Saturday in the City

Last Saturday, my childhood friend from Texas came to NYC for the weekend. Nichole now lives in Virginia and she's the one I mentioned before whom we visited in August during our D.C. trip. Anyhoo, she and her sister-in-law, and two other gals took the train up from VA to spend the weekend in NYC. They arrived on a Friday and met Dave at work where he gave them a tour of the Patek Philippe service center. The next day, I took the bus in and got the spend the WHOLE day bumming around the city with them!
First, we met up at the farmer's market in Union Square. It was fun to see a place like this in the city, with New Yorkers pulling their little luggage carts around, full of fresh produce, flowers, goat cheese, and so on. Then we went to a lovely seafood restaurant in Union Square. Seafood, you ask? Shelley went to a seafood restaurant? As most of you know, I don't DO seafood. But this trip wasn't about ME so I happily ordered a nice salad while the other ladies enjoyed their seafood. (Although, I admit Nichole got me to try her crab cake and it was a bit tasty). The only thing I can figure is that one day I must've had some BAD seafood and have been turned off by it ever since. That, and the fact that many sea creatures look like giant bugs. Think about it: lobster, crabs, shrimp? They're huge water roaches! AND, they swim in their own excrement! But, I digress...
We then wandered through the trendy Greenwich Village on our way to the Jacques Torres chocolate store. This is Nichole's favorite chocolate so she needed to stock up and I was more than happy to make a few purchases of my own! Afterwards, we wandered around Soho; window shopping and checking out all the cool street vendors. These are not the vendors selling I love NY shirts or Statue of Liberty trinkets. They sell really cool, very eclectic stuff. Everything from handmade jewelry and t-shirts to finger puppets for kids.
I LOVED Soho! It was very crowded and I noticed that you could probably wear anything in Soho and not even get a second glance. I bought a gorgeous crocheted winter hat, a beautifully soft blanket, and then a pink belly-dancing scarf with all the jingle jangles on it. I actually thought about wearing the noisy scarf over my jeans because then I would've fit right in. I'm telling you, nobody would've even given me a second glance if I was wearing a belly-dance skirt and jeans together in Soho! I don't think you could get away with that in Midtown (the area where Dave works).
Then we ventured a little closer to Chinatown so two of the girls could buy knock-off Coach handbags. To get the really good imitations, you have to be willing to go on a bit of an adventure but we were able to find some without having to climb into the back of someone's van, luckily.
It was a really fun day...especially for me since I had never had the opportunity arise to wander around the Village or shop in Soho before. I'm usually with my family when I'm in the city and Dave's never said before, "Hey, I have a great idea! Let's take the kids and go shopping in Soho today!" Just doesn't work...