New York City Hotels, Part 2

From Brighton Beach we headed for Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where Tish’s second NYC concert was going to take place. Once again we stayed at quite a remarkable hotel, only this time is wasn’t exactly cheap. Our room on the ninth floor of the „Thompson Hotel“ on Allen Street was quite swankily designed and had the most incredible view of Downtown, with the window reaching all the way down to the floor.

Tish liked the room so much, she decided to stay for another day – not the best thing possible to happen to our budget, especially since unfortunately Tish’s show at the “Rockwood City Music Hall” had a rather disappointing turnout -, but it gave me the possibility to explore the neighborhood in detail – and to try my first canoli in Little Italy. As often as I eat Italian food, I had never had this desert before, that they mention so often on the “Sopranos”. Seems to be more an Italian-American than an Italian thing. But whatever – it tasted great!

(Written in Austin, TX, July 27, 2012)

На Брайтон Бич

Due to my deep affection with everything Russian, I had been wanting to go to the New York neighborhood Brighton Beach, also known as Little Odessa, for a long time. So on our second visit to “the City”, as they say in New Jersey, we decided to go on a long drive through Brooklyn and find out, how Russian the place really is.

Well, I can tell you that it’s very Russian: For a few blocks on Brighton Beach Avenue, you will find nothing but Russian stores, Russian restaurants and Russian speaking people. So that was already a great experience for me. What turned our afternoon at Brighton Beach into one of the highlights of our trip, was the fact that Brighton Beach, as the name suggests, is on the seaside, and that we picked a perfect summer day for our visit. And so we got to have a Russian dinner, all with borscht, pelmeni and of course a carafe of vodka, on a lively boardwalk, overlooking a sunny, beautiful beach.

From Brighton Beach, it’s only a short walk to Coney Island Beach, so we got to see that legendary part of New York as well. The amusement park near the beach certainly isn’t what it used to be in former times, but it was still interesting to check out.

I was glad to find the Coney Island Steeplechase that the Velvet Underground once sang about:

(Written in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 24, 2012)

Found And Lost: The Waffle House

For some reason, on all of my trips to the USA I had never been to a “Waffle House”, although this chain has a lot of restaurants in Texas. It’s a diner chain, known for its cheap prices and friendly service. So every time that we saw a “Waffle House” on this trip, Tish and I said something like “We should go there”, but it never seemed to be the right time. Finally, in Black Mountain, North Carolina, we actually had breakfast at the local “Waffle House”, and what can I say? It was great! I loved the place. It was  cheap, the waitresses were  friendly, the food was good, and the atmosphere was perfectly movie-like, so Tish and I decided to make the “Waffle House” or regular breakfast/lunch place while being on the road. Now here comes the sad part: Pretty soon after that, probably while driving through New Jersey, we noticed that there were no more “Waffle Houses” along the way, while before they had been everywhere. It was only then that we found out by googling that they are “a regional local icon”, with locations only in the South. In other words: We won’t find another “Waffle House” until we come back to Texas by the end of July.