Adventure in the Hamptons!

I recently returned from a glorious (and too short) weekend in Southampton and Sag Harbor.  Here's how the trip came about - at the end of May, I saw a notice that Betty Buckley would be starring in a production of Grey Gardens at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor.  I immediately e-mailed two pals who are huge Betty fans and we immediately planned our weekend.  We ventured into the new world (for us) of airbnb and found a spot that would accept a one-night reservation, which is apparently not so easy in the Hamptons in the summer.  We've had the tickets and reservations since June, so we had been looking forward to this adventure for quite a while!  I was beginning to think the fun would never get here, but as it always happens, the fun came and went much too quickly...

My handsome guy pal has a car, which made our lives very easy, so he picked up my gorgeous gal pal in Manhattan, then swung out to pick me up Saturday morning.  We had a pretty quick and easy trip out to Southampton (where the airbnb rental was), with only a couple of traffic tie-ups.  There was a tiny snafu with the car's GPS, though, and it directed us to the wrong street for our rental - we momentarily worried that we'd been rooked, but then I used my new phone and found the spot a few miles away.  It turns out that the car's GPS wasn't taking into account the difference between Road and Street.

We pulled into our rental and thought, hmmmm.  The listing referred to the spot as a 'unique beautiful farmhouse' but it looked a little small to be a farmhouse from the outside.  The house was indeed unique, though, rather quirky and odd, with lots of small rooms and stuffed with fun kitchy decorations.  We were all staying together in the loft space, which was a bit 'cozier' than we'd been led to believe, and up a very steep flight of stairs (I got a workout climbing those stairs so much!), but it was cute and fun and we figured hey, it's only one night!  We were a little surprised to discover that our 'private bathroom' was actually a toilet and a bidet IN OUR ROOM.  No door, no screens, just a toilet and bidet in the room.  Oh, and a sink.  Um, no.  We used the bathroom downstairs.  And we had to remind our host (more on her later) that we needed another bed in the room (apparently she got a couple of the other guests to help her lug an air mattress up into the room while we were out later that night).

With all the oddness of the house and loft space, we were completely enchanted by the pool!  It looks like it's sitting in the middle of Greek ruins, with pillars and stone and shells.  It's really a gorgeous pool, temperature regulated perfectly, and so relaxing.  When we arrived, we had to put our feet right in, at least for a minute, before going out to find some lunch, because we were starving.  It only took us a minute to decide that we wanted lobster rolls for lunch, so after some Googling, we found that the Lobster Grille was nearby.  And off we went.

The Lobster Grille is a cute little shack-type place, right on the water, with a nice covered terrace.  We sat out on the terrace and enjoyed a quiet, tasty lunch.  Maybe it wasn't the best lobster roll I've ever had (it was a touch bland, there was definitely too much celery for my tastes, and I'd rather have had it on an actual buttered toasted roll instead of Texas toast), but it was still tasty.  The fries were very good.  Our server was funny and we just took our time and relaxed a bit before going back to the house.  My handsome guy pal invited another friend to join us, so he'd be meeting us at our airbnb before seeing Grey Gardens that night. 

When we got back from lunch, we debated swimming before leaving for the theater, but I thought it would make me too tired and sleepy, so I decided not to.  My pals all decided not to as well and they came up with the amazing idea of saving our swimming until AFTER the show, when we could have a bottle of wine and enjoy the pool at night.  My pals are very smart.  So we decided to head into Sag Harbor to enjoy the town for a bit, then we could grab some dinner and see the show.  Yes, I ate dinner and then saw a show.  I was on vacation...

Before hitting Sag Harbor, we stopped at an antique shop right by our rental.  It had some truly wonderful things, plus a lot of fun sculptures out in the yard.  You'll see some photos below.  It was a fun stop to make on our way to town.  Sag Harbor is adorable, with lots of fun shops and a chill, beachy atmosphere.  We found a parking space pretty quickly, luckily, in a public parking area.  We enjoyed walking along Main Street, popping into stores (we saw Food Network's Giada de Laurentiis in the hardware store!), looking at houses and taking photos.  It was unfortunately a little too late to tour either the Custom House or the Whaling Museum, but all the more reason to return!  Actually, it was such a lovely day, it was nice to stay outside and look around, to be honest.  I took tons of photos on my new camera phone and it was great.  I never even took my loaner camera out of my purse.

As we wandered back on the other side of Main Street, we started looking at restaurant menus to decide where we'd have dinner.  There are several choices and we were eating early enough that there should've been plenty of room in any restaurant for us to eat.  We finally settled on Harlow, because it was right by the theater, on the water, and the drink menu looked amazing (although quite pricey).  When we went in, the hostess told us that there was a private party that night and we'd be unable to be seated in the restaurant, though we could order from the menu at the bar.  That sounded fine to us.  We found seats at the bar, looked at the menus, and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  There were several people bustling behind the bar, cleaning silverware, moving glasses, but no one ever looked at us.  No one ever acknowledged we were sitting there.  We waited maybe ten minutes, thinking someone would say, 'sorry, we're busy, we'll be right with you', but no one ever said anything or even bothered to look at us.  So we left.  it was a very frustrating experience.  Especially since I had been really looking forward to their ginger margarita.  I've since gone onto the Yelp website and found several people have had the same experience there.  Sad.



We instead went across the street to Corner Bar, which I had seen mentioned online for a great place to get a burger.  It was full, but not overly crowded, so we only had to wait a few minutes for a table.  Of course, being so warm and a little crabby meant that I wasn't really in the mood for a heavy burger.  I instead ordered the fried flounder sandwich and a margarita.  Yum.  That sandwich looked quite unassuming, but it was delicious.  So crispy and light and the fish was flaky and tender.  The bun was also terrific.  The chips were good and paired nicely with my tart margarita.  So I was happy with my dinner, even though we were all annoyed at the stupid restaurant we went to first.

After dinner, we ran to a liquor store for some post-show-by-the-pool wine.  We put it in the car and grabbed our nicer duds that we had brought to wear to the theater.  I wanted to spare my seat neighbors from my sweaty walking-around-town clothes.  Luckily, the ladies room in the Bay Street Theatre is quite spacious and there was plenty of room to clean up and cool down before the show.

Now that I'm noticing how long I've been going on, I think I'll save my Grey Gardens review for another post.  There's a lot to tell.  Moving on...

After the show, we ran to the Sag Harbor 7-Eleven (wait, what?!) and got some ice for the wine and I had to buy some doughnuts.  I don't know, I just needed something sweet.  We had a quick trip back to our 'unique beautiful farmhouse' and spent a delightful couple of hours out in the pool, drinking wine, by the moonlight.  Even though the house was hosting ten guests, we were the only ones who used the pool that night.  So it was private and perfect and none of us ever wanted to get out.  While we were at the pool, there was a bat flying around, which creeped me out excessively.  Bats are not my thing.  Thankfully, it went away pretty quickly.  I'm telling you this because it will come into play again later.  We reluctantly did finally get out of the pool and went up to our loft.  The air mattress was indeed there, so it was very snug in the space, but not uncomfortably so.  After pretty much an entire day out in the sunshine, it didn't take too long to fall asleep.

I would look good in this house, yes?

I woke up fairly early Sunday morning to tiptoe down to the restroom downstairs.  It was already fully light in our loft at a very early hour.  I went back to bed and hoped to fall asleep for another couple of hours, but I heard some rustling in the sun roof windows.  It sounded like there was something caught between the window and the screens.  At first I thought it was a bird, then I was afraid it was the bat.  Then, I swear I saw a head poke through the screen and I got completely weirded out!  My handsome guy pal woke up (I hope it wasn't me!) and wanted to go out and get some coffee.  I was happy to get out of there and go with him.  I had no desire to chase a bird out of our room so early in the morning (it was just my paranoia, nothing ever flew into the room, in fact, I'm the only one who heard the rustling. hm.).  In the car, I looked on my phone's GPS for a nearby coffee shop - it said there was one about a mile away.  We drove there, turning off a lovely street with incredible homes onto another street featuring a...shack.  This didn't really look like a coffee shop we wanted to stop at: there was a drive-thru and a tattoo parlor.  We figured we could find good coffee elsewhere.  So we went to Dunkin Donuts.  Yes, we went to the Dunkin Donuts in Southampton.  Oh well.  It was caffeine.  And we did see a house for sale that we started to kid was the one we were going to buy (along with 1000 of our closest friends, which would be the only way we would be able to afford it).

After a bit, my handsome guy pal and I were sitting at the dining room table and out came a couple of the other guests.  And our host.  She very kindly serves breakfast to her guests - she makes eggs to order, and also has pancakes, croissants, bacon, juice, preserves, cheeses and other savory items available.  It was quite a spread.  She fed one of the other guests first, since he had a tennis match to get to, then she fed us.  All of the other guests were very pleasant and we enjoyed chatting with them the brief time we were there.  One guys did big business with Russia, one gal worked for a new movie company, one young couple brought their adorable dog.  It was a nice group.  After my handsome guy pal and I had finished breakfast, our other pals still weren't awake, so we went out to dip our feet in the pool.

More about our host:  she was quite a character.  Very colorful, eccentric and spiritual - she used to run a spa in Manhattan and now offsets a lot of her airbnb expenses by offering spa services, acupuncture, and psychic readings.  She's led quite a life - she was telling us about her travels and beliefs during breakfast.  She and my beautiful gal pal had been corresponding for awhile and our host hoped we would all get massages (at an additional fee, of course), but we didn't want to do that.  Instead, we all decided we would have readings while we were there.  Since our friends were still asleep, my awake pal and I asked if we could have our readings while they slept.  My handsome guy pal went first, then me.

I will say off the top that it was a little disconcerting to have our host tell me that the amount we had been quoted as the fee was actually not correct and that the reading would be more expensive.  I didn't feel as if I could say never mind, so that was weird.  But I honestly was really intrigued, so I said fine, go ahead.  I don't think I want to be specific about what she said, but some of it was kind of freaky.  She got a lot of stuff about me right, really specific stuff that would be nearly impossible to guess.  Yes, I think some of the things she said were rather general and could be more easily figured out by listening to what I was saying and putting things together, but there were also a lot of random true things that made me rather believe what she was saying.  At the very least, it was an interesting experience, our host was very warm and engaging, and she did give me things to think about.  And she told me to have other people e-mail her if they didn't believe what I told them.  So that was all good.  I'm glad I did it.

After our other friends awakened, had their breakfast and their readings, we sat by the pool a little longer (we really didn't want to leave that pool!), then we drove to Southampton to look around and have lunch before heading to the city.  Southampton is lovely, a very picture-perfect small town, like you see in the movies, but I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I enjoyed Sag Harbor.  It seemed really snooty, the people walking around were quite rude, as were some of the shopkeepers.  I mean, it was nice to see, it was a gorgeous day to be walking around with my pals, but I don't know that I'd need to go back, unlike Sag Harbor, where there were several things I'd like to go back and see.  We had a tasty (and shockingly reasonably priced, which is good, because we were getting sticker shock at some of the lunch menus along Main Street) lunch at the Village Gourmet Cheese Shoppe, which had tasty sandwiches in the back of the shop.  I got the France sandwich, which was jambon de Paris and gruyere on a baguette with sprouts, cornichon and dijon mustard. This was an extremely tasty sandwich.  The bread was super fresh and the ham was fatty and delicious.  And the biting acid of the cornichon and mustard were fantastic!  My mouth is watering just thinking about it!  This was an excellent choice for lunch - we sat outside and people watched and listened to a hateful man berate his wife constantly.  Having money apparently doesn't give you kindness.  Anyway...

We walked around and shopped for a bit - we also saw several classic cars, which was fun.  I wish my dad had been with us, he could've told us all about the cars.  Then we got in our car (well, my handsome guy pal's car) and regretfully headed back to the city.  The trip back was a little longer because of traffic, but that was ok, because we had a lot to talk about!  We talked about our readings, our host, the other airbnb guests, the show, what's coming up, lots of stuff!  I don't get to see my pals often enough, so there's always so much to say.  But I'm ever so glad we had this weekend together!  Here's to more adventures and more unique beautiful experiences!  :)