Sunday, October 28, 2007

America: The Land of Shopportunity

Yep, shopped 'til I dropped. Aye caramba, is this the country to do some SERIOUS shopping or what??

Aly and I first met up with cyster Stefany and her partner Mar (I hope I spelled it right!) and we had lunch at this divine Mexican style restaurant called Hacienda. Not totally authentic, but delicious. I had chicken and cheese (hey Floss) chimichangas and Aly had chilli rellenos and we shared. Yum, yum, yum. My biggest problem here though is the HUGE buckets of soft drink that they bring you and then keep refilling. I have to curb that, I don't need all that caffeine and sugar. But it just keeps coming and it's so cheap, and you only pay once, the refills are free.

Then the ladies initiated me into shopping in America. We started with a HUGE cosmetics store called Ulta. Lordy me, it was girlie heaven! And obscenely cheap, even with taxes added on, compared to back home. A bottle of foundation that costs me $22 at home cost me $5 (including tax) here.

On to a lingerie shop called Bosom Buddies so I could get professionally sized, as I had NO idea how clothing sizes translated from Aussie sizes to US sizes. Got an idea of what size I should be going for and then we headed to Lane Bryant. Oh my LORD, was I in heaven??? Finally, cute, feminine, young, modern, pretty clothes for women with my shape!! They had a huge 40% sale on, so everything was priced really well. Aly knew a woman working there, and by telling her about a coupon she had, managed to get the lady to offer us another 75% off of the reduced price. And then when we went to the checkout, got another 20% off of that as well!! Between three of us, we managed to get $600 worth of stuff for a mere $200!!

I ended up getting two long sleeve tops, a cute smock top in oranges and browns, a purple t-shirt with little white stars on it and a stack of lingerie for about $115US. It's so nice to have some cute things again.

From Lane Bryant we went on to Origin, a fully natural beauty products store. I didn't buy anything, I just enjoyed the delicious scents!

Finally we went to Clare, an accessories and costume jewellery store. For the Aussies, think Kleins but MASSIVE. So much cute stuff and really cheap. I spent $30 and got six pairs of earrings, two head bands, and two jewelled barette clips. One pair of earrings are little skeletons for Halloween next Wednesday.

So as you can see, shopping heaven!

We ended the day with some Cold Stone ice-cream (same as Cold Rock in Australia) where I indulged in the great American delicacy of peanut butter and chocolate together. YUM!

Tonight we got pizza for dinner, good quality New York Italian style double pepperoni and cheese... to die for! Undoubtedly the best pizza I have ever eaten. I'm groaning with all the food I've eaten today! But I can't do the American portion sizes, they are massive, so I just get a doggie bag for the rest.

No snow last night sadly, but it is forecast for Halloween, which would be awesome. But today I did see my first two squirrels. They are SOOOOOO cute!! I didn't get a photo, but I'm sure they'll be back to feed in the feeder again.

5 comments:

Pauline Waring said...

Sounds like you are having a fabulous time. That is great

Amy said...

If you find a shop called Garden Ridge...GO IN!!! They are awesome!! That was my favourite shop from my trip to USA. Good luck with the squirrel photography, they're cute yes, but they're so quick, very difficult to get a photo of (and they've got rabies! So don't go near them!)
Apparently they taste pretty good, we found some squirrel receipes in our hosts receipe collection, he's a hunter and we didn't believe him that you could actually EAT them! Have you been to Walmart yet? Gotta go to Walmart! It's iconic USA! I've been in touch with Grandma, so she's up-to-date. Talk to ya soon!

djbobble said...

I was wondering how long it would take you to sample the delights of the US stores! Did you know that people for the UK go to the US to do their Christmas shopping? Even with airfares it can work out cheaper!!

No snow, yet? The suspense must be killing you! LOL!

Amy said...

Ah, you've run into portions in America. About four times as much food as you can eat. And definitely watch the pop. Order diet, then you can keep drinking. I usually just get water, and at home I drink milk.

Your shopping day sounds like a lot of fun. I'm sure Denver has everything. And with the US dollar in the toilet, you'll probably find bargain after bargain.

Sorry it didn't snow. But it will! When it does, go outside and catch snowflakes with your tongue. And watch it collect in your hair--well, watch it collect in someone else's, I guess.

Sleepydumpling said...

Amy K - Water is definitely the go from now on! I'm restricting myself to one soft drink per day MAXIMUM! Can't wait to see that snow, I will go nuts!

Amy B - Garden Ridge - noted! Squirrels sit in the feeder outside Aly and Jay's house, hopefully I'll catch them there.