Coney Island

I know...we suck.

Sometimes, no matter how hard we try to avoid it, homesickness sneaks up on us. It crawls out of the most unlikely of places to remind us how much we miss our favorite people back in Chicago.

Its latest insidious tactic is to slither out of the toilet bowl and crawl out from behind the couch cushions to remind us that we pay 3k a month for a 600 square foot apartment. Yeah, you read that right.

Which is why Alex and Christine coming to visit us a couple weeks back couldn’t have come at a better time.



I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the best things about friends and family coming to visit us in New York is that we get to try out all the New Yorky stuff we wouldn’t normally do by ourselves. This time, we got to check two of them off our list: Coney Island, and Brighton Beach.

Let’s start with Coney Island.



You know how sometimes aggressively unattractive people wear skin-tight crop-tops that read In Your Dreams? That’s Coney Island. It’s also crazy and weird and awesome, but it’s tons of In Your Dreams.

The first thing we noticed was a small, semi-pornographic dance party in broad daylight, with a healthy mix of three year old children dancing alongside shirtless gentlemen simulating slow, passionate lovemaking with the boardwalk. We shuffled along.



Next we checked out an attraction called “Shoot the Freak,” which was a paint ball shooting range advertising “live human targets.” We watched a man pay his money and step up to the gun, as a shirtless Mexican dude donned a helmet, picked up a garbage lid shield, and sadly shuffled from side to side. The shooter bided his time for the kill shot. We moved along.



Next was Luna Park. That’s the part with all the actual rides. I’m riding the Cyclone! I’m riding that spinny pukey thing! I…eh… you have to buy tickets. Let’s just drink beer.



So we drank beers in the blazing sun, thought about standing in line for a Nathan’s dog, sauntered out on the pier, watched people fish with chicken wings for bait, and watched a family enjoy a pork chop picnic on the beach. It was pretty awesome.

Then suddenly, without warning, Alex stopped drinking beer.

It was a very curious thing. But we pretended we didn’t notice. Besides, we were heading back to Brighton Beach soon for an early dinner, so he had plenty of time to catch up.