Day 4 - A planned reduction in velocity.

Sleeps are definitely getting better, but slowly. I’m awake at 07:30, and Ali is not far behind me. As a collective, we’re up a little after 08:00. Our plan for Sunday has always been to hang out in Brooklyn, and be a lot moochier. Our legs are telling us that this remains a good plan. My right knee, which has been a suspect little fucker for several years, is enraged at the amount of walking I’ve done over the past few days. Karin’s knee, which shares some emotional baggage with mine, is saying the same. Ali has unintended blisters on both of his feet. I’m not sure Vicki has any actual physical complaints, but is very sympathetic towards ours.

We head out around 11:00, heading for Kings Plaza Mall, right down in the South of Brooklyn. Poppy has inferred that she’d like some bits of clothing from a store called Hot Topic, and this is the closest one to us. We spend an hour or so wombling around the mall, and manage to grab a couple of t-shirts and a hoodie for Pops. We jump in a cab and head over to Brighton Beach.

The sun is trying to shine, and there’s a brisk-ish breeze coming off the ocean. The beach is moderately busy at first, but the boardwalk is proper crazy as we cross over to Coney Island. Today is Puerto Rico day. Puerto Rico is a US ‘territory’ - not a state, but a self-governing US protectorate, positioned at the very northwestern of the Leewards Caribbean islands. There’s a sizeable Puerto Rican community in New York, and today is their national day. There are soundsystems up and down the boardwalk, lots of folks dancing on the sidewalk, a ton of domino games in motion. It’s a riot of colour, music, fun and flair.

The girls have some ice cream, whilst Ali and I grab ourselves a hotdog and a beer from Nathan’s - a world famous wienery, and home to the annual hot-dog eating content, every 4th July. I’ve seen footage of this competition. It’s mental. The current record is 76 hotdogs in 10 minutes. Now - our hotdogs are hardly huge, but the idea of eating one every 8 seconds for 10 minutes is mindboggling. Our dogs are tasty. Very simple with sauerkraut and mustard for me, and same for Ali but with the addition of cheese whiz.

We jump on a subway, and head up to Greenpoint. There’s a Korean fried chicken place called Peeps that Ali wants to try. We stop at a cool bar called Keg and Lantern for a quick pit-stop, and then head over to Peeps, maybe 10 minutes walk away. As we walk, the rains commence. We’d been warned there might be showers, but this feels fairly persistent. Arriving at Peeps, there are no indoor seating spaces, and the chicken is going to take approximately 20 minutes to be ready, during which wait we’ll be stood in the rain. I suspect it’s the kind of hardship Ali and I would happily bear for what are described as amongst the very best wings in New York, but to which we shan’t subject our wonderful wives.

An Uber takes us over to Dumbo. Dumbo is the area:

Down
Under
Manhattan
Bridge
Overpass

There’s another acronym - Rambo - which replaces down under with ‘right around’ and we all feel this is a stretch too far. Ali and I take a selfie in front of the Evil Twin Brewery, and we head to the Time Out Market for some beer and food. Perhaps it’s the rain making the market busy, but it’s all a bit chaotic.There are some very pleasant sounding / looking / smelling food options, but we opt for a quick beer, and then head elsewhere.

Elsewhere is a fab little Vietnamese place just around the corner from the market. Their wings are sensational. Some mussels in a coconut broth divine. I have a grilled pork and vermicelli type affair as a main course, and it’s banging. Heat, salt, sweet and sour in perfect balance, and the pork is collar, hard-grilled to a charred and chewy (in a good way) finish. There’s a bit of consternation when Ali’s chicken pho contains no chicken. It’s replaced with a beef version as the kitchen has apparently run out of chicken.

Sated, we head down to the riverside under the Brooklyn Bridge, of one of the great views of the lower Manhattan skyline. We briefly wander around Water Street, where there’s a very pretty little pixie garden, with pretty lights around a fountain. It’s 20:00, and we briefly consider a foray elsewhere in Brooklyn, but Karin bought some wine at the liquor store underneath our apartment last night, and it’s not gonna drink itself…Läs mer