George's Excellent Birthday

How to celebrate George's birthday?  This year we decided to go big - not a big party, but doing LOTS of really fun things.  The first event was letting Renee take us to dinner on Wednesday evening at the Birchmere where we had tickets to see Sarah Jarosz.  She is a delightful song writer, singer and musician from Austin.  She celebrated her recent graduation from college by releasing a new CD - a repeat of how she celebrated her high school graduation.

After the show we were able to visit with Sarah briefly and she graciously signed some CD's for us.

The next day we headed to the Amtrak station in Old Town Alexandria.  We always prefer travel by train and it was wonderful to get to leave during rush hour without having to go into DC.

We were delighted to get seats in the Quiet Car - not having to hear some sweet young thing talk for 2 + hours on her cell phone saying "like" every 5 words (trust me, it happened once before) was bliss.  

The first sighting of the NYC skyline is always exciting.

Once we arrived at Penn Station in Manhattan, we headed to the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn.  I had won a weekend at the Community Be Good Guest House at a silent auction at the Northern Virginia Ethical Society and we added a third night to have a nice long weekend.  Turned out the guest house was like a youth hostel but for old hippies - we fit right in - but we may not return after having shared 1 bathroom with 13 others.  At least they were an interesting group:  a woman and son from Italy, a family from Switzerland (the guest house is listed on AirBNB), a woman from Haiti who works with the house owner on a project in her village in Haiti, and a few 20-somethings who never looked up from their laptops.  While the house was in desperate need of a face lift and a major de-cluttering project, the street it was on was lovely.

After dropping off our luggage, we headed back to Manhattan for a night on the town.

First stop was dinner at "our" pub.

Thanks to Stub-hub, we got a really great deal on tickets to see "Kinky Boots".

On Friday we enjoyed a late start to our day, after all, we were on vacation, but we also slept in because the Brooklyn Museum of Art didn't open until 11 am.  The last time we tried to go to the Museum we discovered the Botanical Garden next to the museum and never made it into the museum.  This time we planned to stay most of the day.  We found the museum most impressive and we especially liked the Egyptian collection - it's one of the largest in the nation.  They were also hosting a special show on the role of cats in the ancient Egyptian society - the worshipping of cats is a incorrect concept and the show gave an excellent explanation of this misunderstanding.

Friday night we had a nice dinner (nothing special) at Alchemy, one of the many "fru-fru" restaurants in Park Slope.  The neighborhood is like a really crowded Del Ray - a really nice neighborhood in Alexandria.

We were lucky to have perfect weather the entire trip.  This made a trip to Coney Island and Brighton Beach perfect for Saturday.  Even though our hostess offered us the use of her car, we stuck with the subway.  Actually, we were getting rather cocky at how good we were at using the system.  Downloading the NYC Subway app didn't hurt.

This was the 1st thing we saw when we arrived on Coney Island.

Below are scenes from the Coney Island Boardwalk.  Cool weather and a gorgeous sky.

You can see the Manhattan skyline from Coney Island.

I had enough fun taking photos of others on the historic Cyclone.  There is no way I was going to actually get on it.  George agreed.

Here are more shots of the beach.

We had to have lunch at Nathan's.  George was happy to see that Shiner Bock had made its way to Coney Island.  The dogs weren't bad either.

After lunch we headed to the aquarium.  As we approached the line for tickets a gentleman approached us and asked if we needed tickets.  At first I was somewhat hesitant - what does this guy really want? - but he explained he was a member and his membership allowed him to enter with 2 guests.  He wanted us to be his guests.  Wow.  New Yorkers can be just as nice as anybody.  Never let anyone tell you anything different.  

The aquarium sustained massive damage during Hurricane Sandy and some sections were still under construction.  We were able to see one of the first performances of the seals in the new theater.

Next we headed to Brighton Beach, also known as "Little Russia."  It was amazing to hear nothing but Russian on the board walk and in the restaurants.  We saw diners ordering bottles of vodka served just like a bottle of wine.   

Had to have a bowl of borscht.  Really good!

Brighton Beach also has a board walk.

On the walk back to the subway I spotted this garden.  Not exactly "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" but a lovely spot in the midst of lots of old high rise apartments.

Brooklyn has lots of venues for live music and we hoped to find some Saturday evening.  Turns out the Brooklyn Ethical Society was hosting a blue grass festival as an annual fund raiser so we dropped by.  On the way I had my "celebrity" sighting (something that typically happens on every trip to NYC) when Senator Schumer and his wife came out of their high rise condo on their way to dinner.  I spoke and he waved but I didn't have my phone camera at the ready (bummer - we know he loves cameras).

The festival was packed so we stood during 1 set and left after the 2nd set to allow others to have a seat and let us go to dinner.

Sunday we headed in the opposite direction from Coney Island and went to DUMBO - Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass - this neighborhood runs along the East River between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.  The views of Manhattan are spectacular.

I had noticed that on almost every train car we got on, I spotted someone knitting.  The picture below is of a woman knitting 2 socks at once on a huge circular needle.  I had never seen anyone knit so fast.

Something happened while waiting on the platform for the train - 2 Hasidic Jews asked us for directions.  The surprise was we knew the answer to their question.  Guess we really have mastered the subway system.

Our first stop was Grimaldi's for lunch.  This is a long-established pizza joint with hundreds of autographed celebrity photos lining the walls.  It looks like everyone in show biz has been there.

The pizza was great and the photo over our table was really interesting.

Sign over the door reads "Divorce Your Loved One With Dignity".  Words Sinatra lived by?

Next stop was my favorite chocolatier, Jacques Torres, so I am now ready for winter because I purchased the large tin of classic hot chocolate powder.

When we visit NYC we usually see one celebrity, as we did Saturday night, and we run into someone we know, proving it really is a small world.  Four million people live in Brooklyn yet while walking along the river front enjoying the food and art festival being held in the neighborhood we spotted Bryan and Emily Dunn, the son and daughter-in-law of Bill and Lucille Dunn, who live in Dallas.  It was fun getting to see Bryan and Emily and she led us to the photography section of the art festival.  She is a professional photographer and you can check out her work at EmilyRaw.com.  Bryan is a musician and  on a previous trip to NYC we attended the release party for his new CD.

Finally it was time to head back to Penn Station and home.  On the return trip we treated ourselves to a ride on Acela and a driver and car waiting for us at Union Station in DC.  All in all, it was a grand weekend.  Happy birthday, George!