Broken Umbrellas and Russian Pastries

So it turns out I am going to blog about the stuff we do, but the inspiration again is a lady with an umbrella.

Mike and I decided that since Saturday was supposed to have the best weather (mid 70's and sunny, maybe a thunderstorm in the evening), we would head over to Coney Island to check it out. Our plan was to wander around, have a hot dog, maybe ride the Cyclone and see where the day took us. We got off the F train right in front of the Nathan's hot dog stand and figured it to be an appropriate place to start. We were looking at the large overhead menus trying to find plain old hot dogs in the long lists of fried seafood, cheese fries, and frogs legs (who knew?) when the girl behind the counter shouted "WELCOME TO NATHAN'S. CAN I TAKE YOUR ORDER PUHLEEASE?"


It was a little startling/unsettling and reminded us both of Bon Qui Qui, which if you haven't seen: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkdcYlOn5M, you really should watch. Anyway, we posted up, ate our hot dogs (yum) and drank orangeade, then headed off towards the beach. We hadn't read anything about wind in the forecast but it was seriously gusty as can be witnessed by my hair in most photographs.


Mike had convinced me that I didn't need a sweatshirt, which he will never do again because I irritatingly complained about how cold I was all day long. At one point, I almost bought a $30 Coney Island hoodie that I had convinced myself was cute in a kitschy Urban Outfitters worn out t-shirt way. It wasn't. If it hadn't been so impossibly windy (and if I didn't have the disconcerting feeling that we were actually in a Mexican border town), we definitely would have stuck around longer just to take it all in. Mike wanted to ride the Cyclone which costs $8, by the way. It's a rickety wooden roller coaster that if is anything like it's siblings around the country, will probably give you a headache and some minor neck pain. We passed on the ride mainly because we needed some refuge from the wind. We walked down the boardwalk past stand after stand selling hot buttered corn , funnel cake, knish, jamaican patties and hot dogs, when we decided to sit on a bench for a few minutes to catch our breath. It was seriously strenuous battling the wind.


This is when we saw the umbrella lady. She was a white haired tourist walking with her husband, holding a broken purple umbrella up in front of her face to block the wind. The problem was that the umbrella had collapsed to the point it barely resembled it's former self and looked like a really pointy accident waiting to happen. It looked so ridiculous that Mike and I both cackled out loud and then simultaneously covered our mouths because it was so rude. Luckily, she didn't see or hear us openly mocking her because the wind was whistling so loudly. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I had a sweatshirt. See, I'm still being irritating about it.

We watched her walk slowly for several minutes, Mike wondering "At what point do you throw in the towel and realize that your umbrella is busted? That can't be easy to carry."

Snickering.

Then me, "Do you think she knows she is actually creating more wind resistance carrying that in front of her? It kind of looks like a kite."

Another round of giggling ensues. We got up to walk so we could keep them in sight and spent the next 5 minutes making up things her husband must be muttering to himself. At one point they stopped next to a garbage can and she handed it to him. We got all excited and thought they were finally going to toss it, but she just rifled through her purse for a second, took the umbrella back and soldiered on.



At this point we had wandered into Brighton Beach, which is sort of a hodge podge of cultures, mostly Eastern European, with sort of Russian/Ukrainian lean to it. It was truly transporting and we forgot about the umbrella lady completely. It looked like no place I had ever been, from the architecture (tall tenenments, brick houses and a few luxury condos) to the gaudy signs on store fronts to the bleached blond women in track suits pushing their little wheely carts along the sidewalk. We ended up at a cafe that featured the cuisine of Uzbekistan's Uighur community, which I know nothing about other than that they make fantastic meat stuffed dumplings and pastries. They were served with a hot sauce that was a milder more tomatoey hot sauce than I am accustomed to, but delicious nonetheless. After we proclaimed ourselves too stuffed to eat another bite, we wandered back toward the subway and straight into a Russian-Jewish bakery. We loaded up on cakes, jam filled pasties, rugelach and something that looked like a meringue but tasted like a marshmallow and spent about $6. And we polished it all off before we even got off the subway.

We will definitely be back to eat and ride the Cyclone. This time I will be bringing a sweatshirt. Or a broken umbrella to keep me warm.