Day 21 - New York

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After a quiet night last night and another sleep in this morning, we left the hotel ready for another day or walking and shopping. Yesterday morning it was snow, this morning it was clear skies however it was absolutely freezing.

It was probably the coldest day I've even been in, minus 4 at midday and managed to reach a top of minus 1. The wind chill was unbearable and as we were walking along, we made sure that we found at least one shop on every block to go into just so we weren't outside for too long.

The more shops we looked in, the more we bought and that meant poor Dave was left to carry all the "heavy" bags. As we walked down towards Soho, we passed a couple of popular places including the public basketball courts known as "The Cage" which were used in the filming of Hamish and Andy's Gap year. As expected, nobody was stupid enough to be out playing this morning.

We then reached our next stop which was the store Dash, this store is owned by the Kartrashian sisters and Lauren was pretty disappointed with it once we got there. Everything was a lot more expensive than everywhere else and there wasn't much there that she liked in the first place. Probably no surprise to me as none of the sisters have any talent at all and shouldn't even be celebrities in the first place (I know I am going to get shot down by a few people for that comment but I also know I'll have just as many supporters!).

We had a bit more of a look around Greenwich Village and Soho which are the trendy areas and found a few more things to buy. It's obvious why online shopping has become so big in Australia because everything over here is so cheap and even when you add the postage fees, you are still saving a lot of money.

As I mentioned the other day, the last few days have mainly been used to just wander around without too much purpose and just see what we come across. We've done a fair bit of shopping and still have plenty to go in London, Paris and Hong Kong.

Speaking of people on TV with no talent, our next stop was to head back towards Times Square to a shop called Best Buy, which is just like JB Hi-Fi to find a copy of Season 4 of Jersey Shore for my sister. We finally found it yesterday but then thought that it wouldn't work on an Australian DVD player. We've since been told from Sally that it does so back to buy it today.

It was about 2pm and we decided to go back to John's Pizzeria for lunch and it was just as good as the other day. As good as it was, I think we're both starting to miss some home cooking and as much as we've tried to eat as well as possible, sometimes it's not that easy.

It was still absolutely freezing and we made our way back to the hotel at about 4.30pm. Lauren decided that she was going to go around the corner to get her nails done which was handy as a Celtics game had just come on TV. This was the first real time that we had been separated on the trip and we cannot contact each other as our phones aren't working over here. It had reached 6pm and still no sign of Lauren, it was dark outside and I was starting to get worried. I headed back downstairs to begin a search party and luckily she was waiting to get in the lift. I was given some story about how the lady stuffed her nails up and had to do them again, however our hotel is in the Fashion District and that means there are lots of shops close by....

With it being so cold tonight (I think it's meant to get to minus 5), we went out to get a quick dinner and are now back in the hotel. The Grammys are on so that will be our night tonight. There isn't much in the way of nightlife down this way so we are happy to stay in and we will have a rough night tomorrow night with the flight to London and the time difference.

Last day tomorrow and we are looking to buy a few more things, also Lauren promised me at the start of New York that she will get a photo with the Naked Cowboy so tomorrow is her last chance! Our flight is at 6.30pm and it is approx 7 hours however with the time difference, we get into London at approx 7am.

Was also great to see Brodie and Lily on skype today, we're looking forward to seeing you and giving you your presents!

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