An Anchorwoman, an Italian Man, and a Pickle Guy

So began day... hold on, I have to count... day 6.

I woke up bright and early to be apart of the studio audience of Good Morning America. The cameras are deceiving. First of all, the studio is tiny. Second of all, the area with the news desk is on the second floor. Third of all, they interview the stars (like today was Uma Thurman) on the second floor. The audience is on the first floor. So what do we do? We're there for the weather shots and the special segments (today was on beauty spas and picnics). It wasn't all that bad, but I wanted to watch the news part.

Anyway, Diane Sawyer was on vacation (darn it), but we got to see Robin and some guy who's on 20/20. They all took pictures with us (yes, I have a picture with myself and Robin, and myself and the hot weatherman)and autographed our posters, if we had one.

So, if anyone taped it, I was shown mostly towards the end (which is just because of where I was standing). Looking at the tv, I was towards the right in the front. I held up many signs, showing each of them.

Afterwards, I decided to explore Greenwich Village. The problem is that I didn't have a tour book, so I didn't know exactly what to look for. I just wandered around and found myself in SoHo again. After consulting my map, I decided that today would be an excellent time to go to the Pickle Guy, so I trudged along southeast.

By the way: here's an update on my trip thus far...
My ankle: feels much better. I'm not going to run for a while, but at least I can walk.

# of pizza slices consumed: 2
# of hot dogs consumed: 1
# of Tasty-D-Lites consumed: 2 (with a possible third this evening - I'm eating my way through Manhattan today).
# of alcoholic beverages: 1
# of Broadway plays/musicals seen: 4
# of off-Broadway plays seen: 2
# of celebrities seen: many

Also, I'd like to point out the plethora of police officers in this city. I'm impressed and they're very helpful to us lost people.

Anyway, I digress. Let me get back to today.

After going through SoHo again (and finally buying some clothes), I went east on Grand and somehow went smack through Little Italy. And since I was there.... I decided to eat some pasta. Wow! I love Little Italy. Not only are there a million Italian restaurants (duh), but there are a huge number of people who speak Italian there. I'm not stupid, but I thought that the name was just a throwback - I didn't realize that Italian was spoken that much there. But an Italian guy (with a very strong Italian accent), hustled me into his restaurant and I enjoyed some outstanding penne pasta with ricotta and buffalo mozzarella. Wow! Mmmm.... If I had the time (and stomach capacity) I would've finished with some tirimisu and an espresso, but I had to trudge on.

Little Italy is bordered by Chinatown (not the scarey touristy part I fled from Monday, but a more calmer one, one with no caucasians). I browsed through some of the markets, and was quite disturbed by some of the seafood and meat selection that they had on the sidewalks. What does one do with dried sardines? Dried scallops? And there was some unidentified meat soaking in blood. The smell wasn't the best, but at least I wasn't scared.

Right after Chinatown, I found the world-famous Pickle Guy (well, I didn't even know he existed until I got the request on Monday to buy some). It's a small shop that is known (and they ship!) and it's full of barrels of pickles, olives, marinated mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, etc. YUMMMMMM. Andrew/Kenny asked me to get a jar of half-sours, which are pickles that are, duh, not very sour. So I picked up a quart (they'll still be good when I get back to Houston, the Pickly Guy promised) and then I also got a pint of garlic-stuffed green olives. MMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Afterwards, I went back to the apartment. Now I'm here and contemplating a nap. The lottery for "Avenue Q" doesn't start for another 2.5 hours, so I might either sleep or pop into a coffee shop with "Crime and Punishment", which I've been reading.

Cheers!