I slept in today, then we made the trek to Brooklyn for my grand nephew’s baptism. The traffic here is pretty insane, but Brooklyn is a completely different animal. People do not just double park here, they triple park like it is the norm. Driving down some streets feels more like playing a game of Frogger. New York City also has 25 mph speed cameras everywhere, basically daring you to fund the New York City budget.
To make things even worse, there was a marathon going on in Brooklyn. My nephew’s family, another couple attending, and even the priest got caught in the chaos. Some said what is normally a 30 minute drive took well over an hour and a half. Nothing says “Baptism” quite like everyone arriving with stories of traffic trauma.
The Basilica of Regina Pacis was beautiful. There were so many unique statues and details throughout the church. When we walked in, we were greeted by St. Michael the Archangel slaying the devil, which honestly felt appropriate after surviving Brooklyn traffic. The Infant of Prague statue was enclosed in glass and, from a distance, had a slight resemblance to Annabelle from The Conjuring series. Another statue of a nun also had a distant resemblance to the creepy nun from the Conjuring series. So naturally, I spent part of the baptism wondering if the statues were going to move when nobody was looking. 😎
The church itself was stunning, with beautiful statues, an incredible altar, tapestries on the ceiling, and mosaics all around the church, including the Stations of the Cross.
The baptism was very nice, and my grand nephew did not cry, even when sprinkled with holy water. He handled it better than most adults handle New York City traffic.
Dinner was at Gino’s, an eatery in Bay Ridge, and the food was amazing. There were so many good choices, calamari, Caprese salad, pizza, rigatoni with sausage and eggplant, penne alla vodka, veal scaloppini, salmon, and chicken parmesan. Then came the desserts, birthday cake, Italian cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake, spumoni, and tortoni. Nobody was going home hungry unless they somehow got trapped behind a triple parked car and missed dinner entirely.
We had so much fun, and I am so happy I changed my plans so I could see my nephew, niece, grand nephew, my sisters, brother in law, and niece.
Now I am relaxing and watching the Yankees play the Mets. The Yankees won game one of the three game series, which means New York traffic was not the only thing causing stress levels to rise today.
Tomorrow, I head to Columbus, Ohio.
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