Bad Tourist

I’m not a good tourist. Not any more. No stamina. I needed more stops than I used to take en route to visit the in-laws in New York City, actually Whitestone, Queens, for the first time in three years on Thursday, more relief from time behind the wheel, more need to stretch my legs. My days as a marathon road warrior are over.

But the biggest limitation? Urostomic, to coin a word if it doesn’t exist already. We bladder cancer survivors have to obey the laws of fluid dynamics. Or else we’re in need of emergency repairs.

It made for desperate moments during our walking tour of Manhattan’s Lower East Side on a cool, rain-threatening Saturday morning, a tour heavy on old synagogue sites (there once were 400 in the neighborhood). 

Abandoned synagogue with our guide, Paul

Due probably to a pre-tour iced coffee from the funkily laid-back Lazy Llama on East First Street, I had to break away from the bunch in Sarah Delano Roosevelt Park after an hour to find a restroom a few blocks away in the Starbucks at Delancy and Allen Streets. A Starbucks with an agonizingly unfluid line waiting at the loos, one of which was out of service.

Aside from that, it was a delightful tour and a welcome escape from Whitestone, for which we have Monica’s friends Steve and Lori to thank. And we have our tour guide, Paul, a grad student in history at Columbia, to thank for the restaurant suggestion for lunch. Dirt Candy on Allen just south of Delancy, a vegetarian hipster place (“the first vegetable restaurant in the city,” the website proclaims) with a cookbook that's a graphic novel at the check-out counter and an inspired brunch menu.

Attracted to the Cabbage sandwich by the word “avocado” in the ingredients, I delighted in the purple kimchi and especially the crispy tofu accompanying it. Monica’s Beet sandwich was beefy, not beety, thanks to dill pesto and horseradish.

Cabbage goes cosmopolitan

For dessert, Steve and Lori took us across the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn, to another hipster enclave – Williamsburg. We wended down Bedford Avenue, dotted with galleries and high-end boutiques, to Schmackary’s, home of another excellent cold-brewed iced coffee and “Lip-Schmackin’ Good Cookies.” Good, yes, but Buffalo’s got better at Five Points Bakery or Tipico when Tipico’s got Butter Block’s creations. Another reason I’m a bad tourist – so many things are better at home. 

Lori and Steve and Schmackary's