Tuesday, August 29, 2006
New York, Day Four
Kevin had the day off from work. In the morning we went to Union Square to meet his friend Cindy for breakfast. After breakfast we took the subway to Queens, to the end of the line at Coney Island. The weather was wet and gloomy so all of the rides were closed. The boardwalk still had a smattering of tourists, though, and a full force of lifeguards was on duty.
We walked down the boardwalk to the next neighborhood: Brighton Beach. It's populated by Russian emigrés, most of whom arrived two decades ago from the Soviet Union. One newspaper article I read describes Brighton Beach as the closest thing left to the USSR in the world. What we found, instead, is an ethnic enclave similar to any other you might find in Queens. There is one main street with grocery stores, restaurants and businesses under an elevated railway. On this weekday afternoon we saw a lot of babushkas out shopping.
We tried to find an Uzbek restaurant that was mentioned in the article, but no one we asked knew of any such place. We settled on a small place on Brighton Beach Ave. named Gina's Cafe. There were a few other people there, including a table of elderly American women. Three waitresses, all college-aged, were working. Kevin thought going to a place like this would be a great opportunity for me to practice my Russian, but I wasn't so sure. One of the waitresses came over to our table and greeted us softly in Russian: "Zdravstvuy". I grinned at her but remained silent. She got another waitress to take our orders, in English. Kevin ordered cheese bliny, or blintzes, and I ordered caviar bliny. Our waitress came with our food fifteen minutes after we ordered. The next time our waitress came back, with the bill, I loosened up and tried some Russian on her. She didn't comment on that, but at least she responded in Russian!
After lunch we shopped at some markets. We bought some very inexpensive fruit and some pastries for the long subway ride — and for me, plane ride — home. All were delicious.
We returned to Kevin's apartment at 3pm. I got my bags and said goodbye. I got to JFK with time to spare before my 5:30 flight. Strangely, there were a lot of Russians on the plane — making up perhaps as much as half the passengers. I had enough practice for one day, I thought, and slept the way through.
