3/11/05--Day 4--Gucci...ucci.....Fee-a-rucci,and Prada & Coach--wholesale

So Day 4 sees us getting up and after a quick breakfast, Kim starts feeling....ya know, "under the weather".  So while she's running in and out of hotels looking for a bathroom, I'm just doing some people watching (this is almost worth the price of admission all by itself), planning on eventually going back down to Battery Park to buy a few more knockoff bags for some friends at work.  Well as I'm standing there, lo & behold....here come my friends with the shopping carts and the merchandise wrapped in blankets.
"Yo..man, I got rolex, I got sunglasses....I got DVD's"
"Hey man...you got any Louie V's?"
"Yeah man....what you need?"
"I need Louie V's."
"Well I got them."
"Okay, look I'm waiting for my wife.  Meet me at the end of the block in 5 minutes."

I mean.....am I hip on the street lingo, or what??

So after Kim's little.....uh....break, we mosey on down to the end of the block where I see my new best friend complete with the "wide variety of merchandise".  Then begins the negotiation dance.

"How much?"
"How many you need?"
"I need 3 purses."
"$125."
"I need 3 purses, I'm in a hurry and I'm going to give you $90."
"Uh....okay."

The subtle art of the deal.
Then we do a little personal shopping, and I pick up a couple of sweet Beatles shirts with the album covers from Hard Day's Night & Revolver printed on the front.
Very nice.
We walked about 20 blocks south towards the Empire State Building.  Where we found out that the wait to go to the top of the building was 45 minutes.  Ugh.  Nothing is ever easy.  $13 to go up to the top and take a look at the view.  Sort of disappointing.  After that, we make our way to the subway to head north towards Central Park.  Some big fun here.  We get off the subway by Central Park, and on the other side of the track we hear....

"And ye who are unworthy shall read in the book of the Lord where he sayeth....."

And there's this guy standing there, basically wearing a bathrobe, screaming and preaching at the top of his lungs.....his version of the word of God.  It was compelling stuff.  And Kim says...
"Come on, let's get going."
"What?  Are you kidding?  Miss this freak show?  Good lord, this might be the highlight of our trip!"

A number of jaded New Yorkers who were sitting within earshot of my comments got a good chuckle out of that remark.

So we make our way to Central Park, which is really amazing in that its this area of green trees in vegatation in the middle of this urban jungle.  We walk past the famous "Tavern on the Green" restaurant and eventually locate the famous Dakota building, where John Lennon used to live before his murder.  We found it, but it was a fairly nondescript building without so much as a sign telling us what it was.  If we hadn't approached the doorman, we wouldn't have known it was--ya know--what it was.
After a quick lunch of an authentic New York sidewalk hotdog and soda  (their motto:  "Get your cholestral dog with added nitrate right here!") we made the approximately 30 block walk back to our hotel.  And my feet were hurting like hell.
We walked past the horse carriages--feeling a little sorry for the horses, who look so miserable....past all the big name shops---Gucci, Sak's 5th Avenue, Fende, Cartier.  Kim's remark about those stores:
"If you have to ask how much something is.....you don't need to be shopping there."

After a quick rest at the hotel, we made our way out early in the evening to Virgil's, a BBQ restaurant near Times Square.  Good BBQ sauce on the ribs I ate, but---I mean people--how can a BBQ restaurant serve iced tea that is....(shudder).....sweetened by LEMON!  LEMON!  I mean, at a BBQ joint I want iced tea that is sweetened by SUGAR  The way that Grandma Bunton used to make it!  So right away, I was a little disappointed.  After dinner, we made our way to Caroline's, which is a comedy club in Times Square.  It was headlined that evening Kevin Meany & Richard Kind, who used to star on "Spin City" with Michael J Fox.
It was a lot of fun, good laughs and they also had a couple of Broadway performers come out and sing a few numbers since the week was what they called "Broadway Cares", much like the show we had seen the night before.  Really good stuff.
Ya know....when Kim wasn't coughing.

Later,
Jeff