Wednesday, September 21, 2011

what do michael jackson, saurkraut, and the wonder wheel have in common?

day 3 was a good one, filled to the brim with things we'd never done
in the city before.  like i said before, you can go a billion times
and each one will be totally different!
we decided to explore the neighborhood in harlem that we stayed in.
not bad, definitely not scary like everyone always makes it sound, but
definitely different than what we're used to.  i just wish i'd gotten a shot
of all of the wig stores - there were a plethora, all with faceless heads
that had horrible wigs on them.  i also wish i'd bought one of them for
myself on the weekends.  or at least halloween.
you could see the apollo theater from the roof of our apartment building.
in case you're wondering why this theater is so great, it helped a few
semi-popular stars get their start...michael jackson, lauren hill and stevie
wonder are just a few who got their start at the apollo's amateur night.



lots of cool art work on the sides of buildings.



we trekked it down to the lower east side to take a tour of the
lower east side tenement meuseum.  we got to walk through the first
tenement/apartment building that was built in manhattan.  made me think
a lot about the show "who do you think you are" and the movie "far
and away."  we weren't allowed to take any picures in the meuseum, but
the bakery - baby cakes - where we bought a pre-breakfast snack was
more than happy to let me take a photo with the golden girls.



after we walked about 50 feet from the bakery, we spotted a great
little place that was serving beautiful crepes, so we stopped for our
actual morning meal.



after the meuseum, we saw things in chinatown that we didn't even
know existed.  cool things.  i have got to read a real book about
manhattan because my guide book just doesn't cut it.  which is weird
because you'd think a guide book would have the complete history of
a place, right?  i know, i'm a genius.




we (I) then spent far too long looking for ny mets hats to wear to the game
as we cut through little italy to get to soho and to a train station that would
take us to the outskirts of brooklyn and finally to citifield.



richard got a little tuckered out and had to reboot with a slice.
this one definitely rivaled grimaldi's from our second vacay.
yes, it really was that cheesey.



after a long train ride we finally got to the game...at the end of the
first inning.  but we did find some $5 hats right outside the gates...
the cheapest, worst hats in the world, but the penny-pinching gene that
is the strongest link in richard's frugal dna strands was more than happy
with the bright blue top-hat, and it was my fault we were late, so i didn't
argue for even a second.




richard didn't want to look at the camera because his nose was bleeding...
not really.  but seriously, we were pretty stinking high.



thank the lord for saurkraut.  especially on major league hot dogs.






the mets lost, but they had a pretty good comeback so it really was fun
to watch.  i'm sure it would have been more fun watching the yankees play
(win or lose), but they were out of town that weekend.  next time.




after the game, we headed to the one and only coney island.  which is pretty
much a glorified state fair that is stationed at the southern tip of brooklyn all
year round.  it took us 2 hours to get there because of subway line changes, but
it was totally worth it for the following reasons:

1.  we got our fortunes from zoltar & scary grandma.
we both got literally the exact same fortune.  from two different
machines, and two different highly trained professionals.
shocking.




when i said scary grandma, i meant it.



2. richard said he didn't want to go on any rides (he gets motion sick walking
down the stairs to our apartment), but i talked him into riding in one of the
swinging cars on the wonder wheel.  he regretted it almost immediately.
i, however, think its one of the greatest things we've done as a married couple
and that our love is that much stronger because of it.



words don't even begin to describe our ride.
but the looks on our faces do.



3. richard smith was crowned mr. muscle after wrestling this greasy
character's arm to the table. that's right ladies, he's all mine.



4. and even though we'd been eating all. day. long. we had to try a coney dog
from nathan's, home of the annual hot dog-eating contest.  the cheese fries
were also very enjoyable!





now, we've had some shotty luck when it comes to weather on a few of
our vacations (see nyc trip #1), but we literally missed hurricane irene by
only 4 days...coney island and the surrounding areas were evacuated for
that drama queen of a storm, and i am not even a little bit sorry that we weren't
there for that.  i love me some coney island!

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