a weekend in the city

It's not quite next weekend, right? I can still share these pictures?

We did lots of City things over the looong 4th of July weekend. We ate lots of great food, and discovered a fantastic new bakery called Tisserie. Thankfully it isn't in the most convenient location, because excellent and affordable little treats = very bad for healthy eating. We

took a walking tour of the Brooklyn Bridge and walked across the span. Since we were in Brooklyn, we headed to Coney Island

and admired the Cyclone. Hubby says, "That's a really tame roller coaster. Are you sure you don't want to go?" I respond, "Um, hell NO!"

The Boardwalk was nice, and I always love watching the ocean. The scent of fried dough/funnel cake in the air was really appealing too.

We saw them getting ready for the Hot Dog Eating Contest the next day. Takeru Kobayashi won again, and broke his world record by eating 53 and three-quarters hot dogs in 12 minutes. Impressive, and certainly worthy of ESPN coverage.

We had some of the best pizza in the world at Totonno's, where the seating queue is maintained by the customers on the sidewalk. The waitresses would just open the door and ask who was next in line. It reminded me of Restaurant Joel Roubechon in Paris, where there were no reservations and you waited outside (in a line; Coney Island is more free-form). There were no handles on the door in Paris, so you had to wait to be let in. I found it very amusing that women were in line behind us with handbags that cost more than our car. But back to Coney Island...

We caught a Brooklyn Cyclones game in their cute little ballpark. The oldest player on the team was born in 1982. Most were born in the late 80s. I found that somewhat distressing.

After the game there were fireworks over the water, and were much more pleasant than being crammed on the FDR Drive with millions of others on the 4th.

However, the next night we were treated to a nearly private fireworks show by a guy across the street from us. He had loads of fireworks that he was setting off in the street. The police came after a while, didn't confiscate his stash, and as soon as they turned the corner, the guy started up his show again. I'm glad the celebrating time is over.