As promised yesterday, here is the conclusion to my holiday weekend.On Saturday, the boys (
SFS and his college buddy RM) and I made our way to
Coney Island for the
Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest! We were in attendance for the 94
th year of the competition.
If you aren't familiar with the
IFOCE rules, here are the rules for the contest.
SFS, RM and I waited a while for the contest to start... and the boys were good enough to pose for me.
Finally, it was time to start eating!
Here you can see Joey Chestnut (reigning champ) and
Takeru Kobayashi going at it.
This is the view from where I was standing... you can see the eaters in the distance.
In the end, Joey Chestnut was the winner... with 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes... incredible!
Of course, we had to share in the experience by chowing down on a dog... but just one!
I hadn't been to
Coney Island before, and it was everything I had pictured.
It was packed, and it seeing all the amazing shops, games and people was really fun.
I
particularly like the "Don't be a Paleface" sign... I think they're referring to me!
The people watching on the boardwalk was amazing... clearly, this couple agreed!
The boardwalk went one for miles, it seemed.
We walked past a vendor who sold oysters, and this was painted on their wall.
After walking a ways, we made our way to the beach. We found a spot close to water, and got a little sun.
After some time on the beach, we made our way to a restaurant on Brighton Beach. There were goldfish on the table!
After a fun afternoon at
Coney Island, we made our way back to
Manhatan. Macy's hosted a fireworks show on the Hudson River, and we were able to watch the show from
SFS' office. But first, I was dying to see where he sat everyday!
This is the cafeteria at
SFS' office... it's such a cool building!
We eventually made our way to the basketball court. Since the office is just behind the train yards, we didn't have any buildings in the way of our view.
We had to wait a while for the sun to set... maybe I got a little more sun at the beach than I had
bargained for!
The sun started to set, which meant that the show was coming!
All the fireworks were shot from barges in the middle of the river.
Man, were the fireworks AMAZING! All the barges were in sync, which was even more incredible!
Here are the boys in front of the show- that's a lot of red!
And
SFS and I...
This was probably one of the best fireworks shows I've ever seen!
Well, that's it for my Fourth of July Weekend... thanks for sticking around!
Have you ever tried one of these? They're crunchy, almond-y cookies, covered in sugar sprinkles.
And not only are the cookies yummy, but they come wrapped in these little papers. And SFS showed me the coolest little trick.
First, you flatten the paper.
Then you role it into a tube and place it onto a plate.
Then, you light it on fire.
And as the fire burns down...
Something magical happens...
(I'm sure there's a scientific explanation, but I don't know what it is...)
Because as the paper is about to burn up completely, it floats into the air!
Unfortunately, I didn't catch a picture of it actually flying, so check out this short video to see the magic IN ACTION! (UPDATE: I can't take video on my camera, so I snagged this video from youtube.com!)
