Thanks to hoodrat@Flickr
I never thought buying ice cream could turn into one of the most surreal experiences of our trip, and it would happen, could only happen, in New York.
We were walking with a friend, who has come to stay with us for a while, from Battery Park to the Staten Island ferry terminal in downtown Manhatten when we passed an ice-cream van and Katie asked if she could have an ice-cream. We joined the line and when we reached the top, no sooner had I put our order in then the man asked us to wait a minute and pulled out a video camera and pointed it to cars parked behind his van. He then explained to me that he was gathering evidence about one particular policeman who was harrassing him. Okaaaayyy….
He then said that he would rather be selling crack than ice-cream as then the police wouldn’t bother him, and he lamented how he could be harrassed for selling ice-cream in a recession. Once he had let off steam he asked me to repeat the order.
I never thought buying something as innocuous as an ice-crema cone could lead to a conversation about harrassment and crack!
Maybe he had a point, hiding behind a corner, in the opposite direction to that which the ice-cream man was filming, was a police officer taking notes in his pad.
That was the highlight of a day where we really didn’t do much. We spent the morning in doing English and maths before going to Penn Station to meet my friend who ahd come up from D.C. We dropped her suitcase off back at the apartment we’re subletting in Brooklyn before going BACK on the subway to Battery Park.
She wanted to do the Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty boat trip and tour but it was nearly 4pm and there wasn’t enough time to do both before the boats stopped running, so we looked from a distance, she had a (bad) portrait done in the park, but for only $5 it wasn’t the end of the world. After that it was a walk up to South Street Pier in the rain and then back to the apartment for a Thai dinner and an evening of movies.
