Thursday, 16 June, 2016. 24:17

We’ve had an exciting night out at Citi Field watching the Mets play the Pittsburgh Pirates, and got back to our hotel a bit late, so it’s now after midnight.

We got up at 08:00 this morning and M. had a shower while I struggled to wake up after a poor sleep. I just had some bran flakes for breakfast, picking out nearly all the raisins this time, and took an apple for a snack later during the ISO meetings. M. went out for a walk up to Tiffany & Co. on 5th Avenue, while I headed to the ANSI offices for more meetings.

The agenda was scheduled to finish at 17:30, making it a bit of a rush to get to the stadium for the baseball game. However, we managed to get through the business ahead of schedule and I got out just after 16:30. At lunch time I went with Scott over to Grand Central again, and this time we got some cheapish Indian food at the food court. I had rice with chick peas and a pea and mushroom dish. The combo plate also came with a green salad, which seemed very weird with Indian food. The vegetables tasted pretty good though.

The 7 line train.

Meetings done, I returned to the hotel to change into my new Mets shirt, grab the camera, and head off with M. to the 5th Avenue subway stop at Bryant Park. There we caught the 7 line express train out to Queens and Citi Field.

I took the rewound roll of ISO 400 film and another roll of colour film, since I’d searched on the Internet today and found a trick you can do using the leader of another roll of film as a picker to extract the leader of a rewound roll. The trick is to lick the exposed leader before inserting it into the rewound roll, so the two pieces of film stick together, and you can pull them both out. I had to try it four or five times, while waiting for M. to browse at the Mets merchandise store at the ballpark, and was about to give up when I managed to get it to work! So I rewound the ISO 100 roll I’d loaded last night and loaded the 400 instead.

Entering Citi Field, through the Jackie Robinson Rotunda.

There was a problem after shooting just three shots, however, when the film refused to advance any more. I figured I had two options:

1. Rewind the film and have only three exposures on it, perhaps having to pick the leader out again to shoot more, which was risky in this I might not be able to do it again so easily.
2. Open the camera back, exposing and ruining the three shots, but then rewinding the film manually and reloading it, in the hope that it would work properly this time, but risking getting nothing if it didn’t.

I opted to do the latter, and fortunately this time the film behaved. I reshot similar shots to replace the ruined ones, and continued shooting the roll all night.

Preparing the field.

We had arrived at the park a good hour before the game, giving us a chance to get some food and find our seats, then wander around to see the whole park. The first stop though was the Mets museum and hall of fame, which had memorabilia from all sorts of players and games, including the two World Series trophies the Mets won, in 1969 and 1986.

I spotted a place selling veggie burgers, and figured that was about as good as it was going to get for M., so we both got a burger and some chips, then found our seats to sit and eat. The chips were very crinkly cut, almost waffle like, and decent, but the burgers were only so-so, and M. pulled half her veggie patty off. They filled us up though, which turned out to be a shame as we went for a walk around the entire park after eating, and found some much nicer looking options, including a “grand grilled cheese” sandwich that M. would probably have enjoyed a lot more.

Bartolo Colón throws the opening pitch of the game.

Our seats were on the lowest level, about 30 rows back from the field, running almost directly away from the first base line. The view was pretty good, though not quite as close as we had at Fenway Park last year. The starting pitcher for the Mets was Bartolo Colón, who David had told us stories about during our walks together. This year he’d hit his first career home run, after 22 years of playing, becoming the oldest player to hit a first home run. We hoped to see him do some hitting magic, and he didn’t disappoint, scoring a run after hitting a lead off double in the third inning! He was also a very effective pitcher, keeping the Pirates scoreless for most of the game, as the Mets ran up 6 runs, beginning with a lead off home run by Granderson in the bottom of the first.

The Pirates rallied somewhat near the end, managing four runs, but couldn’t get any more, so lost the game 6-4. This was cool, as it’s the first time the team we’ve been supporting has won a game that we’ve seen. We exited the field and walked back to the nearby subway station, where they had special express trains to Manhattan waiting. We got on one immediately and it wasn’t as crowded as I was expecting, It took us back to Bryant Park.

Leaving Citi Field after the game.

There, I stopped at the Wafels and Dinges stall to get some dessert. The people in front of us wanted milkshakes, but the serving guy said they had run out of ice cream, so the people left without getting anything. I ordered a WMD, Wafel of Massive Deliciousness, which was a wafel covered with sliced strawberries, banana, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce. As a second guy was making it, the first came over and scraped a half scoop of ice cream out of what I presume was a mostly empty container and asked me if I wanted some ice cream on my wafel. Not one to turn down free ice cream, I said sure!

Making the Wafel of Massive Deliciousness.

We sat at a small table nearby on the corner of Bryant Park while I ate the wafel, as we watched the people of New York drift by in the late night. The weather was mild and it was very pleasant being out in the park and eating the delicious wafel and toppings.

After that, it was a short walk back to our hotel and a shower before typing this up, and now hitting the sack.

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