There's More To Queens Than JFK and LaGuardia

Lot's has been going on...but my access to internet on my netbook has been hit or miss, so I haven't been updating as much as I would like. I want to share pictures that show the simple beauty which is New York City in the summer. Yes, it is a bit humid, and yes the subways can drive any sane person crazy-but ahhh, the energy, the thriving pulse of the city and all there is to see and do is just to die for. 

Let's start with Far Rockaway in Queens, where Rockaway Beach is found. Such a cute little town, not typically a beach town, but still user friendly to beach-goers. The "goers" are a raucous bunch  of all ages, with music blaring from radios and vibrant chatter keeping them laughing. The water was a bit icy though, and there were shells that were hard on the feet. All in all, a nice place to soak up some sun, and a really good people watching beach.

I also attempted eating at Meskerem, an Ethiopian Restaurant I've walked by a million times on MacDougal, but had never gone inside. I say attempted because I was faced with new eating challenges I'd never encountered. Let me just say the food was good, nice flavors and huge portions. However, I'd never had Ethiopian food before, and was in for a surprise when my salad came wrapped up in what looked like a crepe. The waitress placed it before me and I looked at her and said, "thank you, what is this?" She responded with, "your salad." A few confused, hungry minutes later, I called her back over and asked what she meant. She said, "your salad is inside the bread." Ahhh, there we go, I opened up the crepe like bread, and lo-and-behold, inside was my delicious avocado salad. I ate that, and shortly after came my lentil main course. It also came in the crepe, with two more huge crepes as accompaniments. You can see from the pictures that it was a lot of food, and with the portion size and my confusion, I decided to have the main course boxed up so I could decipher it at a later time. 

I took in a few more sights in Queens, including a hookah bar in Astoria, a funny little place with a nice garden with seating area in back, contradicting no smoking signs and minimalistic checks. The promenade park overlooking the east river and city skyline in Long Island City, very nice view and loads of seating areas. Nice park for the kiddos as well. Since I'm staying in Queens, I've found a lot of things to do in the borough, but I have a strong Love Jones for Manhattan, so I will be back exploring there soon. Ciao.