Wednesday Last full day

This morning I was almost not popular twice.   I had to buy a subway ticket because my monthy one has run out. I had a whole lot of quarters saved to do a load of washing which I haven’t needed. It took a while to feed them into the machine at the subway station. Luckily there was only an old couple waiting and they were in no hurry and did not know what to do anyhow. I helped them.

At Bryant park, I took some extra time to pay, using up yet more small change .  The people behind me were tourists, so they could wait. My coffee and croissant were nice. But the wind made reading the paper a bit difficult.  Then I walked about 14 blocks  heading to a shop , Habu, I had read about. I passed Macy’s and thought I would have a quick look to see if they had shoes like I am looking for. Silly me.   Once I found the shoe floor, I quickly realised that  the acre of  brightly coloured summer shoes with  mirrored stands reflecting glittering lights was not where I wanted to be.  I did a quick wiz around so I could pretend to myself that I had looked .  I went onto the other shop, but it had no street front or wasnot there, so I went to the next on my list . This was a material shop like nothing I have ever seen in my life. Rows and rows and rows of material of all different sorts, some ordinary – but all colours of ordinary -, some beautiful Italian wool etc .  Most of the bolts had a safety pin sort of thing with about 20 5 cm by 5 cm swatches  that you could take 1 of.  There were rules though, and some of the beautiful European fabrics did not have any.  Next was a shop called Muji – a Japanese shop that sold storage containers, clothes, furniture – all sorts of different things.

Then I came back here and had lunch at one of my local cafes . I half  listened to the people at the next table discussing in Italian some other eating places in New York. I was looking at my book but not turning the pages very often. I was surprised at how much I could understand.  This afternoon I pottered, sorting myself out for tomorrow’s trip home.

I had dinner at a nice small  place ( same block) that I have eaten at several times before. Apparently the owner went to Byron Bay about 10 years or so ago for 2 weeks and stayed for 1 ½ years in Australia. I had a glass of wine with my dinner , then decided to have desert because it is my last evening and was given another glass of wine. It would have been rude of me not to drink it!  I talked to the ‘mayor’ holding court on his step  2 doors away from mine for a while after dinner and met some other locals as they went past. Very interesting. One lady was saying that she was under the impression that Australians held American culture in high regard.  Hmmm. Tricky to answer. I said that certain sections of our society may do, but not all. Bed time.