hotel bellclaire doesn't have coffee makers in the rooms. they have contracted with a cute bakery around the block and put in a coffee bar downstairs. that opens at 7:30am. sometimes 8am. which simply won't do if you are of the gregory breed. 6:30 is sleeping in. at that point you've missed half the day. so i get cheaper coffee, earlier than everyone else, at a 24 hour bakery chain just down the block. there's an indian guy staying here and he's seen me twice leave and come back with coffee, while he waits in the lobby for the hotel to set up shop. today he asked me where i was going to get coffee and i invited him along. then some french people saw us come back and asked where we got our coffee. i should totally get a commission.
we've done a lot since we've last talked. i bought some new keens at a camping store downtown. we went down wall street and looked at 2 churches downtown. aaron LOVES to look at a church. we went through a cemetary that was just as old at the one in hillsborough. we looked at freedom tower and pointed. it's a beautiful structure. it's just new and ultra shiny. and nothing can replace the image of being here in 2002 with a giant gaping hole inthe gound with missing persons flyers everywhere. or the image of the buildings around the area, burnt, broken, boarded up. i don't care how shiny and new you rebuild it, i still know what happened there.
but let's talk about something i love - chinatown. canal street. soup dumplings. oh how i love it. it's always packed with people. you can't understand anything that anyone is saying. there's the smell of cheap knock off hand bags and fake watches that will turn your arm green - all so we can have something with a name on it. and the urgency to sell something to you - ANYTHING. just buy something. don't walk away! and what ever you do, don't pay full asking price. i just love it. LOVE it.
we ate at shanghai cafe. fried pork dumplings for aaron, spring rolls for both of us and my very own bamboo basket of steamed tiny pork buns. the only place i know to get these at home is chirba chirba food truck - $8 for 4. i got 8 for $4 at shanghai cafe and they were better than chirba chirba could dream of making. first they were bigger. second, they were juicier. you literally have to bite a tiny hole in them and drink the savory broth before you can eat the pork and the dumpling. soooooo good. i still have 2 more places down there to hit before we go home.
then we went across the brooklyn bridge. it was beautiful. but it was also hot. and at the end, there's not a place to get off. i kept hearing about this awesome park. yeah, i didn't see no stinking park. i saw a lot of concrete, no air condintioned stores to go in, no cabs, and more walking ahead of me. ok so i was in a bad mood because i was hot and all that stuff was probably there, but i was hot. i can't think or see when i'm hot. i go into a blind rage. i can't figure out a map. being hot is unacceptable. ask my family. it's just not good for anyone for me to be hot.
sowe went to store got cold drinks and sat in a park to figure out our next plan of action. that's where we discovered ALL of the nyc mosquitos. we decided to go to green-wood cemetary because we love a good cemetary. i was under the impression that this like all nyc cemetaries was about an 8x10 space. i was way off, friends. this is giant. like a subdivision. like churton grove or bigger. and the entrance my phone told us to go to was closed. you can't hop the fence because it's patrolled by k9's. so we walked. now keep in mind i'm already hot. so we walked. we walked until the side walk ended and i ttold aaron we had to come up with a new plan cause this ain't happening today. seriously. the sidewalk ended, the entrance was still 7-10 blocks away and then we were going to have to walk around inside to look at stuff? nope. not happening. not on that day. so we walked 6 blocks to the subway and went home.
later we went out for pizza at patsys. patsys is owned by the same people that own the other pizza place we went to earlier this trip. so we had the same great pizza twice and it was just as awesome the second time as it was the first. then we walked around times square and rockefeller center. we even saw the legendary hotel carter. google it. it's nasty.
yesterday we had brunch at fred's. it's named after a black lab that was in training to be a seeing eye dog and failed. fred was adopted and loved her people. yep, fred's a girl. so the whole place was covered in doggie photos. not just fred but all kind of dogs. we met bill lynas and his wife. he's a blues musician and he was super nice.
then we slept off the brunch before going to coney island. first stop - nathan's hot dogs - duh. i'm still swollen from the sodium intake. then we got to the coney island side show just in time to get a ticket for the last show. oh i love a freak show. i love the tattoos, the piercings, the people who have carved themselves into this niche of performance art. we saw a guy put a drill up his nose and then he licked it. and then dr. claw came out and swung a bowling ball from a piercing in his nose. and betty came out and swallowed swords! really really big ones! dr. claw came back out and took these hooks and put them on his EYES and hung a clock from his face. i couldn't watch. it was so awful. and then the fire! the guy had fire in his hands and he could breathe it from his mouth like a dragon! it was just the best thing ever.
the people wataching from the peir was first class. that's the moment that will carry us through the tough years ahead of us. that was followed by the wonder wheel - in a stationary car because i can't hang with those swinging ones. that's ridiculous. then we had ice cream and aaron beat me in skee ball before we watched fireworks and headed back home. coney island is second in my book to china town. or maybe a really close tie.
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