Sunny Saturday in Brooklyn

The sun rose nice and shiny in our little NJ neck of the woods outside of NYC. Although we like our tiny 1960's throwback town we especially love Brooklyn. We hopped over the river to go enjoy some much anticipated sunshine in one of our favorite places, Brooklyn.

 We went to the Smorg, a Brooklyn Flea Market that would have antique lovers doing back-flips. It was a bit hard to find and we wandered in circles for a while till we saw grungy granola eating tattooed office girls on their Saturday letting it all hang out and all glued to their iPhones following it carefully like a map. We followed them to the right place.

Watch out for the million parking regulations in the city!

cigar, anyone?

Brooklyn brownstones steal my heart!

Charm charm charm.

 Smorgasburg had some seriously old, trendy and nice looking junk. 

For being a flea market, it was quite nice. I found two teeny tiny 100 year old copies of a Hans Anderson book and Shakespeare. They are so small Fatty will be able to carry it with him around the house. The Smorg also surprised us with some amazing food! They had a loooooong ethnically diverse "food court".

Oh...hotdogs, right...

The best smelling pupusas around town!

This little piggy went to the market and never came home.

made fresh on the spot doughnuts.

The food smelled so good I could literally breathe the calories here! As soon as my chef saw a wood burning Napolitan style pizza he was done. 

portable wood burning pizza oven

He was so done, like willing to wait 20 minutes in the blazing heat done. I don't think he would have waited 20 minutes in blazing heat for me at our wedding but for a pizza? This man will do anything for a woodfire Napolitan pizza! While he toasted in the pizza waiting line I wandered a bit to take pictures. 

trash or treasure?

I wandered back to the pizza stand just in time for ours to come out of the oven. The chef had a farmers tan but was determined to wait to get that pizza! He was right, it was really good.

I hope those pizza guys don't get any funny ideas and come to Jersey. If they do I will never see my husband again! We also had some crispy blackened fish tacos.

After devouring enjoying the food morsel by morsel, we walked around the rest of the flea market to look at their vintage delights.

Bike basket for a pet. You know what I am thinking? Yep, El Gordo and Bentley could love this!

"Don't go to sleep or I will eat you, my pretty. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!" terrifying. 

The day was gorgeous and we decided to walk back to the pier in Brooklyn.

 Feeling happy and full of pizza on this rare sunny day we naively asked directions from two security guards who were from the heart of Brooklyn. One said, "I don't think you want to walk there." then the other one looked offended and piped up, "Why not?! It ain't that far!" And gave us great directions, straight to the ghetto. So we found ourselves pitter pattering, camera in hand, looking like a pair of stupid tourists in the middle of the ghetto where the second security guard must have come from. It was a good thing we lived in Baltimore and were not too phased by it. There are also different types of ghetto and we are well versed in international ghetto. For example we have found ourselves strolling happily in Venetian ghetto (that is my favorite though still sketchy), Mexico City ghetto (colorful and fun), Baltimore ghetto (North Ave. on the east end totally beats Brooklyn) and found ourselves chased by a beligerant drunk in a ghetto (Spanish quarters) in Naples. There, being chased by the drunk, I was sure we were going to die. In any case, Brooklyn hood wasn't that bad but I think it was a pretty stinky move of the security guard to knowingly send us looking all flea-market foreigner dweeby into the middle of the hood. Just sayin' he knew what he was doing! If he ever comes our way to Jersey I will send him to have a little chat with the Godfather! 

"I'm gonna make you an offah you can't refuse. Give better directions next time. Capisce?"

And another thing. We are the worst people to be lost together. If one is lost without the other things work out fine. But if we pair up and get lost? It is the lost leading the blind. We are both type A personalities who are determined to be right and each have an opinion on which way is the right way to turn and refuse to be wrong. We can't even fake that we are not lost. It was a bad bad couple of hours and 5 miles we walked lost in the heart of Brooklyn. It would have made for a good Woody Allen film. Put us in an airport though and we are experts and will beat anyone during the process of packing, weighing, take your shoes off to get scanned dance! Seriously, put us to the test! We know exactly how to travel and will blow the socks off anyone who thinks they are fast and good at this. But lost? We are toast!

The happy part of this story is that we did not end up lost forever. We finally made it back to the Brooklyn we knew and decided to cool off with an ice cream and take the water taxi up the river to 34th street.

My favorite part of the day was watching a group of little wild kids run around collecting rocks and throwing them in the river. At one point, the only little girl in the group clapped her hands over her face and squealed voraciously, "AHHHHHH A BRIDE! MOM, A BRIDE, A REAL BRIDE!" She was star struck and followed the glowing bride around.

Too cute

a real bride :)

The rest of the day was nice and relaxed. We floated up Manhattan then walked to Midtown enjoying the great weather that is only supposed to last us this weekend before storms, more storms. 

 There must have been some Gatsby party because dozens of people were dressed in 1920's costumes.

and all that jazz

So that is a wrap for this beautiful weekend that actually felt like summer! Now if the temperature stays above 75 degrees for the next week I will be one happy camper!