After a lazy morning we headed out to the Flatiron district. Some amazing architecture, led by the Flatiron building itself. Check out the photos. It was an amazing day, sunny, but cool, but nice to walk around. The streets were packed with people hunting for bargains. 

We ventured into our first shop, Anne Taylor, a women’s fashion shop. 

It was packed, like you could hardly move. Mardi wandered around and found a few nice outfits. The queue for the fitting rooms was a mile long, so I left her and went outside to take some photos. 

Mardi eventually popped out of the shop with a couple of bags of bargains and we continued our walk around the area. 

We had lunch at Schnippers, a quiet little burger restaurant. It’s around the corner from Madison Avenue where Mardi is taking me for my birthday in a few days time. 

We went into a few other stores, Gap, Banana Republic and a few others along Fifth, Sixth and the cross streets. The crowds were mad, especially around Herald Square near Macy’s and the Empire State building. There were long lines to go up the Empire State and the Gap store at Herald square was a madhouse. We simply walked through it from one side to the next and it took about fifteen minutes. 

We then tried Macy’s. The ground floor was awash with people. The crowd was like a heaving mass lurching from one side to the next. We walked into the belly of the beast and found the escalator and made our way up a few floors. I picked up a couple of pairs of nice shoes for work. We then went higher and had a hot coffee and muffin break at Au Bin Pain, a nice little cafe we’ve been to in the past at a variety of different places. 

We sat for a while and watched the crowd pass, the kids line up for their photo with Santa and the exhausted shoppers with way too many bags to carry. 

We then braved the crowd again and made our way out. There was a queue to get in the escalator and we eventually found the fire escape and walked down the stairs and out onto the street. 



We decided to head home and walked the ten blocks for a rest. 

After a rest, we thought we’d go out for dinner and then check out the Christmas windows in a number of the stores. By going out late we thought we’d miss most of the crowds.

We had dinner at Osteria al Doge. A nice little Italian place. 

After dinner we caught the train to Lexington and Fifth avenue and started a walk looking at the store windows. We looked at Bergdoff Goodman’s, Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Barneys, Tiffany, De Beers and Cartier. Check out the photos. We also passed the Apple Store, the Plaza Hotel and a number of landmarks along Fifth avenue. 

We popped into a couple of shops, the crowds were much thinner, but it was 11pm by this stage. I spoke to a couple of exhausted shop workers, they were over Black Friday by this stage. 

Tomorrow we plan a quieter day with a stroll around Central Park.

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