Backwards Beach

My friend Maurice teaches high school. And so after nearly two months of vacation, he is being violently thrown back into the working world . Therefore, to celebrate the official end of summer (because when you go back to school, there is a very finite conclusion to the season) we went to the beach.


Let me rephrase that... We went to the city of Long Beach on Long Island.

See, I grew up in California. My earliest years were spent in Orange County with the smell of the ocean in the air and a persistent layer of sand in the back of our car and inside my shoes. I am the daughter of a bona fide Santa Barbara surfer. I know which west coast beaches have the best sand, the best waves, and the best sunsets. In my mind, beaches have a lot of associated connotations... and this was not a beach the likes of which I am used to.

It was lovely, don't get me wrong. There were long grasses, soft white sand, the ocean smell was still in the air... but something wasn't quite right. There was NO surf culture. No tanned, bleach blond grommits skate boarding down the street with a wetsuit pulled half on and a surf board under their arm. No surf shops lining the streets. No black ball flags on the lifeguard towers. No crowds of sun-bleached and wind-blown beach rats hanging out of convertibles and soft-top jeeps. It was weird. I've never been to a beach before without surf culture, and it was very strange.

Long Beach, apparently, is where city investment bankers go to escape the grind on a long weekend, not where the off-spring of the extremely wealthy go to spend their days chasing monster sets.

And to top off the strange feeling of miss-equilibrium, the sun set on the wrong side of the ocean! It felt kind of like the first time you see Star Wars and Luke walks out into the sunset on Tatooine with the two suns and you go... whoa, that's not right. (Yes, that was a giant wave of my geek flag.)

So all I'm really saying is that so far, BEACH is the one that California does BEST.

The Mets Game

So I went to a Mets Game this week.



I figured, since this is the last year that they'll be in Shea Stadium before they tear it down, and since I have a new-found love of baseball, and since the Yankees were out of town, and since it was a Tuesday night, and since Maurice called and suggested it and it seemed like the thing to do... I might as well go.

Shea Stadium inside:

And out:

It was a good game. The first six innings were low-scoring and low action, then in the bottom of the 8th the Mets got on a roll and scored 5 runs. I spent most of the game trying to memorize all of the teams on the National and American leagues, based on their three letter acronyms on the scoreboard. For some reason the Houston Astros and the Florida Marlins gave me a hard time... probably because they aren't very memorable.



Anyhow, despite the fact that Shea is a beautiful venue, the game was good, the crowd was nice, and it was a generally pleasant experience... It just didn't have the same sparkle as a Yankees game. The Yankees have so much more mystique, so many legends, so much history, such better uniforms! I clapped for the Mets, but there was something missing.

My heart belongs to the Yankees.

Street Music

Have I yet mentioned how cool it is to find so many talented people performing in the parks and streets of New York?

On any given day, but Saturdays in particular, you'll come across singers, dancers and a variety of musicians on the corners, in the subways and in the middle of the squares. Some play for money, and some play just because they love it.

Let me clarify, before I move on, that not ALL street performers in New York are talented. In fact, some of them are downright creepy. However, the majority are enjoyable, and so as collective group, I salute them.

I've seen a flock of bongo players in the Grand Central subway station:

I've also seen an old rock n' roll guy riffing on the electric guitar on a subway platform. This weekend I heard a man playing Frank Sinatra songs on his trumpet on the corner of Broadway and 76th. Yesterday I saw a man and a woman playing an acoustic guitar and a metal wash board in Washington Square Park.

But my favorite performance that I've stumbled upon were the a capella singers in SoHo, but I'll let them speak for themselves:

See what I mean?

Human Slavery or Handbag Heaven

Chinatown isn't so much about staying in touch with Chinese culture or bringing a little piece of Beijing to New York City. No, Chinatown is about selling knock-off, name-brand goods to a bunch of label-hungry white girls; and I'm telling you right now, it's fabulous.

Even before you get off of the subway, men are coming up to you with what looks like a menu and saying, "Gucci, Chanel, Coach, Louis Vuitton..." in heavily accented English. And the menu is a menu after all, its just that its a menu for handbags.

Now I've heard of these guys before. Apparently, if you follow them you'll head down some twisted alley, up a fire-escape and down a hallway with rusty exposed piping to a blank, green door. Your guide will then administer a secret knock which will be greeted with a symphony of bolts and chains being unlocked behind the door. And then you're in - and what you've found is either handbag heaven or an underground gang that traffics in human slaves and illicit drugs. (I kept having flashes from Thoroughly Modern Millie, so I was pretty convinced that we would have been kidnapped and sold into slavery.)

So based on the irrational fear inspired by such tales, we didn't pursue the sketchy path that leads toward a 50/50 gamble between worse-than-death or a quilted, white Chanel clutch. Instead we stuck to the main road, which had more than enough to keep us busy.

This shot hardly does justice to the crowd on a Saturday afternoon:

Yes, most of the signs were written in some form of Chinese:

So we still managed to kill several hours in relative shopping utopia, even without making it to handbag heaven.

After Chinatown, we sort of accidentally found little Italy:

They were holding an amateur soprano competition, which we stopped to listen to. Unexpected, world-class artistic performances on every corner are just one more thing that I love about this city. The performers were very talented.

Then Michelle collected her "Dolce & Gabana" bag and I put on my red "Rayban" Wayfarer sunglasses and we skipped of into the sunset - giddy with good shopping, good times and a new-found love of cheap knock-offs.

Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge was begun in 1867 and completed in 1883. It is 6,016 feet from end to end (1.14 miles) and stands 135 feet above the water. Due to its size, magnitude and the crudeness of the tools and engineering available at the time, nearly 30 deaths occurred during the its construction, including the accidental death of John Roebling, the chief engineer.

Of the bridge, Roebling wrote, "The great towers...will be ranked as national monuments. ... As a work of art, and a successful specimen of advanced bridge engineering, this structure will forever testify to the energy, enterprise, and wealth of that community which shall secure its erection."

As it turns out, John was right. The bridge is still standing and one of the great landmarks of this great city. So much so that we made it a critical stop along our journey.

Aside from the magnificence of the bridge itself, it offers some superlative views:

Stunning.

Lifestyles of the Young and Fabulous

In the summertime, New Yorkers spend as much time as possible outdoors. I am told that this is a natural reaction after several dark months of winter hibernation. They flock to the grassy areas of Central Park, they eat lunch on benches in Madison Square, they flee to the "country" or the "beaches" on weekends.

And during the work week they gather on rooftop bars.

I am not a drinker. While I am a big fan of the Shirley Temple, the virgin mojito, the diet Coke on the rocks and the tonic and lime - alcohol is not on the menu. But let me tell you, rooftop bars are fabulous. They have fresh air, a fun crowd of the young and the fabulous, not to mention some of the best views in the city.



My particular favorite is called Barna, it's on the roof of the Hotel Giraffe at Park Avenue South and 27th. I discovered it several weeks ago, when my adorable friend Kristin (the cute blonde below) invited me to a birthday party there.



So Michelle and I went, met lots of interesting people and now I'm hooked on the "high" life. (I know, I know, that was about the cheesiest thing I've ever written, but it's late, and I'm not going to delete it, because I'm still giggling.)

Cheers!

Why New York?

"So, why New York?"

... This is a question that I get a lot.

I mean, I was raised in California for all of my memorable life; most of my family lives in California; I went to school and have a lot of friends who still live in Utah; back in January and February when I was making the decision to come out here, I could count the number of people that I knew on the East Coast on one hand.

I didn't come here for school, I didn't have a job, I wasn't moving to be with a significant other or to room with an old friend.

So at 25 years old, with a bachelor's, a master's and three good years of work experience to my name, I had the entire world before me and I knew I could go anywhere... So... Why New York?

Why not?

When I was 17, I came to New York City for a week with my mom and one of my sisters. We arrived late at night, and still after throwing our bags into our hotel room, we went straight to Times Square.

Stepping out onto Broadway, felt like being launched into another dimension.

It was midnight, but the sidewalks were still packed with people - a thriving mass of international humanity. There was a sparkle and a hum in the air from all of the electric lights. There was a low rumble of subterranean trains, covered over by the gurgle and grind of taxi engines and the high pitched wailing of large vehicles with worn out brake pads coming to an abrupt halt as they narrowly missed the bold and/or brain-dead pedestrians. The air was was so thick with humidity, sounds and smells that it was almost tangible.

I was in love, and the change in me was irreversible.

That very moment I looked and my mom and told her I'd come back to live here some day. And it was because I wanted to thrive in the midst of the teeming masses - not as a observer, but as a participant.

No where in the world does it get any bigger, more interesting, more challening, more surprising, more varied, or more exciting than it does in this city.

So that's why.

Boston is good, New York is better

Whew! Colonizing is time consuming! But fear not loyal readers, I've been storing up stories and pictures and they'll all spill forth in due time... Like when Michelle goes home and I have time to blog again.

So! in the meantime, Michelle and I have been hard at work in New York, but we'll get to all of that later becauses tonight I wish to speak of Boston.

Boston is beautiful. It's a true port town full of red brick and American history. I've never seen a town so aware of its own patriotism and so proud of its part in the convoluted, yet noble, beginnings of our country. Just being there, you can't help but feel stronger ties to your identity as an American, and proud of the brilliant and colorful people who were both brave and crazy enough to take on the most powerful empire in the world.

As compared to New York, Boston seemed very small and very clean.

The photographic evidence...

Beautiful Boston Commons:

Charles river...

ENEMY TERRITORY...

Harbor at dusk...

Harbor at night...

Harbor with me and Michelle blocking the view...

In conclusion, I liked Boston, I really did, but I'm still glad that I live in New York.