Shuffling off to Buffalo - Saturday March 5

What were you doing Saturday morning at 8 am?  Most likely still curled up in your bed, listening to the relentless rain tapping at your window and thankful that you were warm and cozy, not having to go anywhere or do anything at least for another hour yet.  Well, Carina and I were eager beavers and were in the car on the way to Buffalo to indulge our girly side and go cross-border shopping.   That seems like such a term from the 90s in a way - seems that was the first time i started hearing bout it - or maybe the first time i ever paid attention to it - but i seem to recall that everything was bigger, better and cheaper there and Canadians were flooding across the border to lap up the deals.  So,better late than never,Carina and I decided to get in on the excitement.  So, that's why you would have found us at the Niagara Falls border at 9:15 am, trying to convince the customs guard that "yes, officer, we are just here to go to the Christmas Tree Shoppe".  He seemed a bit incredulous that two females would drive all this way for that shop alone.  In reality i had no idea of how big this shop was, just that people have been excitedly talking about it and we thought we should too... I must admit, that other than an umbrella, which was probably my best purchase all day, i wasn't super thrilled by it but it was fun to poke around and see what was there...

I felt kinda sorry for this little fellow left to languish on the shelf thanks to an unfortunate incident with his nose... who's going to want a nose-less garden gnome?  No one... and the fellow behind him isn't doing much for his ego either, pointing at him with an accusatory finger and averting his eyes from such a spectacle!

  Carina and I both wanted a dress/skirt and it's hard to try on such items when you're looking like a drowned rat, so i was super happy with my trusty $2.00 brolly.   Carina's umbrella decided to play tricks on her a couple of times but for the most part cooperated and sheltered us from the tempestuous weather.

Hmmm...that's not the way umbrellas should work!

 Me on the other hand, far from having issues with my umbrella, had issues with the GPS.  It's probably a good thing it was tethered in the car with a cord, because otherwise it might have been doing a soaring leap into the Niagara River, which we managed to cross several times due to our poor planning - we imagined the GPS lady (Susie) calmly but firmly asking us to "turn north, turn north at the next spot" as she is plummeting down into the icy depths.  We weren't the greatest route planners,having completely missed the outlet mall in our eagerness to get to the Christmas Tree Shop... silly girls we were... but from there, the GPS could be blamed for some interesting conversations.  She told us to "turn left now!" when we were flying along the interstate with concrete barriers on either side of us.  She told us to turn right onto a street and then make an immediate left, which left poor Prunelope and  her rather embarrassed driver blocking 2.5 lanes of Buffalo drivers who thankfully did not choose to honk at us too badly.
But eventually, with or without Susie's help, we eventually found the mall and spent a lot of time there - what better thing to do on a super rainy day than to spend it inside looking for deals.  We skipped the on-sale $1,050 Burberry bag - it wouldn't have matched our outfits anyways!  But we were successful - both of us got an outfit and we were happy about that - we were however a little worried since we had heard conflicting reports of how much we were allowed to bring back for shopping for a day - I managed to work my poor stomach up into a frenzy by the time we hit the border.  Fortunately (or unfortunately), we had a bit of a wait at the border so i had plenty of time to figure out what to say and how to say it...Carina was most helpful in keeping me calm (ahem..)  Our guard, who seemed to have been keeping people at his booth for lengthy periods of time, in my mind, interrogating them and ready to bring out the thumb-screws to make people confess their true intentions of bombing the stock exchange or something crazy like that, was quite nice.  He asked how much we had spent, what we bought, and then occupied himself with trying to figure out how to say my last name - i always knew having a crazy last name would someday pay off - distracting the guard is always good!  Heehee!  "is that french?"  "do you say Mushie?".  With smiles on our faces and a friendly good night from the guard, we headed back onto safe soil and were able to say we had survived our first shopping foray to our southern neighbours with grace and outfits to boot!