the sociology of kate: i should be typing up meeting minutes...

but instead i'm going to finish blogging about my NYC vacation. on friday, shelley and i slept in a bit. we got ready and packed our stuff and then went to meet her friend jon (or "prick" as shells calls him) and his fiance for lunch. we went to a sushi place and by the time we walked there i could have eaten shelley's arm. turns out i should eat breakfast before trekking around NYC with heavy luggage. lunch was really fun and i even forgive everyone for mocking me for being from iowa. (that was a bit of a pattern in NYC...we have gay marriage NYC...do you? oh snap!?!)

after lunch we took a cab to our hotel (thank the lord) and i think we were both very pleasantly

surprised by how awesome it was. here's a picture of our room. the hotel is called The Pod and our room was pretty small, but had everything we needed. the bathrooms were communal style, but they were also really nice. there were four in our area and one had just a shower, one had just a toilet, and the other two had both. we even had little lights above our door that indicated when they were open, allegedly.

after we got settled in, we walked up 5th avenue and checked out some of the stores. before we even got there though, i stopped at some athletic store to get some better walking shoes. ended up with a cool pair of running shoes that made my feet feel very, very happy. after that stop, we went to Saks and Sephora and some other stores. shelley showed me all the crazy expensive stuff in Saks. we looked at and touched a bunch of fur coats. one short, shrug coat made of chinchilas cost $44,500.

needless to say it was a little out of my price range. we also checked out all the

fun shoes. some of them were fantastic and almost all of them were crazy expensive. i picked up more than one pair that cost close to $1000. that made the $300 ones seem much more

reasonable. on the right is a picture of a very fancy necklace we saw in one of the store windows.

while we were walking around (on our way to the empire state building) we ended up near rockefeller center. i'd been on a huge 30rock kick before the trip so it was cool to be there. (i didn't run in to liz lemon though.) i think this was the day we also were on a quest to find a starbucks so that we could have some adult coffees while we wandered. i wisely packed those bailey's minis in my suitcase and they were quite convenient for our purposes. fortunately for us, there are a whole bunch of starbuck's stores in NYC.

we saw times square as well which was fun and then made our way towards the empire state building. we decided to pay to go up the elevator and i'm so glad we did. it was really incredible! awesome views of the city and just one of those experiences that i'll never forget. we saw a bride and groom up there and i'm pretty sure i that one of the security guards was in a documentary that i show to my classes every semester. :) we didn't spend a lot of time up there because it was pretty cold and windy, but it was great!

after the elevator ride back down, we headed to serendipity for dinner. by the time we found it, we were both starving again. by the time we left though, i sort of wanted to get hit by a cab. it is safe to say that we ate WAY too much. the food wasn't all that great (for example, we had the greasiest nachos known to man as an appetizer), but the desserts more than made up for it. in case you haven't heard of this place, it was in the movies Serendipity and One Fine Day and they are known for their frozen hot chocolates. i got the peanutbutter one and it was phenomenal. shelley i think got a regular one and we also shared a slice of carrot cake. i was not well after that. but it was worth it. mostly. :)

once we had sufficiently given ourselves type-1 diabetes, we made our way back to the hotel to get ready to go out with shelley's friend chris. he met us at The Pod and then we walked to Monkey Bar. we picked this place not only because of my love of monkeys, but because it was featured on an episode of Sex in the City. (it's the one where carrie falls for the jazz player.) when we finally found it (there was no sign of course), we found a table to stand around and chris generously bought us a round of cosmos. shortly after our arrival i was chastised for taking pictures of some of the monkey stuff. i still managed to walk out of there with a few though, so take that monkey bar jerks!

after that, we went to a bar called Stag's Head that was close to our hotel and had some beers and enjoyed rocking out to some very loud, but very good music! i didn't get in trouble for taking pictures in that bar, so that was a bonus. :)

after a full day and a lot of walking, i think shells and i were both ready to head to bed! plus we had even more fun planned for saturday.