During spring break we went to Dallas to visit Mrs. W's daughter (my step-daughter) and son in law, who bought a house at the beginning of the year.
Besides our visit to the Nasher Sculpture Center, we went to Northpark Center, a two-story mall which is like visiting a roll call of the top names in fashion.
The mall was built by Raymond Nasher, who with his wife also built the sculpture center. The mall also displays giant pieces of artwork from the sculpture center.
Thursday morning is a good time to go to a mall, and Northpark Center is no exception. There were not too many people when we got there at about 9:30 a.m., and after a stop at Starbucks began our trek.
The mall's design is simple -- a giant square lined with stores on each side, with another hallway down the middle lined with stores on each side. All of the top names in fashion and electronics were on the first floor. On the second floor were a lot more stores, but they were more like the bargain-basement types with cheaper prices and merchandise that didn't seem as good.
Our walk on the bottom floor was amazing. We passed big name after big name ... Barneys New York, BOSS Hugo Boss, Michael Kors, Juicy Couture, Versace, CH Carolina Herrera, Johnston & Murphy, Gucci, Burberry ... and on and on, one after the other, one big (and I mean BIG) price tag after another.
It boggled my mind how people could spend hundreds of dollars on a purse, a pair of shoes, or a dress.
Finally we got to the Apple Store. It's awesome. It's full of Apple computers, iPads, iPods, iPhones and all of the accessories that go with them, and "experts" (very knowledgeable sales clerks) in all of these things. We bought a dock for Mrs. W's phone, and to pay, well, there are no cash registers. The expert who helped us had a iPhone with a credit card thing on it. He swiped the card and we had us a dock. We even got a fancy little bag with the Apple logo on it. (BTW, if the experts need help, they call each other on their iPhones!)
So on we shop. Every now and then we'd see a giant sculpture from the Nasher Center and stop to look.
Finally we got to Nordstrom. That place is something else! Think of it as a super-nice Dillard's, or a super-super-super-duper nice J.C. Penny, but not jam-packed with stuff like they are. It is three stories tall, and also has two café-type eating places and a spa.
The ambience is set by the piano player dressed in a suit, playing really nice music near the escalator going to the second floor. The music can be heard all over the first floor.
So we go to the shoe department, of course. But not for me, of course. If y'all ever want to do some hard-core shopping for shoes then Mrs. W's the one to go with.
Expensive prices didn't scare her. She quickly found the Tom's and bought the last pair they had in a kakhi-like color. We could actually afford them! And, I think having the little Apple Store bag helped to show we were serious shoppers.
So now we have an Apple Store bag and a Nordstrom bag. We go looking elsewhere in the store. On to the men's department.
"I think you deserve a shirt," Mrs. W says.
"I agree," I say.
Well, no shirt that day! :-( $89.50 here, $69.50 there, and for Burberry shirts $195.00 (!) or $250.00 (!), and $150.00 for dress pants.
Perhaps the purse area would be friendlier to Mrs. W.
After seeing a few $275 and $300 bags we decided to move on.
I can say the sales people there were very friendly and ready to help with whatever you needed help with. That's the type of service you don't find in Laredo.
But having the Nordstrom bag was a big help in other stores.
We'd walk into a store, and the sales people would be very attentive and quick to offer to help us. They knew math: Nordstrom = money. But they didn't know we had a relatively inexpensive pair of shoes inside them and actually very little to spend.
After a few more visits to stores where we could not afford to buy anything we stopped at a pretzel place and got some things to take back to our daughter and son-in-law's house.
By the time we got to looking at things on the second floor we were tired and returned to the house.
That is one shopping trip I will never forget!