Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer in the US and we are back in Coney Island as it is also the summer season's premiere there. So, yet again, we took the subway train to Brooklyn where we get off at New York Aquarium station, the one before the last station on the F-line being Coney Island.
Runkeeper map with a few distortions...
Coney Island, by the way, is named by the Dutch as Konjin Eiland, meaning "rabbit island" as there were many wild rabbits here when the Dutch arrived. Probably a lot less rabbits these days...
We arrive around 10am. This is the view over the Coney Island amusement parks and Surf Avenue from the footbridge as we leave the subway station (beach is to the left). A glorious day, perfect for a Memorial Day long weekend at the beach.
Onto the Coney Island boardwalk and we noticed these new flash buildings elevated over the sand at regular distances between each other. These are actually restrooms and as you can see, not all of it and all of them got fully completed in time for Memorial Day. This restroom building was open for business, so to say.
Girl on the avenue...
We start by wandering east to Brighton Beach to as far as the boardwalk will take us. Then we wander inland a block to Brighton Beach Avenue. We are in search of that magical hot black morning drink yet again...
Apparently, there are some 100,000 people of USSR origins living in this area. No wonder that Brighton Beach is sometimes called Little Odessa (or as this sign proclaims Little Russia).
Well, we were looking for a cuppa and we did find this cafe cum bakery. Fantastic baked goods. We had a couple of lovely pastries and a cup of coffee each, all for $6. In fact, the pastries were so good that Di went in afterwards and complimented the lady behind the counter.
There are 2 cafe tables with 2 chairs each outside the establishment and we sit down at one set of them enjoying the goods and doing some Russian people watching. We barely heard a word English for quite some time and some clothing that people wore could have come from a theatre play in the 50s or so.
Then, right of sudden, without a word, we receive a 3rd coffee cup on our little cafe table. Not purchased from the inside, but somewhere else. It appeared that the lady below was burning her fingers from the hot coffee and needed to put it down somewhere.
Fair enough, we have all been there. However, she decided that our table was just the right spot for her to finish her coffee and to have a piece of pastry to go with it that she also had bought somewhere else. Leaving the red stirring stick on the table and used napkins on the ground, she leaves us some 5 to 10 minutes later, still without having said a single word or even acknowledged our existance.
Surreal as some people may have said. Normal Russian behaviour may be the view of others... We were giggling away inside and as you can see, took a photo of her.
Continuing westwards on Brighton Beach Avenue, the elevated train suddenly appears on top of the street.
A day on the beach...
And looking west towards the centre of Coney Island boardwalk, with some of the attractions.
The actual beach is only open between Memorial Day in May and September and between 10am and 6pm. These are the only times when the beach is patrolled and swimming is explicitly prohibited at all other times. Seems a bit strict but maybe it costs the city a lot and wastes a lot of time looking for people who do a "Harold Holt"...
Last time that we were at Coney Island (3+ weeks ago), they were still working on this carousel building and the letters were not yet in place. So we had to check it out this time.
OK, we saw that there were not just kids riding the carousel but also quite a few adults, so... well, you can guess the rest. $3 per person later and we were on. Not quite the Cyclone but still fun. The old style amusement park music was playing from the centre of the carousel and we had a good time.
After all that excitement, no trip to Coney Island is complete without a hot dog or a corn dog in Di's case.
What's a corn dog? It is a frankfurt sausage on a stick coated in thin corn bread and deep fried. Sounds delicious right? It just had to be tried and was not as awful as it sounds.
For hot dogs "Nathan's since 1916" is the place and there were queues, queues and queues. Not to be detracted, Hans joined the queue and perhaps 30 minutes later reappeared with 2 Nathan's Original Hot Dogs with sauerkraut and fried onion. Nice enough, but nothing like good old German wurst. When in Rome though...
Of course, part of the beach experience is to have the hot dog disintegrate while you eat it, leaving your fingers sticky and smelling of mustard and sauerkraut. We managed that too.
It was getting busier and busier along the Coney Island boardwalk. Time now was probably around 1.30pm.
We wander back in towards sideshow alley and enjoy watching others pay for and play various games. Whack-a-Mole is just fun and an adult man won, and he looked Russian and was huge in size. A bit scary. We joked he probably had some experience in whacking, but perhaps using his bare hands...
We were tempted by a few roller coasters but wondered how the remnants of the hot dog/corn dog would cope - so we just enjoyed watching some scary ones and listening to the screaming. Lots of fun.
By 2.30pm we think we've had enough sun and fun, and we figure if we hang around we'll eat more junk food and may even drink some beer (is that bad...?, Hans remark), so we head home on the train, which takes about an hour.
A quick stop in Chinatown to get some more water (we are drinking bottled as we figure the pipes in our building are very old) and a few supplies and we then relax for a few hours before dinner. Leftovers again - Di still struggles to cook for just 2 people (need Jeremy!) so we are eating down our supplies.
We spend some time planning and tossing around ideas for our last few days in New York City. We've seen so much but nowhere near everything of course and we may want to return to a few favorites. 3 more full days and then on Friday we have to leave. Chris' place here on 44 Henry Street has other guests arriving then...
Good night.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment