Saturday Brighton Beach and frivolous treat

 This morning I went by train to Brighton Beach in the south of  Brooklyn. It took about 1 ¼ hours.  This is a Russian part of New York.  In May 37 years ago John and I spent 4 weeks in the then Soviet Union. About  2 ½ of these weeks were in Russia. Lots of things brought back memories of that time – the old scarf-clad ladies with their large handbags queued up to buy things on the pavement, the slightly garish shops, the slightly dated feel of everything and everybody. The shops were all much better stocked though. The elevated train clattering down the main street added to the ambience! 

I had looked up beforehand and stopped at a café that had good reviews. The menu displayed in the window was in Russian with poor English translations, at 12.15 it was 2/3 full of people who looked very Russian and it was called Oceanview Café. The ocean was several blocks away, certainly not in view of the café. Ah well, I had to eat somewhere.   Noone else was speaking  English – the first waiter spoke very little English and got another waiter for me.  I had solyanka soup. John and I spent 4 days on the Trans Sberian train and we had solyanka – or meat soup as it was translated- for lunch and dinner.  Very little else was available I seem to remember. We played a game called ‘spot the meat’ . Sometimes we found a bit, sometimes we did not. Today I probably had more meat than I eat in a month in my soup.  I also ordered some vareniki..  I donot specifically remember them in Russia, but one of my sons-in-law speaks of his grandmother making them. They were good too. Somehow I dredged up the Russian for ‘thank you’ from the depths of my brain which was accurate enough to be recognisable and went down well.

The main street of Brighton Beach is a block away from the water. There is a wide boardwalk which goes for several kilometres along the coast. For part of the way there were large  boring brown blocks of flats right next to the board walk and then Coney Island – another Luna Park , only with many more rides. There was a large expanse of sand and flat water. The beach, however was closed.  There are signs everywhere – only swim if the lifeguards are on duty. Lifeguards are on duty from 10am to 6 pm from Memorial day ( the last Monday in May) to Labour day ( the 1st Monday in September). Visitors are also supposed to be off the beach from 9pm to 6am.  About 3 months of the year – very European.

For the whole 2 kilometres , I only saw a few other hats on females. Men seem to be more sensible. I did however see several women sporting an interesting nose cover , always white,  attached to their glasses.

I had read about the Wonder Wheel and decided a ride would be quite frivolous enough to satisfy my FFs. The Wonder wheel  was  opened in 1920 and is 150ft tall. Apparently it was the tallest in the world until the London Eye was built. It has different coloured cages. The white ones donot swing and the blue and red ones swing. I chose a white one. I looked carefully at how it was made before I got on, but  when the cage I was in was at its highest I was just a tad apprehensive. It seemed like I was stuck out in space with nothing to support my cage and the ground was a long way away.

After my ride I realised that it would be  quite inappropriate not to have a cone on Coney Island. There was no queue for icecreams but there were 8 lines of about 6 people in  each line queued up at Nathan’s Hot Dog stand.  ( Except  you donot queue up for anything  here , you ‘line  up’ ) Apparently ages ago Nathan invented the hot dog.  There were at least 5 other stands that I saw along the boardwalk all selling the same sorts of fried stuff and hot dogs  with not many customers.  Most of the people queued up looked like locals – like all the locals that queued outside the place near me.

Nathan’s did sell fish and chips – the first time I have  seen f and c  on  takeaway menu.

I came back here on a different  subway line. For the first half hour or so it was elevated and ran along a mainish road, so I did  get an idea of the different ethnic groups and different housing along the route..  I had to change trains at Bryant Park so went and got a coffee and read a magazine in the quite crowded but still very pleasant ‘readiing room’ . I made a mistake though. Supposedly you donot tip for takeaways, but quite a few people leave their change coins in the tip jar. Sometimes I do. Today , while I was waiting, I was idly wondering why there were so many notes in the tip jar.  I had my money ready and was surprised when she said the price . It was less. It was happy hour and the drinks were half price. I pocketed my change, but many people must have put their change in the tip jar.   Next time I will know.