Summertime - Finally

Okay!  Four months into living in NY, I'm finally starting to blog about it!  There are things I never covered last year such as the Royal Wedding (we saw the Queen/Duke and Prince Charles/Camilla) and hiking in the Lake District (where we jumped off 25-foot waterfalls into the river and rock climbed a sheer cliff), but onward!  

I feel like the deal I made with myself about our most recent move ("well, you have to leave London but at least we'll have a proper summer again!") finally kicked in.  With lots of sun!  And hot weather! People all around are complaining about the heat, but I actually love it.  Plus, it's still not as hot as it is in Texas!

For the first time in my life, I live near a beach.  This is awesome!  Well I guess in London we were close to Brighton, but having a sunny weekend day with nothing else planned was rare so we never went.  A week and a half ago we decided mid-morning that we should take an impromptu trip to the beach.  It's really a great mental trick knowing that on any sunny day you can hop on a train and be at Long Beach in an hour.  

It's not the white sand beaches and emerald waters of the Florida panhandle (where I went every year growing up), but it will do the job!  It is also about 10 degrees cooler on the beach than it is in Manhattan, so on a really hot day that's reason enough to go.  

Long Beach is close to JFK International Airport, so lying on the beach you see these huge double-decker jets flying in from overseas.  It's much more impressive than watching the regular jets!  

Of course one of the best things about being at a semi-crowded beach is the people watching.  It's interesting, you really can see the Italian influence of the local culture in the darker skin.  So many super tanned, dark-headed bathing beauties!  I look like I'm Irish compared to them.  We took a little cooler with us that day, and as the afternoon sun was setting we walked back on the boardwalk to a local pizza joint and had dinner.  We then hopped the train home and were back in time to walk the dog and go to bed at a decent hour!  Lovely!  

Last weekend we had another first - our first ferry ride off the island of Manhattan.  There are several little islands right by Manhattan, of course Liberty and Ellis Islands are pretty famous (as is Rikers Island, for totally different reasons), but an island neither of us were familiar with is Governors Island.  It has a varied military background, but is now used during the summers as public space for recreational activities and festivals.  Stephen read about the Cook Out NYC event going on, so from the bottom of Manhattan we took a 10-minute ferry ride and were there!  

Our entry to the cook out bought us a couple beers each and free tasting of all the food venues.  Pretty nice!  

There was a kimchi tent complete with a kimchi eating contest later that day.  Kimchi (as I learned) is a traditional Korean dish made from vegetables (cabbage, radish, cucumber) and lots of different seasonings.  There is a wide variety of seasoning, but holy crap is it hot.  We tried tacos with kimchi - I asked for the mild version (there were three different spicy levels) and it was so hot I could not finish my tiny taco.  I had yet to get a beer so I had to take emergency sips of Stephen's.  Before the taco I had a completely empty stomach and for a while afterward I could feel my stomach lining reacting with the spiciness!  Stephen got the medium spicy taco, and his lips were on fire afterwards.  If we weren't sweating before, we were after that taco.  I can't imagine the spicy version! 

This guy, in the red apron, was awesome.  He was really selling it when it came to his chicken!  He was determined to let everybody know that he had the best chicken in the place and was hootin' and hollerin' things like "this chicken will Cajun-slap your ass!!"  I was full by the time we got to his booth, but Stephen tried the chicken just because of his excellent salesmanship.  He said it was good!  

I swear, Stephen absolutely cannot eat without spilling something on his shirt.  That goes double if the shirt is white.  :)

The last thing I had before heading out was ice cream from my absolute favorite truck in the city - Van Leeuwen!  The truck carries artisan ice cream in flavors like Earl Grey, Gianduja, Ginger and Palm Sugar.  They also have vanilla bean and chocolate!  My favorite thing is their affogato - vanilla ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over.  Yummy.  But that day they had a special flavor - roasted banana with brown sugar, so I had to try that!  So delicious.  There is always room in my stomach for ice cream.  

The event had the ubiquitous bank of port-a-potties, but they also had working sinks with water, soap, and hand sanitizer!  Why are these not everywhere port-a-potties are?!  I know we've all had bathroom experiences at summer concert festivals that we'd rather not remember.  

Walking back to the ferry:

We missed the ferry we originally planned to take, but there is a beach complete with tiki bar right there which makes waiting so much better!