Sailing the Ocean Blue

On Sunday I took another little venture to Brooklyn, but this time by boat rather than subway.  

I was searching for a picture frame for my Keep Calm and Carry On poster which recently arrived from Barter Books, and figured that Ikea would be the best place to find a cheap one.  I'd heard that they ran a free water taxi from lower Manhattan to the Red Hook location, and since I live about fifteen minutes from the pier in question, I figured it should give it a try.

What a lovely way to travel!  The views of Manhattan:

Inside the actual "hook" of Red Hook:

I do hope that some poor misguided developer wasn't planning to turn this building into the next hot condo tower prior to the market collapse!

And, here we are at our destination:

I must say, I don't understand why, given our numerous waterways in New York, we don't make better use of them from a public transport view.  It really is the most civilized way to get around.

Anyway, my Ikea trip was a bit of a bust.  My poster is apparently a somewhat odd size so there was no frame of the appropriate size.  So I came away with some wooden hangers (I love wooden hangers, and at $3.49 for a packet of 8, they are hardly prohibitive if you are willing to make the trip to Ikea), some lingonberry jam, cloudberry jam and Elderflower drinks.

But my trip to Fairway, which is just down the street from Ikea, was an utter success!  At 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon, the Fairway I know and love/hate (on the upper west side) would be packed with frantic shoppers.  But in Red Hook, it was only moderately busy.  I could browse in a leisurely manner through the aisles, which by the way were about twice as wide as those in Manhattan, and never once had to pack myself into that dreadfully slow elevator.  Fabulous!

That, coupled with a nice swing by the Red Hook version of the Chelsea Garden Center made for quite the lovely afternoon.  Completely worth the journey.