Yes NYC!

There’s still so much to catch up with from last weekend. We went to Flushing in Queens, which has been recommended to us (”you will get out of the subway and feel like in the middle of Korea). It’s true. A bit like China Town, but this time really only Asian people there (and us). We found a fantastic mall with a supermarket that makes your eyes pop out: huge dried octopus, fresh lychee-type fruits that have the size of melons, meters of shelves with dim sum dumplings, half dried ducks just laying there on the shelf (without a bag around them), really(!) weird dried herbs and gigantic plastic bags of frozen seafood.

In another remote part of Queens we tried out “real” ethnic food again and went to what they call the best Bolivian restaurant in town. The food was great indeed, but we were a little bit distracted by a X-Mas tree blinking and playing the same song over and over again, two TVs with a dating show in Spanish and a bunch of guys throwing coins into a jukebox constantly (this was a great mix altogether) oh, and a woman going from table to table selling “home-burnt” copies of movie DVDs.

The other day, we also had gorgeous weather and went to Brooklyn Botanical Garden, where we sniffed lots of fantastic roses and other fragrant plants (they have a “smell and touch garden” there). After that we took a walk near Park Slope in Brooklyn in order to find a cafe in an interesting street a friend told us about. Unfortunately, we were not sure about the street name and walked to a similarly sounding street (for ever as it seemed). First, the houses were really nice, but then all of a sudden the atmosphere changed and we were in a rather strange area. We tried to find a bus stop, but since it was weekend, no bus was going back and we had to walk through this area to get back (we again the only white people there). Patrick thinks it wasn’t that bat, but I only felt comfortable after we were back on Flatbush Avenue in Park Slope, which is a nice area by the way, with lots of shops and cafes etc. So if you would want to rent a flat in Brooklyn, you should really go there and see what the area is like, because it can change quite fast … probably a good idea anyway.

Oh, and then we were at Brighton Beach/Coney Island where everything is very Russian. I’ll tell you about that some other time, but check out the pictures.
The pictures: Queens, Brighton Beach and Brooklyn