Alaska, Canada and NYC Day 34

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Bit of a sleep in this morning. Slept with the blinds open in our bedroom so we could look at the lights of the tall buildings - nice way to go to sleep and wake up but the sun was bit bright so blinds shut for rest of sleep in......

Finally up and breakfast in the room, shopping at the little deli next door helped. Nice to cook toast and vegemite our way, especially a cup of tea for Chris made her way. Shower was good and all the kitchen amenities are also good, apartment gets tick of approval. Decide to make today a shopping day - yay....

Off we go, also decide that we wil do a broadway show as well so find our way to one of the suggested theatres and get in a queue..... There is actually 3 queues, we go in the first, sorry, only pick ups and bookings for the matinee today - no good as we want to shop. One outside is for standing room at $30 on the day - again for the matinee so bomb out on 2 sides there, shopping and standing. Finally get in the right queue and ask for tickets for tonight, tomorrow or Sunday matinee. Tonight a bit expensive but Sunday have really good seats at a reasonable price - done.

Off we go with a sort of list of things we want, of course the major stuff is downtown so a walk through the entire midtown area including times sqaure. We know this area quite well now. Problem is it is around lunch time so busy busier.... Stop at the Levi shop for some jeans for moi, need to translate the sort of jeans I want as they don't have 503's - in the US they are 527's. Finally get what I want and off.

Onto the shoe shops - shoes for Stephanie, the kids, me and Chris - and yes, that new suitcase we are going to buy will be a necessity now.....

All done, look like pack horses with all our bags. Decide that the subway is the go. Find out which line we need (C or E) so down the hole we go. Get in a queue, finally to the window - wrong queue (read a pattern here). Walk on and stand where we think we should be, no subway ticket box here, just lots of people standing looking at departure boards. Chris goes up to a guy in a suit and asks him where we should be. Nice guy who gives us directions - asks where we are from and says he is a sort of out of tower himself but lives and works in NYC now. Wishes us a good day and good luck. Finally get to the right area. Another queue for a person to help us. Get a metro card loaded with 8 trips that we can use for the 2 of us. Into the platform, and a train arrives in about 2 minutes. On and work out where we are getting off. Now looking for the suitcase shop we went into last night. Off at 53rd and 8th and start to look for our shop. They all look the same and none like what we remembered - should have taken more attention to where we had been. Went into one, hassled by the dude so not interested to buy from him, as we are walking out the price drops by $25 on the cheaper samsonites and $100 on the more expensive ones - makes you wonder what the real price is. Go out and try to retrace our steps from last night but still no luck. Buggered so decide to give it a miss, and it has just started to rain.

Walk briskly back home trying to avoid the showers, storms threatening. walk past nor restaurant that took our fancy last night but it was busy so kept going. Home just in time, the storm is a cracker - really loud, lots of lightning and thunder and rain. Great views of it form the apartment. There was one bolt of lightning that Must have been on top of the building, the thunder clap got Chris out of the seat and shok the building.

Then the phone goes off - flood warning for our area. More rain, so tea is off for a bit. We decided to go to a restaurant just across the road so eventually head out. Rain has stopped for a little bit so we get there dry. Nice Italian place with a wine bar. Food looks good, order and not disappointed. Good bottle of Sangiovese from Tuscanny and good pasta. Back to the apartment with the umbrella up this time.

Busy day so early to bed.

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