Adventures in Shopping

Last Saturday started as usual...heading down to Battery Park (downtown in the Financial District) to work the front desk at the Kids Club from 8:30-11:30am. I decided to enjoy lunch with a new friend, Larissa, so that we could have a ladies lunch along with some window shopping (heaven forbid we actually buy something). Well let me tell you what...I soon realized over lunch that we are a dangerous pair. With both of our interests in certain similar high priced items, we need to keep those credit cards at home where the husbands can keep a close eye on them!

Back to our afternoon--we met at the South Street Pier where I took a "must" photo of this:
who knows what it is...it was VERY windy and started to rain so I didn't get the history/nameThen we headed in for some lunch at a bbq place where she said she sees a lot of "shirts & ties" go for lunch. It was "so so", but what can I say, I know TRUE bbq from the south.

Next we decided to do some "adventurous" shopping. We first stopped at Century 21 which is a department store that has designer labels for discounted prices. Larissa has worked in retail for over 10 years. Needless to say she was NOT impressed with the store. I also do not do well with close, crowded, and confined spaces. I was seriously getting light-headed in there. Plus, almost NOTHING was very good. It was in there for a REASON. I guess I will have to look for my Kate Spade bags "discounted" elsewhere...ha.

Strike 1 (ok, at least I bought some tights on sale). Next we went to a place Lyle and I had seen called Syms. We saw pretty cheesy commercials for this place on tv, but we decided to give it a whirl. Uh oh...STRIKE 2. We hardly even walked in. Then we saw a place called Daffy's which I'm not sure how to describe. We walked in and walked out...it was a FAST Strike 3. So we headed up to her building nearby, took a break, and headed back out so she could show me a few fabric stores. I had been SEARCHING AND SEARCHING for fabric stores because NYC does NOT have a michaels or hobby lobby or hancock fabrics...NOTHING. So we went to one--it was closed because it was owned by Jewish people and they are of course closed on Saturday. The next shop we found was what I called a freaky fabric funhouse...
Boa anyone? These pictures don't really do the shop justice. It was no bigger than my apartment (no I am not exaggerating) and there were fabrics hanging from the wall!
As Larissa pointed out...what if we want the fabric underneath all that? Can you get that out for me? Or what if there were rats in there? How would you even know? We actually walked all the way in and took a while before we walked out. How daring are we? LOL...well the afternoon was fun and exhausting (since we were walking in the rain). I'm glad I have a friend in the city who will be adventurous in shopping, but who still enjoys fine shopping as well. We are SO driving up to White Plains to see Nordstrom at Christmas time...can't wait!

I know there will be more sad adventures in shopping to come.