On Saturday we spent the whole day trying to entertain ourselves, and I think we succeeded. 
We woke up pretty late, had a quick breakfast and together with Danya’s dad and Ignat went to the lighthouse, located in Sandy Hook, NJ. There are actually a number of lighthouses in the area, but we visited only the Sandy hook lighthouse and the Twin Lights lighthouse.
The Sandy hook lighthouse was built in 1764 and is a little taller than a 100 ft. It is still operational (I just read it online), although this fact wasn’t apparent to me when I saw it. There is a tour of the lighthouse offered by the New Jersey Lighthouse society, but we didn’t take it because we kind of arrived there late and wanted to visit the Twin Lights while we still had time. Everybody got a pretty cool stamp though, and we bought a new lighthouse magnet for our fridge.
One question that I had in mind was why the lighthouse was build so far from the shore. Here is the answer: “When the lighthouse was built in 1764, it stood only 500 feet (150 m) from the tip of Sandy Hook; however, today, due to growth caused by littoral drift, it is almost one and half miles (2.4 km) inland from the tip.” Interesting!
The Twin Lights are non-operational, and we took a short climb to the top of the North Tower. I’m a bit claustrophobic, so going up and down the narrow stairs wasn’t very pleasant, but this activity was rewarded by a beautiful view of the Sandy Hook Bay.
It’s interesting that the Twins are actually not identical (Ignat was the one who noticed it), as one might expect. They look alike, but there are some noticeable differences in their design.
The area around the lighthouses was very nice too. It smelled like hay, and I even laid down on the grass, and it totally felt as if I were in my grandmother’s village again.
I spotted a cherry tree, and Danya harvested some ripe berries by moving the car under the tree and using it’s bumper as a stepping stone. Oh, those cherries were delicious!
Not far off the Twin Lights we stopped at some scenic viewpoint. The view was great, and we also saw a monument dedicated to the events of September 11 — it portrays an eagle carrying a piece of deformed metal in its paws. I guess, the metal once belonged to the Twin Towers.
Later on we went home, ate in the local Uzbek Kebab place (although the kebab was worse than normally), and then went to the movie theater to see “The Incredible Hulk”.
Danya and I really like samsa, and I used to buy it in Russian stores. But samsa that is sold in the store near us is not very good (has too much fat in the filling), and I can’t eat it. So yesterday, since I have a lot of free time on my hands, I went through the trouble of cooking it at home. I think it came out pretty decent! 
says:
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