Today was to be our shopping day. After breakfast in our room, we caught the subway to 34th St and hit Daffy's. The boys headed off to check out the boyswear and toy departments while Emily and I headed for the ladieswear section. We found tons of cute, cheap dresses and skirts that she was keen to try on so we went to the nearest changeroom. This is where we encountered the rudest person of the whole trip! When we entered the changeroom there were several people standing around - a couple of men who were obviously waiting for their wives and then a few women chatting in a corner. It was Em's first time trying clothes on in a store so she was unaware that she was supposed to speak to an employee before entering and she walked right in. I was behind her and looking around for the staff member but couldn't tell who that was as none of the women had a uniform or nametag or looked like they were working. So when Emily walked past the women who were chatting, one of them YELLS at her "what am I, a wall?". She stopped, stunned and the woman continued to abuse her saying "how dare you walk right past me you rude girl, don't you treat me as if I'm invisible" etc. I was fuming! I said excuse me, she wasn't being rude, she didn't realise she needed to ask your permission to enter. She then started abusing me, saying how dare we be so rude to her yada, yada, yada. I said "don't speak to her like that, she's 10 years old, she's only a child" and she just kept ranting and raving about how horribly rude we were. I grabbed Emily and left the changeroom to go make a complaint. I asked at the checkout to see the manager and when I explained to her what had happened she knew exactly who I was talking about so they've obviously had complaints about her before. I said we still wanted to try on the clothes but refused to go back to that changeroom, so the manager took us to another floor with a much nicer changeroom assistant. As she walked us past the original changeroom we could still hear the nasty woman ranting and raving about how rude we were for ignoring her. I was so furious, I was really hoping that she would be fired or at least reprimanded severely. How dare she!!
Anyway, we bought the clothes and went searching for the boys. They weren't in a shopping mood so were just sitting outside waiting for us. We left Daffy's and went downstairs to Modell's sports store where we stocked up on Yankees souvenirs. The boys both got Jeter #2 t-shirts as well as baseballs, hats and mini-baseball bats. Then it was across the road to Macy's. I think it was a combination of the boys being bored and the nasty woman in Daffy's leaving a bad taste in my mouth, but I just wasn't in the mood anymore. We browsed the kidswear and picked up a couple of t-shirts but that was it. We decided to give the shopping a miss and walk down to Madison Square Park for lunch. We consulted our map and saw that we were right by Madison Square Garden, so we decided to walk. Don't be fooled, Madison Square Garden and Park are nowhere near each other! First we checked out MSG
and then walked and walked and walked to Madison Square Park. When we finally found it, there was a huge line at the Shake Shack already and a lot of the people queuing were office workers, so I thought if they are lining up in their lunchbreak then the food must be good! So Alex took the kids to the playground while I lined up to order burgers and fries. The food was okay but nothing special. I'm not really sure what the fuss is about. It's a nice little park to take a break in though. While we were having lunch, I said to Alex that I'd really like to find the Flatiron Building. I didn't know where it was but it was in so many famous photos and paintings of NYC that I'd like to see it. He looked up and said isn't that it there?
And there it was!
We consulted our map again to figure out what to do next and decided to hop on the subway down to Washington Square. It was hot and we'd all had enough of walking! So we got of the train in Greenwich Village and were excited to see that we were on Waverly Place - no wizards in sight though!
We walked a couple of blocks before spotting the Washington Arch
Of course Sam went straight into the fountain!
We were all hot and tired by that stage, so decided to head back to the hotel for a rest. We walked back up to 5th Ave looking for a subway entrance. We asked several people and they all kept directing us to mysterious stations that didn't exist. I think we were near the Fame school, because there were tons of ballerinas and musicians and trendy kids milling around! It was then that we figured out that we could use our Metro cards on the bus, so we jumped on one going uptown and were back at the hotel in 15 minutes!
I left the family to rest and headed down to the TKTS booth at Times Square as I wanted to take Emily to see Mamma Mia that night. I got there about 30 minutes after it opened and there was already a huge queue, but that was fine because I enjoyed the people watching and the sites of Times Square.
After about 45 minutes in the line, I ended up with two tickets to that night's performance of Mamma Mia.
The plan was to go out to dinner as a family and then Alex and the boys would head out to do something else while us girls went to the theatre. Alex had read about the Heartland Brewery on 43rd St so we headed off towards there but we couldn't find it. I think we actually walked past it several times but the entrance was very subtle so we missed it. Anyway, it was getting late so we abandoned the brewery idea and walked back to Times Square but of course everywhere had wait times but we couldn't afford the time, so we split up and Emily and I just grabbed a pizza slice each and the boys went off to do their own thing.
Mamma Mia was a lot of fun! We had the understudy playing Sophie which was fine, but she wasn't a very strong singer and she started out a little wobbly, but the rest of the cast were fantastic and really carried her through it. We were all on our feet singing and dancing by the end of it!
After the show we saw the crowds waiting at the stage door, but seeming as there wasn't anyone famous in the show I asked Emily if she would prefer to wander down Broadway and see who else we might be able to see. I knew that Corbin Bleu was playing in Into the Heights so we walked down to 46th St to wait outside the Richard Rogers Theatre. There was a big crowd there already, so we knew we hadn't missed him. After a few minutes, there he was!
There was another crowd screaming across the road, so we went to see who it was, and there was Bebe Neuwirth
She plays Morticia in The Addams Family which is why she's so white! As a Cheers and Frasier fan, I was very excited to have now seen both Frasier and Lilith!
We walked back through the madness of Times Square
before stopping at one of the handbag stands on 49th St. This was the only time that I felt unsafe in New York. Emily had a handbag on her shopping list and all week she had been asking to browse the handbag stalls that are everywhere on the sidewalks. Seeming as we didn't have any whiny boys with us, I told her she could have a look. As soon as we showed interest, all these other people appeared out of the shadows and surrounded us and were hassling us to buy a couple of bags. I was very uncomfortable and just wanted to get out of there so let them bully me into paying for two bags, even though we really only wanted one! I did want a new handbag myself, but I wanted to browse a bit more before choosing, but I was so intimidated that I just bought the one that they were forcing on me. It's a nice enough bag but not exactly what I wanted.
I was very happy to get away from them and into the hotel where the the boys were all snoozing away!
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