Saturday Morning started a bit later than our mornings up til this point, but it started off very nicely. Jeremy and Chris Ann had gone down to the corner bakery and bought us ‘everything’ bagels for breakfast. We ate our bagels and headed out with umbrellas in hand to walk the Brooklyn Bridge and eat at Grimaldi’s. Unfortunately when we got about 3 blocks from the apartment it started to rain, so we decided to head back to the apartment to avoid being drenched throughout the day and re-evaluate our plans.
Instead of walking the Brooklyn Bridge (which I definitely want to do when I return to the city some day) we decided to catch a bus to Jay Street -- the subway was down at Carroll Street and to avoid a shuttle going to the Jay Street station was the best way to get in to the city.
We caught the bus and the subway and got off at the stop beneath Rockefeller Center. We started to wander about and saw an area where you could sit at the level of the ice skating rink and watch skaters. We did this for a few minutes before we moved on to explore the stores. The first store we went into was the Swarovski store. There were lots of beautiful things in this store, but probably my favorite was the settee covered with crystals and encircled by a crystal curtain. Jessie and I took some time to have some pics made here and then moved through the rest of the store to look at the beautiful jewelry.
We eventually tore ourselves away from the sparkling treasures of Swarovski and headed to the NBC Experience store. This store sells everything imaginable that has anything to do with NBC TV. There were lots of great souvenirs and fun things to look at here. Some of my favorite things were the SNL skit t-shirts -- Schweddy Balls, Matt Foley, etc. -- and the Office and Law & Order paraphernalia. After looking around for a while, I grabbed a couple of souvenirs and we headed back out toward the ice skating rink.
We walked around the rink and took pictures of the beautiful area. And although we didn’t go to the Met, there is a Metropolitan Museum Store in this area. We went in the store and saw some prints of art pieces, interesting knick knacks, and a great selection of books. I was especially interested in the children’s books that hardly seemed like books for children. Not that the material was inappropriate, but they were beautiful books with pop-ups and projects and lots of other things that could have kept me busy reading for hours. But we didn’t really have hours to spend there, so we moved on.
Our next stop was St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which is beautiful. The architecture and stained glass in this cathedral are breathtaking. It truly was gorgeous, and I know it’s famous, but honestly I thought St. John’s was a bit more beautiful and offered more to see -- I realize in hindsight that this might be a result of the fact that we were escaping the bus and the elements when we went to St. John’s OR that St. John’s had the Poet’s Corner and anything that honors literary geniuses does my heart good. -- Anyway, we toured St. Patrick’s and saw all the lovely things it has to offer.
Upon leaving the cathedral we headed to Saks Fifth Avenue. Several things struck me about Saks, not the least of which, is that people bring their dogs to shop at Saks. Apparently people bring their dogs to shop lots of places in the city, but I was shocked to see pets amongst the Prada and other high end finery. (As a side note, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels -- which is what my dog King is -- must be very fancy and city friendly dogs because I saw several of them out shopping with their owners in the couple of days that we watched pets and people shop together.) Before we ever entered Saks, Jessie had decided that she was going to try on formal gowns at Saks. I wasn’t so sure about trying on fancy dresses -- I know, shocking, especially since I’d been accused of being “fancy” on a pretty regular basis -- but after looking around through coats and some of the designer collections we headed to the floor with formals. Jessie was enthusiastic about finding gowns to try on and after a bit of time she convinced me to do the same. We each gathered up a few and went to wait in the dressing room area for a room to open up. Jessie tried on her dresses first and she looked great in them. I took pics of her in her gowns, of course, and I especially loved the way she looked in a beautiful chocolate brown gown that was beaded at the top above the empire waist and had a gorgeous box pleated skirt that fell to the floor. When Jessie finished trying on her dresses, I took her room and tried on that same chocolate brown gown -- which looked so much better on her -- and a couple of black dresses. I did have my picture made in one despite the fact that I had on a hat and looked ridiculous in a formal dress with a hat -- but I just couldn’t make myself take the hat off in front of other people after it had flattened my horrendous hair all day (apparently this is a Southern girl thing and again makes me ‘fancy’(( -- and yes, I admit, I am fancy OR at very least like fancy things)) or maybe just genteel, which may be a word I like even better than fancy...) BUT I also didn’t want to miss having a picture of a gown that if I’d have had anywhere at all to wear it, I’d probably have been tempted to purchase.
After we had a chance to be fancy and frilly in our gowns from Saks, we decided it was time to move on. The next thing we did was search for a place that Nikki insisted we go to and that I was anxious to enjoy -- Magnolia Bakery. We had seen Magnolia when we were out walking around other days and while on the tour bus, but it took us a few minutes of wandering here and there to finally find it. It was totally worth the wandering...It was scrumptious...I had the chocolate cupcake with white icing and Jessie had a wonderful Whoopie Cookie...Oh so good!!! But as that was the only thing we’d eaten since breakfast and we both felt we might be slipping into sugar-induced comas, we headed back down below Rockefeller Center and grabbed flatbread sandwiches at Dunkin Donuts.
With our blood sugar a little more stable, we headed out once again to do some shopping and we went to Macy’s. Jessie was most excited about showing me the wooden escalators at Macy’s so we rode the escalators all the way up to the top floor where we sat for a few minutes to relax. We also looked at the floor which housed dishes, crystal and Christmas decorations. I haven’t decorated for Christmas in a few years, but seeing all the great decorations at Macy’s -- and I’m sure the fact that it hadn’t been above 45 degrees since we arrived in NYC -- made me seriously re-think the idea of decorating for the season. I was also entertained and quite tickled to find Macy’s selling crystal replicas of Dale Earnhardt, Jr’s famous #8 NASCAR. After shopping for a while, we headed back down the wooden escalators and to the subway station to catch the train back to Brooklyn. In the station we saw a couple of groups of street performers. We saw twin brothers playing flamenco music and then saw a group of break dancing boys. I was really pleased to see these as I felt part of the complete NYC experience was enjoying the street/subway performers.
We took the subway back to Brooklyn and ended up getting off at a different stop than the one we’d gotten on at. We ended up at the Fulton St. ‘mall’...which unless we were interested in a cell phone or some sneakers was not an incredibly fun place to be. Luckily for us Chris Ann and Jeremy happened to be out shopping in another part of Brooklyn as well, and had their cab swing by and pick us up.
After a bit of time talking and relaxing back at our hosts’ apartment, we decided on an evening out in Brooklyn. And what a night it was...We first walked to JOYA, a wonderful Thai restaurant in Brooklyn. We sat at the bar enjoying fabulous lychee martinis and great conversation while we waited for our table. After we were seated, we had some incredibly yummy and surprisingly amazingly affordable dinners. I had Jumbo Shrimp and Baby Scallops with Sweet Red Pepper and Curry Sauce over noodles. It was fantastic and more than I could eat...Chris Ann and I got our ‘ta-goes’ and after Jessie left her mark on JOYA (funny funny story -- enough said) we headed to the Clover Club.
Clover Club is cocktail club reminiscent of Prohibition Era speakeasies. The decor and music harken back to that era and instead of bartenders they employee ‘mixologists.’ We decided on the Pim’s Punch which is served in a milk glass punch bowl and served with a ladle to each person at the table. The punch was great and the company, conversation and laughter was even better. Having an authentic night out experience with locals (well, transplanted locals I guess...Chris Ann is from Long Island and Jeremy is actually from Texarkana originally) is an absolutely wonderful experience. After we had our punch, we went with our hosts to a Brooklyn birthday party in a beautiful apartment. The apartment was in new construction and was split level. It had a very open living, kitchen, dining area, a media room, a bathroom and a laundry room (apparently a huge luxury in Brooklyn) and a bedroom and bathroom upstairs. The apartment belonged to a decorator and her husband and was not only beautiful, but a very interesting look at real life in Brooklyn. I suppose I spent most of my time in the media room -- The Yankees game was on and when surrounded by New Yorkers it’s hard to not become a big Yankees fan -- and also spent time with another little host of the party. His name was Benny. He was wearing a tux. And he loved to give kisses. It was the human occupants of the apartment Yorkshire Terrier puppy and he was quite the friendly host and fun distraction from feeling odd about being at a party where the majority of people there were people I didn’t and would never know.
After staying the ‘proper’ amount of time for an appearance and the apartment tour, we caught a cab back to the apartment to catch the extra innings of the Yankees game. We watched the Yankees win and fell into bed after a long and fun and splendid day and evening in the city.
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