Fourth of July, Part I

posted on july 6, 2003, tag: me

Woke up at 9:30AM. This is not normal for a day off, specifically a holiday. But, none the less, managed to get onto the subway by 10:20. The G train. Took that to Bergen, then grabbed the F train all the way to Avenue X (the avenue named for it's super-heroes, apparently). Then we skipped the shuttle-bus and instead walked the seemingly 40 blocks to Coney Island. On the walk, I happened to snap a picture of a Raggedy Ann doll who met her maker when she tried to climb over one of the many tall fences topped with razor wire. Ouch.

The plan was to see the Nathan's Hot-Dog Eating Contest, but by the time we got there it was too crowded to see anything. Here's a nice panoramic of the crowd. We kept trying to see, but it was no use. Katia was sad and Shawn was, well, Shawn, as you can see. Twelve minutes later, the contest was over (quite disappointing, actually), and we were stuffing our faces full of our own Nathan's hot-dogs. After stuffing ourselves we decided to walk up to the beach. Shawn was looking for a garbage can to throw away his soda for a few blocks, and finally had to put it on top of a garbage can that was already way too full. Everyone looked at him with disgust, which was nice.

Then there was the beach. I've never been to Coney Island before, and I expected it to be crowded, but it was crazy. There were people everywhere. Here's another panoramic, although I must admit this picture makes it seem less busy than it was. Just note that the empty space in the foreground of that image is only about 20 feet—the rest is solid people. After walking by the upright-urinating palm tree, we walked down to the water-front where Katia splashed around and I watched a little boy construct one of the strangest sand-castles I've ever seen.

After the beach it was time for the boardwalk. We ended up riding the Tilt-A-Whirl twice (Shawn should have some interesting pictures of this), and avoided the Wonder Wheel and the Observation Tower. We eventually ended up going to the aquarium, where we saw some of the coolest 2-ton seals in the world. Oh, and there was a sea-otter than, I think, was as smart as me (is that saying much?).

Since it was still at least 200 degrees outside and we had all managed to get enough of a sunburn, we decided to head home at about 5 o'clock. It took a while, but eventually we made it back to our apartments for much needed showering, air-conditioning, and food. A few hours later we re-grouped for fireworks.