Day Nine - Coney Island Baby (in the pouring rain)

It is raining today, for the first time on my holiday. The sky is grey and puppies & kittens are bouncing off the roads, unfortunately Frank has commitments again and is unable to escort us on our latest jolly around the Eastern Seaboard. So Diane and I reviewed our plans, renegotiated our routes, agreed and disagreed on the itinerary and then finally decided on a course of action. As Frank left for his office we headed over to the coast to visit Port Chester on the border of New York State and Connecticut again to have a mooch around the nearest Lotus Dealership and talk real cars with people with exquisite taste.

This time the dealership was open and I had a long chat with the salesman, we discussed the new supercharged Elise, had a look at the cars currently in the garage undergoing treatment; an Esprit; an Elise S1; an S2 getting a custom supercharger fitted. There was also a nice Ferrari and a couple of Porsche cars that I wasn't too bothered about. The showroom was bare because the franchise had been bought by another retailer and would be moving in a a few weeks, but we were given a pleasant welcome and Diane was suitably impressed with the cars.

Eventually we left and, much to Diane's disdain, I requested a visit to Coney Island. So another reprogramming of the SatNav system to take us down the coast and a two hour drive in the pouring rain that we hoped would have cleared by the time we go there. I've never actually been on a holiday were I have either driven or been driven so much, which in turn means I have never talked so much to one person. I think I've talked more to Diane in the past nine days than I have spoken to my (soon to be ex) wife in the past four years - which is probably a bad thing when you think about it. I've never been a particular gregarious person and not really talkative, but Diane is so easy and interesting to talk to I find that we chat for hours.

But I digress, again.

We arrived in Coney Island, with it still raining, to find Rhyl out of season. A desolate, wet, depressing seaside town that looks as if it's best times were over decades ago and the only people who would be there are there out of necessity not choice. It looked run down, empty and devoid of life; a tacky representation of a once profitable beach resort; populated by working Joe's and blue collars in tenement blocks with nuclear fallout shelters in their basements - another reminder of a time that has since long gone when everyone was in fear of being wiped out in a Cold War escalation and the thing America feared the most was a Red Under The Bed. 

So I wasn't seeing Coney Island at it's best, but we struggled on and feeling a wee bit hungry Diane suggested we try a hot dog at Nathan's, the original seller of fast food in a country that now lives on convenience. This was history itself in a country that wiped out it's original heritage in a government sponsored genocide in the 19th Century, so I wasn't going to turn it down. Even though is was a wet Monday afternoon I did expect there to be more people in Nathan's but we served straight away by a very polite girl (what else should I expect is the USA) where we ordered a regular with onions for me and a cheese-dog for Diane. I have to admit that the frankfurter was a lot tastier than my first in Battery Park and I was extremely impressed, may be there was something to Coney Island to look forward too. 

Walking down Surf Street we made out way towards the largest fun fair in NYC and the Cyclone, the oldest working wooden roller coaster in America. Again, because it was out of season the fun fair was closed, the side shows were shuttered and the whole place reeked of a winter of neglect. The alleyways were strewn with empty beer bottles, discarded fast food wrappers, chewing gum and used condoms; proving that the chav class was alive and well in our US cousins - trailer park trash is the correct phrase I think. There wasn't much else to do, so in the spirit of our search for world gastronomic delights Diane decided she wanted to eat Russian food in Brighton Beach which is just down the road from Coney Island, a little Russian community in the heart of New York and the back drop to the Nicholas Cage film Lord of War. 

Brighton Beach was an experience in itself, a Russian community where English was the second spoken language and the signs are written in Cyrillic first and the majority of them had no English translation. You could only work out what the shops sold by looking in the window, and sometimes even then you where struggling. We saw Ushanka hats for $300 that were obviously real fur, Russian delicatessen selling staple foods to the population and the look of the people was Slavic. If it wasn't for the fact that the elevated train ran above the main street and the occasional yellow school bus you could have believed that you were in Moscow. It was so strange to experience that; not even walking through parts of Manchester that are populated by the Jewish or Asian community do you get the feeling that you are not in England, but here I had the feeling that to some people the United States was a different country and they acted like they were still in Mother Russia. 

A walk up and down the main street revealed several likely looking restaurants we could try and using the time honoured method of finding one of the only restaurants with a menu translated into English. It was still raining, we were soaked through to the skin, cold and hungry again. Anywhere that served hot food, beer and a cup of coffee would do me, but Diane wanted Chicken Kiev and Borscht. We found one...

Borscht is a Russian vegetable soup made from cabbage, beets, onions and sometimes can contain meat. It's filling, warm and very tasty, especially when accompanied by a few Heineken's. I had kebabs for my main course, served with a few more bottles of Heineken's whilst Diane had her Chicken Kiev - which is not even an authentic Russian dish. We chatted to the waiter who asked us where we where from, once again out accents giving us away, and then chatted about football (3,000+ miles from home and I find a Manchester United fan, I despair. I really do despair). For desert Diane opted for crepes again and I had a look at the vodka list, which was in a menu of it's own and longer than the food menu. When the vodka was poured into what I first thought was a wine glass the measure was the equivalent of a triple in the UK. Vodka is meant to be "shot" and it took 3 attempts for me to finish it, by which time I was buzzing, Diane was hysterical and the other diners were curious about this stupid Englishman down vodka that you could have run a car off.

We paid and left with me feeling slightly worse for wear and made our way back to Carmel. Another day in America and another afternoon drinking and a night to look forward to with Frank and taking in a few local bars in Carmel.

Here we go again...