I don’t really know if my brain is running at 100 miles per hour or if it just stopped functioning…
All i can say is that i can’t concentrate, but i’ll try!
At waking, i skyped my parents in the living room while Gabrielle was skyping her mom in the bedroom. At first you think that you don’t have much to say since they read the blog, then an hour pass and you realize there are all the details you didn’t put in writing, all the feelings you didn’t share.
What do we chose to tell? What touches us the most? Marks us the most? Just facts? A little bit of both… Nothing is definitive.
Finally, we left the house to go to Coney Island.
Coney Island, it is in the South of Brooklyn. This in not an island anymore but a peninsula now, but there is still a beach!
A real beach, with thin sand and seagulls.
On the other side of the park, you find Luna park. The park opened in 1903, so knowing that it was renovated not long ago is a pretty damn capital information when you decide to enter this place.
The Luna park’s doors, with their funfair look.
The creepy dude, i guess it is kind of a symbole of this park, anyway he is on every entry and he is looking at you with a sadistic look : « Are you sure you wanna do this roller coaster?: nihihihi! »
But first, we took care of an important matter: hunger.
On Coney Island, there is a place where you must eat : Nathan’s.
This is the original restaurant, opened in 1916 by two polish immigrants: Nathan et Ida.
It is not a fancy restaurant, nope, their specialty is the Hot dog! But to tell you everything, this particular hot dog was savored by Al Capone, Cary Grant, president Roosevelt. Barbra Streisand even had some delivered in London for a little party!
This hot dog is a legend. It was our duty to try it.
BEWARE, HERE IT IS:
Here, you got the chili hot dog (Bread, sausage, chili and cheese). On the side: onion rings ( Gab took the cheese fries, a killer both literally and figuratively).
Of course it was the best hot dog we ate since the beginning. The others were far from bad but this one has this simple thing: a real sausage (it’s always about sausage…). Instead of some knacki like in the others, the Nathan’s hot dog has a real sausage, a sausage like the one you eat on barbecue, grilled a little and all. And that, well of course, it changes things. For bread and side dishes, it is yummy taste but not really different from the others.
While you are devouring messily (yes i am sorry but there is no other way to eat a dripping hot dog than messily) your meal, you got this:
SEAGULLS ! Starring at you with envy. I think thos seagulls didn’t catch a fish since… I think they never catched a fish! They are finding themselves exclusively with leftovers from fries, hots dogs, burgers… And it shows! You are eating, peacefully, and they are starring at you, they are approaching discreetly, one by one, it’s almost oppresing. In the evening, they attack the trash cans.
Gabrielle whispers to me : « i think it is here that Hitchcock had his idea for The Birds ». yes, it must have wanted to eat a hot-dog on the beach and he got attacked by a pack of seagulls not even starved.
Then we could concentrate on teh center of our day: Luna Park.
The park is decorated specially for Halloween ( I mean as well decorated as a funfair can be, that is quite kitschy)
There is a ferris wheel, that i will never do since i am scared of heights . Moreover, with the wind, the cubicles swayed, swayed.. yeurk! There was also games, such as whack-a-mole (where you have to wack the moles when they get out) or coconut shy (we did both, and Gabrielle won both…)
There was also rides for kids, like this little boat in the middle of dolphins. And for psychopath adults, like Cyclone, teh roaller coaster you see behind (and i do not believe it’s the worst, at least, you won’t ever see me in the Sling shot, this giant metal ball, launched in the air, and it turns, it bounces, no no no! If it makes you want it, click HERE.)
No, we simply prefered to enjoy the sun, the sreams, the colors. Some sun between the rails surrounded by screaming people.
Seen this way, you would almost want to do it.
Me, as soon as i enter an amusement park, i am taken by an extreme excitation and an absolute terror. And i never know which one is gonna win…
For today, it was this one:
Muahahah! No you’re crazy! I’ll never get in there! Although… must be enjoyable…
Us, we started gently, with flying chairs:
The flying chairs’ interest is mostly the vue on the park and his surroundings (though it didn’t stop me from screaming once or twice, for the sake of it)
After we did a scary-but-not-too-much ride (it is moslty the terro who won today, or the cold, i don’t konw). Anyway, even if i do love (and i really do) roller coasters, i am always shit scared before getting in, and asking myself endlessly why am i inflicting this to me. And after it, i ask: We go again?
Here, it’s the beginning of the one we did. So first, you are lying on your belly, some kind of harness on your shoulders and back, feet on a metal bar, hands in front of you holding two sticks. The posture is interesting. This ride is called Soarin’ eagle and we fly like an eagle in the wind. You get up, get up, and vraoum you are dropped, it twists, it turns, it turns back, it puts you upside down and you get off with a big smile and wobbly legs.
Without having anymore credits to spare (either you buy a car with credits and every ride or game cost syou credits, or you can buy a wrist band and do all the rides, but no game, unlimited for 3 hours), we went back to the beach.
I demanded to put my feet in the sand.
i wasn’t brave enough to remove my shoes, i admit it. But there were shells’ pieces and glasses one and others…
Gabrielle and vastness…
Of course, while walking along the beach, we saw a man, or a human being i guess, although, to put on your bathing suit then throw yourself in the water, do a few breaststrokes and get out, as if it was nothing. I know i am a bit sensitive to the cold about everything involving the sea, but here… I was wearing my coat, a scraf and a knit cap.
How can a normaly built human want to throw himself in the water by this temperature?!
Then i remembered that next to Coney Island, there is little Odessa. It’s the russian area of Brooklyn. And now that you know there are russians nearby, you can completely understand that somebody would go in the sea by 50°F while saying, the water is good today!
We walked a bit in little Odessa before taking the subway (we are not used to the cold and wind, so we were tired! Yes with that sentence i show off in spoiled little girl mode). The neighborhood itself isn’t quite different from the rest of Brooklyn, brownstones buildings and little houses lined up all looking alike (except for the one who look like beach houses, made of colored wood). Apart from the fact that you can find russian written on shops, and hering it coming out of people mouths on the street.
New York is really diverse. People are coming from various backgrounds, they all have their area matching them. And also the landscapes are varied: buildings, houses, beaches… All that concentrated on 304.8 sq mi (which, i realize, is just mostly 7 times Paris…).
A new day is ending, to give way to another, to the discovery of this magical city, hybrid and interminable.
Good evening to you, loyal readers (ou disloyal, or new, or just passing, or by mistake)
Roxane
NYC Nostalgie 