Shopping, Shopping, Rain and more Shopping

Today dawned, or rather drizzled, with the best of intentions to go downtown to Lower Manhattan to see the WTC site and memorial, the financial district, City Hall, Staten Island Ferry, and Wall Street... but after getting off the subway (we took the subway!! On our own! And it smelled like PEE!) at the nearest accessible stop to Broadway so we could by tickets to the theatre, we got a little stuck.

In Sephora.

Maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the fatigue, maybe it was just the reality of two girls and unfettered access to shoes and cosmetics, but we came to a mutual (and easy) decision that we would swap our shopping day (scheduled for Friday) so we could wander around Midtown, Times Square, 5th avenue (yes, THAT 5th avenue) at a leisurely pace.

We waded through the crowds of tourists and hawkers with pamphlets for comedy shows, tapings and bus tours. We got stuck in Sephora (a cosmetics candy store), frustrated in Macy's shoe level, giggling in Victoria's Secret (at the rows of husbands and boyfriends stuck waiting at the front of the store - see pic - in eager anticipation of purchase)...

...and people-watched in starbucks, where the absolutely shocking lack of fashion sense kept us amused and hoping that Stacy and Clinton would show up any minute.

We finally have crashed (and are exploiting our allotted 2hrs per day of internet usage) in Starbucks, our home away from home, and are trying to figure out where to drag ourselves next. The weather is terrible, but would you believe we are currently in the Starbucks INSIDE the Empire State Building. It's fabulous and very Art-Deco-y, and has fantastic metal artwork dedicated to the captains of industry and resource. Despite the terrible weather, there are scads of yuppie-types here in the Sbux chilling out and trying to look fab.

Food: I know you are all dying to find out what nationality of cuisine we will be enjoying tonight. Well, if S&P has her way, we will be having pizza from Lombardi's, noted as the first pizza joint in the whole nation (and that's saying something, considering that pizza was pretty much invented here).

S&P & J