Last Day for Astroland?

Today may well be the last day Astroland is open on Coney Island and I still had a free ride on the Wonder Wheel to use!

I made plans with a friend to ride the Wonder Wheel and check out the NY Aquarium with tix that my friend had won and so kindly gave me @ the Brooklyn Cyclones game.

Prior to all of this however I had an audition to go to....an audition to play a "Young Woman" in a short film that was described as "Princess Leia with Attitude".

I wore my Hans Solo shirt and ran thru the different approaches I had worked out in my head. I got there and the director was waiting. He took a olaroid of me and filmed my audition.

I read thru the lines once and he asked for MORE sarcasm. So I obliged. He said - Great! Then asked if I had anything else I wanted to add, anything crazy that I had come up with. Uh...no? Geez! Did I blow it right there? I asked him if there was anything more HE wanted me to do and he said, No. He just wanted to give me a chance to do my own thing if I had something else in mind. Now that "great" he gave me earlier I was dissecting to bits. Maybe it wasn't so positive afterall... He said he'd be in touch about 2 weeks for callbacks...will see.

Then it was onto Coney Island. I got there early. I wandered. I was asked if I wanted to hold a protest sign to keep Astroland open. I was asked by a guy in tiny swim briefs if I wanted to fish on the pier. I was approached by another guy while I was trying to take a picture and quickly walked away. I FINALLY found the teacup ride my mom had asked about. I read the signs that showed the Coney Island Hall of Fame - People who made Coney what it was. Very interesting stuff. Sad that a lot of the inventions/rides have been torn down though - at least the mainstays @ Coney are now historical monuments and functioning or not they can never be torn down.

Met up with my friend finally and we headed to the Aquarium. I'm glad it was free. Having been to the Henry Doorly Zoo Scott Aquarium in Omaha I think I've been spoiled. Plus one of the bigger exhibits was closed down for remodeling too.

Had lunch via Nathan's Hotdogs and then on to the Wonder Wheel! There are 2 options you can take when picking your "ride". Stationary or Swinging. I really thought swinging would be fun, but since I wanted to take pics I opted for stationary.

As we patiently waited in line a stationary container swung to the bottom with no seats in it. Further examination showed an averaged sized dog was riding in there. Didn't get the story on that one.

Finally time to ride! For the paying customer it was $5 to go round twice and have the swinging containers zoom towards you as if catastrophe were soon to strike - but no.

Once we had accomplished that we made one more stop - the 99 cent Coney Island Museum. They ask for a dollar - 99 cents to the admission, a penny to watch a disturbing movie of Thomas Edison electrocuting an elephant! (Apparently the set up is to pay tribute to the elephant, Topsy and make everyone aware.) The tiny museum is fun (beyond the movie) and has cheaper postcards than those found on the beach!

On the way home I struggled to keep awake while trying to read my book - The Ugly American (a book that is sadly still relevant today) Not that the book was boring, I was just wiped.

Towards the end of the line a 2 seater I'd been occupying finally got filled by another person. I could tell from the corner of my eye that this said person was probably a transient but figured I was close to home so I'd just keep reading and keep to myself.

Pretty soon it was made clear that the transient was going to do all he could to get me to move and have the space to himself. First he had to "air out" all parts of his shirt. Then he had to fish around in his bag - which smelled like aluminum cans do when they've been sitting out on the side of road, a recycler knows that smell... - and dug out a sweatshirt or pant that he had to fold several different ways in dramatic fashion before shoving it under his rear for apparent padding on the seat. Then he pulled out a bottled liquid that he drank from and tried to offer to me. I ignored him. He wouldn't have that. I told him I just wanted to read my book. Then he started talking in a high puppet-like voice and would switch to a really low scary voice in my ear. "I like the way your voice sounds." He said in his varied voices. He won. I switched cars.

Welcome back to NYC!