We Heart Brooklyn

BROOKLYN -- Flying into New York City for the first time is probably something most people remember for a long time. I know I will. For ten minutes leading up to Manhattan itself, there are views of sprawling horseshoe-shaped houses with acres-wide manicured lawns and bright blue swimming pools. Gradually, these opulent spreads give way to crowded suburban townhouses, then rows of industrial-looking tenements, and finally you see the water. I got a little thrill when, in the middle of it, I saw a greenish-looking sculpture in the shape of a woman -- Lady Liberty, and she was beautiful (I blame this sentiment on the thrillingly-contagious American nationalism already creeping into my consciousness).

Once inside Terminal B of La Guardia, I caught myself listening for public instances of impoliteness, evidence, I believed, of New York identity. But within five minutes of being in Williamsburg (a gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn and site of the iconic novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), I found myself forgetting all about the admittedly likable conservatism that is characteristic of Ottawa and giving over to longing for an upstairs unit in one of Bedford Avenue's grungy five-story apartment buildings.

We have already eaten grits, spicy kale, fried black pepper potato bombs, and free-roam eggs at Pig and Egg, a laid-back restaurant that grows its own produce in the Catskill Mountains. We lounged this off in McCarren Park, and we're now at El Bett, a hipster hangout whose music playlist alternates between Black Sabbath and Spanish guitar melodies. We we're drinking ginger Boylan and trying to blend in with all the other twenty-somethings wearing skinny jeans and big sunglasses.

I'll post pictures tonight.