The Written Podcast: New York (Part 10) – It’s Raining

That night I slept deeply. Once my eyes were closed, I knew nothing until waking up naturally the following morning. After a good day’s worth of walking, I wondered if I’d feel any stiffness in my legs and feet, but there was nothing, not even a twinge. I slept so great that night my body was able to fully recover from a lot of walking; ready for another day’s worth.

That morning went exactly the same as the previous day, except there was one difference. After getting a shower and basically readying myself for the day ahead, opening the door to the outside world, I discovered it was raining. I wouldn’t consider that rain to be heavy, but it certainly wasn’t light. It was that in between rain. It’s hard to describe rain, to be honest, because no matter how heavy or light it is, you’re going to get wet and the longer you stand in it, the more soaked you’d get. With light rain you’d stand more of a chance of running through it without getting too wet, and with heavy rain you’d get soaked within a second. This was the type of rain where you’d going to get soaked, but at a comfortable pace – so long if you don’t stay in it for too long. The 24-hour diner was just beside the hotel, meaning I got wet, but not drenched.

Anyway, enough trying to describe rain, let’s get to the point I wanted to arrive to before getting mixed up with the confusion that’s “in between” rain. I could’ve gotten a taxi. That’ll be the sensible thing to do, but I decided to walk through the rain. My though process was – by walking to my destination, I might come across something that’s interesting and want to check it out. My destination in question was Bloomingdales, a famous department store, known for selling quality stuff. An accurate description would be “the Harrods of America”.

I got drenched. Soaked through. And I didn’t find anything interesting. What I did find, was myself, lost. I looked up where Bloomingdales was on Google Maps before setting off and was surprised it was only 1.1 miles away. Easily walking distance, and all I needed to do was walk in a straight line. It’s not often I get lost, but when I do, it’s from not knowing how to walk in a straight line. I did eventually find the department store, but not after getting unnecessarily wetter than I was before realising I was lost. But I did eventually find Bloomingdales, and it was a pleasure to walk in from the rain and make an annoying squeaking-squelching sound their once pristine floors, now covered in wet footprints from my boots.

Bloomindales is a fancy store. Big as well. It has 8 floors with plenty of sections to browse through. That’s all well and good until you want to locate one. Navigating that place was surprisingly difficult. I found myself going round and round in circles, not really sure exactly where I need to go, and the signs weren’t as helpful I needed them to be, and unfortunately every time I asked for directions to where this department was, I got different answers each time, each one pointing me to a different floor. It was as if they were playing a game on me, to see how long they’d be able to get me to chase my own tail through the department store before either getting angry or giving up. Well, jokes on them, because I didn’t get angry nor gave up, I found what I was looking for all by myself. (It was on the first second floor and was the store I had walked by many times when searching for it, but that’s irrelevant now since I’d found it, right).

Bloomindales do a clear plastic bag with their logo on the side, and unknowingly, I wanted to purchase one right at the end of the stock line before rolling in the different coloured ones for Christmas. Luckily for me, there was one left within the entire store, so I nabbed it before anyone else got a chance. I was happy about that.

Once I’d finally got what I wanted from Bloomindales, it was time to head back into the rain. It had eased up slightly since entering the store, but it was still hard enough to get wet at a rapid pace, and I hadn’t completely dried. I could have stayed in the store and had a good browse around, but the majority of what they sold wasn’t for me, and my experience wasn’t a completely enjoyable one, if I’m honest, or maybe it was just me, I still haven’t figured that one out yet.

I’d certainly recommend Bloomindales as it is a genuinely nice store to be in. It sells quality stuff at a not too unreasonable price, but you sort of must go in there knowing the full layout off by heart otherwise you’d find it difficult to find what you’re looking for. There’s a lot to get distracted by, so maybe that was my problem, but there was certainly something off with the staff members in that store that I just couldn’t put my finger on.

I wasn’t going to let the rain spoil my holiday, that was for sure. It’s easy to take one look out the window, discover it’s raining, and not bother going outside for the entire day. Staying inside the hotel for the entire day was not an option. I was in New York. But if I could spend a decent amount of the day inside, that’ll be handy, and what better way to let a few hours pass by than seeing a Broadway show.

New York is famous for the Broadway show. The theatre productions are a tourist attraction all by themselves. If a playwright had the opportunity to have their play on Broadway, that’d be considered a well-earned achievement. A life-time goal, by many. And that’s where I went next.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)