We had a blast in the Village two weeks ago. Our hotel was in midtown, near the train station. We walked down 8th Avenue after we got in, with our crap still on our backs because it was too early to check in. We were starving, and I had to pee. So we scored some coffee and treats and a nice clean potty. Kept walking South. Went past Madison Square, Union Square and its farmers’ market, the Flatiron Building, all sorts of awesome stuff on our way to hit The Strand.
At first I was disappointed because I went upstairs looking at art books, in which I have very little interest. But then I found the fiction section and had to hold myself back. After a long time browsing, a heavy hand basket, the traveler’s activity of buying T-shirts that don’t make you look like a tourist, we paid our large bill and left. My formula for knowing if you spent too much money at the bookstore: If you leave more (usually twice as much) in cost on the shelves/tables than you actually purchase, you’re not spending too much money. I mean, in that case, with that formula, I don’t think I could ever spend too much money at The Strand. I could list all the books we bought there, but they’re in a pile with all the books we bought in Boston, too.
We bought Cokes and sat in Washington Square Park, after a short rainstorm from which we hid under the shelter outside The Strand. The arch and fountain were surrounded by fencing because they were being worked on. We dried off a green bench with a hanky we found in a backpack, since I was closely-budgeted on my pocket hanky.
We walked around for a long time, checked out some stationery stores, etc. We came back the next day, walking all the way from 81st Street. We walked around a lot and hit the park to chill. This time, there were more people around, and there were tables with people gathering to sing, play guitar and bang on drums as the sun was going down. I didn’t want to go when it came to be time to walk back to Penn Station to catch our late train to Baltimore.
Now we have a huge stack for late summer and early fall reading, from New York and Boston. I’m very stoked to dig in. Oh, and I scored my new Moleskine at The Strand for $9. Sweet:)
