Coney Island on a hot Saturday

Today it was hot. In fact it was so hot, it featured in the papers. The temperature reached 100 degrees in New York and newspapers used adjectives such as "merciless". We decided to head to Coney Island- I thought it was fitting conditions for such a trip.

The pavement was steamin' as we headed to the subway for the one hour trip. The trains were beautifully cool, and we were entertained by some excellent buskers- guitarists and singers. Once we crossed into Brooklyn however, the situation changed and the people getting on were doing unashamed begging. Two young mothers with cute babies in arm begging for "some money to feed the baby". This is quite depressing. The social situation here is dire and there are many homeless people and lots of begging.

Here's the photographer's shot.. compare with ours below

Emerging from the subway (via the emergency exit... used without restraint despite signs threatening high penalties for improper use) was like entering an oven on fan force and the bite of the sun was eye-painful.

Here's a news item about the heatwave (link), including a photo of Coney Island that we reckon was taken within minutes of the ones we took. In fact Viv thought she saw the photographer.

All over and they're already counting down for the next!

People do this voluntarily.. looks like torture

We had a bit of a front come through.. all it did was stir up the sand.

I had a wonderful swim at Coney Island- it was worth a dip in the Atlantic to cool off. We came back the way we came

That night we met up with Lily, a family friend from Geelong and ate out. Turkish and very yummy Grom icecream. It was a delightful evening and Lily was very helpful with tips on what to do in NY and what to avoid.

 William and I stayed up late to watch Geelong play the Gold Coast Suns via internet streaming. We could have gone to a local Australian Bar, but William wouldn't have been allowed to drink there and an amazing thunderstorm put us off the 1am walk to the bar.