Recently, I turned 29, and my friend also turned a year older, so we all went to Rockaway Beach to celebrate.
But first, we got donuts.
Peter Pan donuts is a Greenpoint institution. The servers wear these kitschy outfits, and kitschy sour expressions, and there’s a little counter and everything.
The donuts fortified us for the hour-plus train ride down to Far Rockaway. When we got there, though, we needed lunch. We went to the best diner in Far Rockaway, according to the owner, who told us that several times, so I figure it must be true.
And then. . . beach! I’d never been to Rockaway beach before – it was really crowded, but nice. I even went swimming, which I almost never do at beaches off of large cities. My only bathing suit (which I bought at Old Navy five years ago for about $3 and wore all through five countries in all sorts of situations) had finally bit the dust, so I wore an old strapless bra. I don’t think anyone could tell the difference.
You’re not technically allowed to have beer on the beach, so we had to be really subtle with our bartending.
Some of us brought fancy cheese:
And some, less fancy cheese:
When you’re at the beach, you pretty much have to dig a giant hole at some point.
Some of my friends made this awesome happy birthday land shark!
Overall, a delightful birthday! (Well, until we tried to leave Rockaway and there was a track fire and no train service, and it ended up [for various reasons] taking us four and a half hours to get home . . . but other than that, a loverly day!)
Let’s all make sure to take advantage of whatever nearby seashores we have access to, before this wave rolls in:
