Julie's visit (continued)

Julie stayed until Thursday last week. We had a great time while she was here. You can see more pictures here. She struck out on her own during the days last week while I was at work and I met her afterwards to play. Tuesday night, we went to dinner at the Mediterranean restaurant down the street, Kashkaval. It was excellent as always! Although, I tried their fondue for the first time and it wasn't the best I've had. Afterwards, we did a walking tour of all the Department Store Holiday Display windows. Most of them were on 5th Avenue or near there....Bloomingdale's, Bergdorf Goodman, Barney's, Saks, Lord & Taylor, and finally, Macy's. Some of the stores have a theme or story for their windows. It was a lot of fun and the windows are really cute!

Wednesday night, we went and did some shopping in SoHo and ate in Chinatown. This was my first experience eating in Chinatown and it was great!! We went to a place a friend recommended, Joe's Shanghai. Chinatown is known for its dumplings, so we had to try some. They were soooo good. The rest of our food was delicious as well! Great chinese food! And it was deeper into Chinatown than I have been before. The streets were so quiet and windy...didn't feel like we were in Manhattan anymore...or even the US really. On a side-note, you may remember that I bought a purse in Chinatown back in October that I loved for only $18. I didn't realize at the time, but just found out it's a fake Balenciaga bag (all the celebs carry them) and it retails for $1,200. Crazy!! I thought $18 was good anyway, but now I really think it's good!

After Julie left Thursday, I had some time to mark off a couple more things from my Christmas in New York list. I went that night to the Dyker Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn. This is a really nice neighborhood with REAL houses. Single-family homes...really big, pretty homes. Not something I'd seen in New York! They go all out with Christmas decorations and I wanted to see it. I really enjoyed seeing the neighborhood itself- very pretty. The lights were just a bonus!

On Friday, we got out of work early, so I went up to St. John the Divine Cathedral. I'd been there for the Halloween show, but didn't really get to tour the cathedral and I had heard it was decorated well for Christmas. It is so pretty. The main sanctuary is beautiful, but it is surrounded by several smaller chapels, each with different architecture and each very pretty. I had fun seeing it.

I left Friday night for home and am now in Dallas enjoying family time!