Tennis Week 2017 - another terrific time! (part one)

photo credit: Uli Seit

You all know how much I love it when my mom comes to visit for Tennis Week.  It's definitely one of my favorite weeks of the year - we just have a lot of fun and a lot of laughs when we're together.  I need to do a better job with her flight times, though, I feel as if we missed some good times yutzing around with LaGuardia airport...

Mom got here last Monday and I already knew what the main event for that day would be: a friend of ours had posted photos of his ferry ride from downtown Manhattan to the Rockaways and my mom always enjoys a ferry ride.  So we made plans to do that. Because LaGuardia is such a nightmare at the moment, due to all the construction, I actually took a car over there from my apartment so I could meet my mom and then we took a cab ride back to my apartment.  It seemed easier to do that than to try to relay the maze that is the ground transportation hub to my mom over the phone. After we got her settled in the apartment, off we went to Pier 11.

When we got off the subway at Whitehall Street, we were met by a lot of vendors trying to sell us ferry rides out to the Statue of Liberty.  I asked one of them where I could find Pier 11 and he told me to take a left at the next street.  My mom and I did that, and as I tried to get my phone's GPS going, I could hear someone yelling "MISS! MISS! MISS!"  I suddenly realized it was the nice vendor running after us - he told us we had to cross the street and then turn left.  I thought it was very nice of him to make sure we were going the right way.  If we hadn't crossed the street first, we would've gotten completely lost. Monday was a really sunny warm day and, we had forgotten, it was also the day of the eclipse. When we got to Pier 11, the line for the ferry was already pretty long.  I was surprised, thinking a weekday morning wouldn't be very busy.  My mom got in line while I ran in to buy our tickets; when I got back, she told me the ladies in front of her said that one of the NY papers had printed that the Rockaways would be the best place to watch the eclipse.  Aha! That's why the line was so long!

We stood in the line for about a half hour, then we got onto the ferry; I dashed ahead so I could find us seats up on the top level.  Success!  The ride is about an hour long, with a stop about fifteen minutes in.  It was breezy, sunny and wonderful!  It's pretty loud, so you can't have much conversation, plus I had to hold on to my hat pretty tightly, but it was such a fun ride out to the Rockaways.  We passed Coney Island and went under bridges, it was great.  When we landed in the Rockaways, we crossed over to the boardwalk to look for snacks.  We at first thought we'd try a pub, but it was full of smoking, already-drunk-at-11-am gents, so we passed that by.  We went to the frozen yogurt shop, but they were on a break.  Some cute kids waiting outside said the owners would be back in about a half hour.  One of them said there was pizza nearby, but it seemed kind of far to me.  And then one kid said that she'd send us over to the boardwalk to eat, but it was too hot and too dangerous.  Uh, dangerous?  Mom and I looked at each other, and walked to the boardwalk anyway.

We finally came upon Caracas, which was a terrific little place with arepas, empanadas and some fun beverages.  I got the hibiscus iced tea, which was icy deliciousness, and Mom and I shared an empanada with chicken and some french fries.  Weird combo, I know, but Mom and I like french fries.  They were crispy and good, and the empanada was SO good.  The dough was flaky and rich, and the chicken was really fresh and flavorful.  I think it came with a fruity habanero dipping sauce, which was a little hot for us, but we used a dab a couple of times.  

Since it was pretty sunny and there wasn't a lot of shade to be found, AND because the ferry only travels once a hour, we pretty much just walked along the boardwalk for a bit after lunch, then went back to the boat dock to ride back to Manhattan.  We were on the boat when it was supposedly high-eclipse time, so my mom kept shouting "Don't look at the sun!" whenever I turned my head towards the sky. She kept making me laugh.  I had had enough sun on the ride out to the Rockaways, so we sat downstairs on the inside going back.  If there was a view of the eclipse, we missed it. It was also FREEZING in there, which was nice for the first fifteen minutes or so, then we were just cold.  Oh well.  It was a beautiful day for a boat ride.

When we got back to Pier 11, we walked uptown towards the South Street Seaport, which doesn't look anything like I remember.  I thought there was a shopping mall there, but I couldn't find it.  We were just kind of wandering around, then just happened to find ourselves at a magical location: in front of the Big Gay Ice Cream food truck.  SCORE!  I was so excited!  I've been wanting Mom to try a Salty Pimp (one of the specials at Big Gay Ice Cream), but we never seem to make it to the Village when she's here.  Happiness.  We shared a Salty Pimp and it was glorious.  Various people kept wandering past us, looking into cereal boxes that were turned into eclipse viewers, but we still pretty much missed the whole thing.  Oh well.  We did a little bit of shopping downtown, then took a train uptown, so I could show my mom some stores I thought she'd like, and a grocery store where we could pick up some snacks for our upcoming tennis viewing.  All in all, a fine (and busy) first day.  We decided to watch a movie on my Roku when we got back to my apartment - I Saw the Light, a biopic about Hank Williams starring Tom Hiddleston.  I didn't think the movie was all that, but Hiddleston is always good, and Cherry Jones played his mother.  She's always great.  Plus, Hank Williams' music is terrific, no matter who sings it.  So I guess I'm glad we watched it.

I think I'll save the tennis talk for my next post - enjoy the photos I got on (and off) the ferry!