Hot Child in the City

Day Thirty-Six

Saturday we were a bit more touristy than we usually are. We decided to spend the day in Brooklyn. Our original plan was to tour the Brooklyn Brewery, explore downtown Brooklyn, get some cheesecake, visit the house where Elke's grandmother grew up, get dinner, stroll along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade walk across the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan, check out City Hall and then head home.

However, we ended up hitting a slight - but very welcome - snag in our plans. We went to the brewery as intended. The tour was kind of silly - we stood in the same room the entire time staring at the machinery while the tour guide (who acted and sounded just like Eric Foreman) told us about the history of the company. But it all turned out to be worth it, because after the tour everyone got one free beer. Elke and I both got the Scorcher, which was amazing. But it was slightly tainted by some creepy old fat man who was already wasted (it was 2.00 in the afternoon), there alone and wanted Elke and I to get in his car with him and go get lunch. He was obviously smashed if he thought we were that stupid OR desperate. We made our escape for the bathroom and waited for him to win.

After we left the brewery we hit our snag. We decided to stop in the cool looking store right across the street called Beacon's Closet. Of course, "stopping in" turned out to be a 3-4 hour binge of shopping insanity. It was this AWESOME thrift/vintage store that was not expensive AT ALL. People get money for the stuff they bring in, so there's much more incentive to donate and therefore TONS of great stuff, most of which is designer. I ended up getting 2 skirts and a dress, which is a lot considering most things were a size zero.

By the time we were able to pry ourselves away from the billions of racks filled with wonderful, inexpensive clothing, it was after 5.00. We decided to skip exploring downtown, visiting Elke's grandmother's old house and strolling along the promenade. By that neither of us had eaten more than a donut and just wanted to find somewhere to eat. But there wasn't really anything down by the bridge - just old people, mostly. I couldn't even find a place to buy some cheesecake.

We walked across the bridge, which was actually a really amazing view. I guess I understand why it's considered to be such a touristy thing to do, but I did notice that a lot of people also appeared to be locals, most of whom were exercising. One of the coolest things was seeing the Municipal Building from the bridge. It's a really neat looking building from the back.

We walked around the City Hall area for a bit, but didn't really see anywhere we wanted to eat. We tried to find the African Burial Ground, but the road to get there was blocked off and it didn't really seem to actually be there. I feel like they may have built over it, which is just twisted.

Since we couldn't find anything in that area, we decided to take the train to the West Village, which is completely full of places to eat. We ended up eating at Florent, a diner-type place our Not For Tourists book recommended. Among the clientele, which consisted mainly of older locals, there were two huge men dressed up as girls. But not just any girls. They looked like Little Miss Muffets - gingham dresses, ruffled pinafores, layers of crinolines, giant Mary Janes, ringlet girls, parasols, and the bigger of the two also had a Hello Kitty backpack. It was nuts. But we were glad they were there, as they kept people from looking at us. We both looked like crap because we'd been out for so long.

We walked around the village a bit more, but headed home soon after.

posted by Megan @ 7:07 PM