, as they say, was that until we started over again the next day.