Not loving the fact that I wake at 5am, and also the news is reporting rain all day (till 5pm). Mum is purring in the other bed and I watch the morning news on ABC – so very middle aged. I do enjoy seeing what’s being reported on in different countries and what the advertisements are like. It also is fun to check out supermarkets internationally too. Yup I am that girl!

Mum eventually stirs and despite the rain (and some searching about rainy day activities) we decide to forge ahead with what we had planned. Thrift shopping in the lower east side. I pop out to grab us coffee and breakfast before we decide it’s time to bite the bullet and take on the weather.
Cabs are a bit fancy these days in NYC. Definitely different from my last visit in 2016. The touch screens in the back and the full listing of all the various charges. 

We rug up, snow jackets beanies scarves and head out to the lower east side. I’d researched some thrift shops in the area to hunt down some Disney items for my ‘museum’ back home. Where I want to look/shop isn’t far from another couple of areas we wanted to explore.
When we arrive it’s a pretty cool area, and very different from other districts we’ve visited.  

While the Disney shopping was a bust, the shops were cool. Heavily focussed on vintage and brand name clothes, shoes and bags. Although there was one shop with some cool DIsney toys in the window. A ‘student’ Stitch and a Sully from Monsters Inc. Sadly when I enquired they told me they were not for sale. Gutted.

With the sadness of no purchases I shake it off and we head off to Chinatown. I love how people from similar backgrounds find each other and completely change the face of an area. On our way we see a number of basement style storage rooms that have very steep stairs running from the footpath. We also pass a fire crew where mum stops and asks for a picture with them, they politely obliged.

We finally arrive in Chinatown, and it’s not like the Chinatown in Sydney, but a buzzing area of supermarkets, fresh food shops and restaurants. It was so awesome. 
Fortunately for us, Little Italy is literally right next door. From one block to the next it just completely changes and you arrive in….well….Italy. It did remind me so much of my time there, including the spruikers out the front. ​

We find a great people watching spot outside a restaurant and greeted by Georgo. We are undercover but outside so get to watch him work the sidewalk and all the people going past, having great success in encouraging people to come in. We get to chat with him in between the foot traffic and find out he has only been in the country for 10 days and is over from Rome on a student visa studying acting. We also get to chat to a few others working there including the manager. Who came out to check on us. He says he is sad his 4 year old daughter didn’t come into work with him today, apparently a massive Bluey fan and would have loved to have chatted with a real Australian. 
We sat there for a couple of hours, with rain not dampening our time at all. It was time to head home, and we found a main road and hailed our cab. A couple who had stood at the kerb after us (and clearly had a ‘long lunch’) gave me quite the spray for “stealing their cab”. We took off, and as we drove past the lady flipped the bird at me….classy. 
Not much more to report on the day except I’d bought myself a ticket to a comedy club, but my body napped and slept through the start time. Mum didn’t wake me cause she thought I’d changed my mind and left me. It looked like a typical dark, underground comedy club you see on social media. Just a stool and microphone on the stage. 
I shake off another disappointing moment for today, as tomorrow is going to be a good one.