Just Another Day at the Beach

A couple of weeks ago I agreed to head to Long Beach with some friends. When I moved to NYC I was pretty surprised to hear that people went to the beach around here. I didn't realize that there were beaches to visit. I should not have been so surprised, after all Long Island is an island. Maybe I thought the beaches were like the ones in Seattle: fun for bonfires, not so fun for swimming or laying out. I had to go through a huge paradigm shift when I went to Coney Island, but you can see the picture and read the post to know why that wasn't a good time. Nonetheless, in order to strengthen new friendships, I donned my suit and went to Long Beach.

In order to get to the beach, we had to take a train and buy a ticket to enter the beach. I guess the prices keep the riffraff out (note to Coney Island...). The train was lots of fun, since my days in Europe I have fallen in love with train travel. The un-fun thing about train travel in New York is Penn Station. That place is HUGE. I actually got lost for a bit when I hung out in the New Jersey transit area while looking for my friends. They were at the Long Island Rail Road area, obviously. Fortunately I actually had cell phone coverage or I would have never ever found them. I am not going to blame myself entirely because I see the ticket counter as a meeting place, not Cinnabon.

The train trip took about an hour--we didn't take an express. We read Vogue and InStyle, Holly had her hair braided, and we discussed Project Runway. Then the train stopped an a quarter of Manhatten got off the train and headed to the beach. We made a detour to the grocery store--a real live actual grocery store. We don't have big grocery stores in New York, and I mean more than three isles. This one had probably twenty isles and a parking lot. They also had grapes for 99 cents a pound. I bought some along with other munchies and water.

We found a spot at the beach, applied sunscreen, ate, and then finally hit the waves. The water was not too cold and it was fun to play in the crashing waves even though I inhaled salt water a couple of times. Needless to say, my sinuses were completely clear by the end of the day. But the water did have a lot of white jellyfish. And a lot means that they were constantly brushing up against me in the water. The Lifeguards assured us that the white ones didn't sting, but still--ICK! And they were all over the shore too. Holly wanted to poke them with a stick, fortunately for them she didn't find any sticks.

My biggest dillemma with the beach was what one does when not in the water. Pretty much you sit and read under the scorching sun. However, it was pretty windy, and hard to read the InStyle or Vogue when Nature decides which article to read. So I sat in the sun. Then Richard decided that he wanted to be buried in the sand, and then Ann wanted to be buried. See the above pictures. When Richard was buried Alejandro and Ann made a sand evening gown, and when Ann was buried we turned her into a beer-bellied truck driver.

I got a sunburn. I reapplied my sunscreen, but I still burned my arms. I was even covered up. So I think the only way for me to leave the beach completely sunscreen free is if I wear a bhurka. It's really the only way. Or I will invest in beach gear: floppy hat, umbrella, prescription sunblock, a house on the beach...