03/04/16 (First Trip to Brighton Beach)
It was too early in the morning for there to be much in terms of sound. Also, the blistering cold of the day probably deterred people from coming out of their homes to roam around. So not much was heard when I first walked down and out of the Brighton Beach B train station.
Walking towards the beach, I heard from afar what sounded like seagulls squawking. My hunch was correct when I actually got to the beach. I could see a bunch of seagulls flying in addition to seagulls lined up peculiarly on the sand. Side note: apparently they aren’t called “seagulls”, but rather just “gulls” as one of my companions informed me. But that’s neither here nor there.
Since it was snowing, there was a significant amount of snow on the beach, on top of most of the sand. You could feel and hear simultaneously all of the impact and “vibration” coming from our thick soled shoes stomping and scraping the newly laid white snow. As we walked around, the snow against our feet would create a strange creaking sound that was not at all pleasant to hear at constant intervals.
One significant sound I could hear was the crashing of the waves. I could hear the waves build and build until they reached about 3 or 4 feet. Then, I would hear a loud crash as the waves fell and disseminated all over the beach. The loud crash was followed by the sound of foams and bubbles popping as sea water traveled up the beach, nearly wetting my boots. This cycle would then repeat itself again. And again. Build up. Crash. Plops.
As I looked out as far as my eyes could see, I could hear a jingle of metal objects. So, I turned around. It was a dog (with light brown and white fur) walking around and sniffing the rocks while its owner watched it from afar. The sight of the dog made me smile as I was sick of seeing rows and rows of squawking seagulls.
We finally decided to walk back to the main streets along Brighton Beach Avenue. There were more people out at this time. I heard a lot of foreign languages that I assumed to be Russian due to the predominantly Russian population in Brighton Beach. As we walked up and down the streets, I could hear people talking to one another and on their phones in a foreign language. I could also hear business transactions being conducted all in another language whether in the grocery store, the supermarket, or along the streets with the street vendors. It would be interesting to understand what they were talking about. Were they happy? Were they mad? Were they gossiping? I would never really know unless I started taking lessons in speaking Russian using Rosetta Stone.
Although, I was not entirely sure whether or not everything I heard was Russian. A lot of it sounded like a language from an Eastern European country. I think it’s fair to say that English is a foreign language in Brighton Beach as opposed to the other way around. For the first time in my life despite being born and living in New York City for eighteen plus years, I felt like an outsider.
~Mitch
