The Jersey Shore & Beyond (pt.3)
A Companion Trip to the US of A
French toast from my nightmares
So we woke up at the Tropicana after our night of drinking and gambling…
Naturally, having gone to bed hours and hours before the rest of us, Miki was up first. As such, he and Chrissy snuck out to visit the beach around 7 a.m., which turned out to be good timing, as the tide had left goodies all over the beach for them to gather, and his dad happens to be quite fond of shells. I was extremely impressed by the perfect crab back that they found—I hope that made it home intact. They had gone at a good time because, by the time I was up, it was raining, but it had been pretty nice out when they left.
When they got back to the hotel, the three of us wandered down into the shops to find somewhere to have breakfast, which was a surprisingly hefty challenge. After telling Miki that we would not be having pure sugar for breakfast, no matter how nicely he asked (haha), we ended up finding a place that had actual breakfast food and sat our butts down.
It’s an interesting thing to note in North America that a child with long hair is always assumed to be female. I often forget how common long hair is in Finland and that that’s not normal in other countries. I don’t think Miki looks particularly feminine by any means, but everyone assumed that he was a girl and most of the time we went along with it just because it gets tiresome to correct people all the time and in the end, it doesn’t matter what gender people think he is. I was amused that most people quite heavily pronounced his name as “Mickey” though… you wouldn’t think it’s particularly different, but if you speak Finnish well enough, you’d know that it is (in Finnish it sounds like “meekee,” not “mikee”).
Jackie and Martie eventually met up with us again for breakfast, but Mary hadn’t gotten a good sleep in 2 weeks because of her chaotic work schedule, so we were happy to leave her in peace. The plan from there on out was to pack up and check out at noon, then hang out a while at the casino still, before heading out to another town in NJ about an hour away to spend the night with Jackie and Martie. We could have done two nights in AC but they didn’t have someone to look after their dog for that long, unfortunately.
Victims of hotel rush hour
We ended up dubbing check-out time the “hotel rush hour,” because it took what felt like 10 minutes for an elevator to come and let us out of Chelsea Tower. Relieved of our various bags, we were then free to explore a bit more.
First on the to-do list: Chrissy does aerial acrobatics and there was a studio next to the hotel that was having a class at noon, which she was planning to attend. We found the place, but its lights were off and the doors locked… even though the class was listed as available on their website. It was honestly sketchy AF, leading us to wonder if they really did have classes or was it some sort of bizarre front for seedy business, considering their phone number was also really sketchy. A mystery was left in our wake, of why the place was locked up.
We also found a sick mural in memory of Anthony Bourdain
We spent more time in the Tropicana, actually checking out some of the shops. Mary made sure that everyone got some saltwater taffy, which is apparently a local specialty (it was delightful), and then needed some fuel, so she got breakfast at the crepe place, which had a lot of sweet things on display in order to drive Miki bonkers with a lust for tasty treats he could not have. Chrissy and I, one-by-one, headed over to visit the casino to convert or lose our remaining chips, or play any last games. It was amusing to note how diligent the guards in the casino were. As I mentioned, the route to the hotel went right through the casino, so as long as Miki was on the path, nothing happened, but the moment that kid stepped one toe onto the carpeted area, the security guards would materialized. I got to kick back and laugh as Chrissy was teaching him to tell the security guards that he was 21 years old. Needless to say, it was probably tough for him to not go explore all of the flashing lights and colors.
Once we had regrouped again, we decided to head down to the famous Atlantic City boardwalk, which looks out on the infamous Jersey shore. I confess to being astounded by how little trash there was on the beach—it looked quite pristine and was indeed covered in interesting stones and broken shells, some of which had been fossilized. I only saw one garment of some sort discarded on the beach and no other trash whatsoever. That’s something! We were lucky that the weather had cleared up again too, as it has been raining for a while.
Rocks and fossilized shells were hardly the most interesting things found on the beach though. The champion, clearly, was the MASSIVE exoskeleton of a horseshoe crab (which Miki was calling merihirviö, or “sea monster”). Those beasts haven’t changed in about 445 millions of years, so this fellow surely had a long life, growing to be that big. The other funky find was what looked like a ring of banana slices. When I tried to pick it up, I was surprised to find it completely rooted into the sand and gave no way as I tugged on it. Expecting it to be some sort of bone, I was also surprised to find it to be dried yet spongey. It took me a while to figure out what it was, but it seems to be the casing of the egg sack of some sort of sea snail—super interesting!
Naturally, we had to take a picture from the beach with the Tropicana behind us. Are we holding oranges because Tropicana and that’s hilarious and we’re hilarious, or are we holding mystical orbs because we’re metal AF? (Or is it boobs?) I leave it up to you to decide.
NOTE: if you would like to know more about how to be metal (with a guide to posing), I would direct you to this tutorial by Strong Bad…
We made our way back from the beach and Chrissy wanted to prowl for pizza. The other girls peeled off to head home with Mary in toe, to retrieve Gizmo (the aforementioned dog). We walked down a good chunk of the boardwalk, but because it was a holiday, most of the shops were closed. We did eventually find one place with pizza, at which point I made myself acquainted with a local bear decoration, because I need to stay on-brand, right? If I’m going to be predictable about something, why not this?
Once we felt as though we had seen and done everything we needed to in Atlantic City, we set out in pursuit of the others. It was about an hour’s drive to their town, where we met Gizmo, who was delightful (if loud), and regrouped yet again. After we explored the house, we decided that we would go to a place for hibachi for dinner, before returning to spend the night in.
Hibachi was a fun, yet bizarre experience in many ways. First of all, communication was at times intimidating because many of the staff had limited English vocabulary and thick accents, so it was hard to be 100% sure of what was going on the whole time. It was also strange because they were charging an extra $8 for people to share meals on Friday and Saturday—sure, why not—but in doing so, we did not both get a soup and salad; we did, however, both get more or less double the amount of fried rice and noodles either of us wanted. We had hoped that we’d be avoiding wasting food by sharing the meal, but both of us had way more than we could have ever eaten… strange that they were willing to waste all the rice and noodles in the world, yet felt the two-ingredient salad (literally iceberg lettuce and a nice tasting ginger paste) and miso soup (of low-quality) had to be shared.
Beyond that strange business, we got to enjoy the big bursts of fire, the onion volcano, water guns full of sake, the cook trying to toss broccoli bits into our mouths, a splendid egg bounce-and-split on the flipper, and since Chrissy and I had opted for filet mignon and lobster tail, we also enjoyed some pretty superb meat. I had to prioritize the best things on my plate, just to make sure I was wasting as little as possible. Perhaps it was not the best hibachi place of all time, but the appeal to the spectacle was still very much present.
The evening following dinner was spent snuggled up, playing Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy on the PS5, while enjoying some of the local selection of various things that may or may not give you a buzz. The ‘90s classics were surprisingly fun games to play as a group, shouting trivia and raging at the computer players—jolly good fun. I had a pretty good sleep as well, in a nice guest room all to myself.
Only a few days left before we were heading back over the pond!
Mary was eepy sleepy
Stay tuned for the final part 4: trip’s end!
