Day #7- Tuesday

Today didn't start off quite so fabulous. Scott and I stayed in the apartment and worked until almost 4:00 today...BOO! But, I did make a sale, so that was nice.

We did take a 30 minute break around 11:00 to go to Magnolia Bakery, which was made a favorite tourist destination due to the exposure that this quaint little bakery got from being on an episode of Sex and the City. Today makes the second time we've been to this bakery (we came here last summer as well), and both times it was jam packed with people. We each got a cup of coffee, Scott got a blueberry fruit cobbler, and I had a flourless chocolate cake. These were both bite sized pieces of deliciousness! Aside from that 30 minute venture out, we were inside most of the work day :-(

At 4:00, we realized that we were starving, so decided to get out and enjoy the day. We walked to Gray's Papaya, which is an all beef hot dog joint. They also serve Papaya drinks, which are papaya fruit shakes (kind of like a milkshake, minus the ice cream), and banana daiquiris. We each got a dog and shared a drink, and it was all delicious! Especially because you can get your dog topped with sauerkraut, which I absolutely LOVE!

This says Gray's Papaya, not Ray's Papa. I couldn't get a good shot of this as we were so close to the building! :-)

After our satisfying $6 lunch, we walked down to Loehmann's department store to do some shopping. After a few good buys there, we then caught a subway to Century 21. This is a discount designer store, and we totally racked up! Scott got a bunch of shirts and ties, and I got 7 dresses for $150! We got a lot of cool stuff, and had a great time getting some stylish discount designer outfits. Here are some picts of our buys:

This is the same dress, I liked it so much I got it in black and pink!

Scott got some good ties, all designer (Valentino and Yves St Laurent) ranging from $25-$43!

This place is great for some good deals! I'm sure we will be visiting here once or twice more before our trip is over.

After shopping, we were starving, so came back to the apartment to decide where to go eat. We looked through a few of our books and some online menus, and decided on this place called Home

To start with, we had the Maytag Blue Cheese Fondue. After our fondue at Artisinal the other night, I swore I'd never try fondue again- but of course when I saw it was Maytag Blue Cheese (one of my favorites!) I had to give it a try. Boy, was I glad I did, because it was phenomenal!

For our entrees, Scott had the burger, which was a combo of short rib, chuck, and lamb, topped with a duck confit, and sundried tomato-bacon spread (which Scott had them leave off because of the bacon). This was served with thyme gouda fries and homemade ketchup- OH MY GOODNESS! This was freakin delicious!

I had the halibut, which was pan seared, and sitting on top of kale greens, and came with root vegetable cake (looked like a crab cake, even had same consistency)- this was off the chart delicious as well.

I couldn't get any pictures as we sat outside, and the only lighting were tiny lights strung around the courtyard, and the candle in a jar on our table. As we were sitting there enjoying our amazing food, basking in the glow of NYC, and talking about how wonderful NYC is to have quaint little places like this to eat at with such good food, something in the corner caught my eye. Something small and moving...scurrying, actually.... IT WAS A MOUSE! And then I noticed, he was not alone! There were 3 or 4 tiny little mice running around the tree in the fenced in courtyard that we were sitting in. At that point, I passed out and died.

Ok, not really, but I wanted to! All of a sudden, I was no longer hungry, and all I could think of was WE HAVE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE! Thankfully, we were almost finished with our food at that point, and quickly got our checks to leave. As we were paying, we mentioned to the waiter that there were some mice scurrying about over yonder, and he said that yea, he had noticed one last week. As we were signing our bill, I noticed another mouse crawl out from under the bench I was sitting on, and that was definitely our cue to leave.

I'm sure that these were just little mice who happened to be passing by, and decided to wander inside the fence as there were many tables with plates of yummy smelling food on them. It was probably the cute little mouse Remi, from Ratatouille, who was coming by to check out gourmet food. This is what I kept telling myself as we walked home. However, by this time, my happy glowing, fabulous NYC bubble had been popped, and all I could do was imagine how many more mice and worse, rats, must live in this city. We could not get back to the apartment fast enough! And all night, I dreamed that mice were in our apartment. Ugh. Stupid mice. I hope that was the first and last experience I'll have with New York's other inhabitants. Ick.