Wednesday was slated to be a day in Brooklyn. Jet lag appeared to have kicked in with a vengeance and we all arose somewhat bleary eyed. Fortunately there was decent coffee nearby (still hard to find!) so we managed to knock over the cobwebs with a little caffeine and a couple of bagels. E is still wide eyed at everything going on in the streets, it’s hard to know what’s going through his head!

Once we were feeling human again, Deb had located a cafe in Williamsburg that she had read about and wanted to try. There was meant to be a decent running shop somewhere in Williamsburg as well so we grabbed the subway North. Williamsburg reminds me of Fitzroy/Collingwood – somewhat grungy and down-market but being gentrified and undergoing hipsterfication. There was even yarn bombing going on so it felt just like home. The cafe “Sweatshop” was a little place but had good strong coffee and nice Aussie touches – it is run by a couple of ex-pats. There were even a couple of Sherrins behind the counter.

After coffee and an avo smash (of course) Deb left to see a play on Broadway so Dave and I consulted the map to see where the Brooklyn Running Co might be. Astonishingly it was only around the corner, less than two minutes walk!

A nice, independently run shop, with a good range of stuff and very friendly staff, we chatted for a while and left with a few purchases, then returned back to base camp for a snooze to try to combat the jet lag.

Deb soon returned and we set out to the local Barclays stadium, a 2km walk down 4th avenue. Here the Brooklyn Nets were taking on the Detroit Pistons, out first NBA game.

There was lots of glitz and excitement, DJs and non-stop stimulus. Certainly a good event for people with short attention spans! Deb was the only one of us with any knowledge of basketball but it was very entertaining. We munched on overpriced hotdogs and beer (Brooklyn lager is really pretty good), and E seemed to enjoy himself.

Helping matters, the Nets won in a close finish, although the incessant timeouts robbed the game of some of its drama, so the partisan crowd left in a good mood.

Wandering back down fifth avenue (Brooklyn, not Manhattan!) we noticed that every bar was packed. We weren’t sure if this is just a Tuesday night thing, but then realised that it was people watching the baseball – the Chicago cubs were in the process of winning the World Series for the first time in 108 years, putting Footscray and Cronulla’s drought-breaking efforts into some perspective.

Another jam-packed day!