first, i can't say enough good things about the ease and magic of the ferry! you don't have to drive, you don't have to think, you don't have to do anything except get your butt to the ferry on time and then sit on the deck (or inside) while it transports you to provincetown in 90 minutes. plus, there are adorable dogs, and everyone is in vacation mode and ready to have fun. like, so many people were drinking before the ferry even left the dock at 9:30am! my friend kathleen and i weren't quite on that level yet, but very much appreciated the energy.
when we arrived, it was just about 11, so we made a beeline for the canteen, a cool little counter-serve place with a massive backyard that's right on the water. i got the hot buttered lobster roll (duh), kathleen had the cod banh mi, and we both got a glass of frosé, which i honestly forget existed and i hope that never happens again. we grabbed a little table outside and basked in the gorgeous weather and i wondered aloud why there hasn't been a reality show about the drama of the staff of a cape cod restaurant or hotel. it would be so good!
totally full and (in my case) quite tipsy, we decided to stroll the town's main drag, commercial street. well, after detouring to this tiny beach, where we waded into the water and tried to get the attention of a guy on his boat because we wanted him to invite us to hang out. when that didn't happen, we went with plan b: shopping.
there's every kind of boutique you can imagine, but one of my favorites was loveland bohemian marine, which was clearly uber-curated and had all sorts of interesting blankets, home goods, books, and tchotchkes. we also stumbled into tim's used books and i found this dope astrology book from the '70s called sybil leek's zodiac of love and lost my mind when i came across a browning looseleaf bookmark in it. i hope that whomever the taurus in need was eventually found his or her zodiac soulmate!
oh, and we stalked a bunch of cute houses, too. a lot of them had names and they were all immaculately maintained and adorable.
there was ice cream at lewis brothers, which was good, but i'm subtracting 5 points because i ordered mint chip and it was white instead of green. ugh, how boring! then some smooth-talking guy pulled us into his friend's art gallery and it's like...know your audience for $800 paintings and photos, man. it ain't us.
OMG AND THEN WE SAW JOHN WATERS. i'm shocked i even noticed him, but he passed us on his bike, talking to someone, and immediately my ears perked up. i looked over and said to my friend "i'm almost positive that's john waters." right as i said that, some dude behind us screams "THAT WAS JOHN WATERS!" hahaha. apparently he's had a summer home here since the '70s!
it was time for another drink, so we headed to aquabar, where we met this group of cape-cod-native couples in their 50s-60s who were celebrating a dude's birthday and one of them referred to us as being from the "big city" when we said we lived in boston. LOL.
okay, so if you ever find yourself in p-town, you simply must go to the tea dance. it's a daily, DJ-ed dance party that pretty much feels like a wedding reception with fun strangers, which is my dream come true. gay, straight, old, young—there are all walks of life at the tea dance, and the people-watching is absolutely phenomenal.
as we sipped our cocktails (i ordered the "p-town lemonade," which was lemonade, triple sec, sour mix, and no idea what else but it was like a boozy pink lemonade and felt perfect for the occasion), we picked our favorite dancers. there was the smiling, solo older dude daintily moving all around the dance floor, the guy with a fedora who was winding up a YO-YO, the sassy, tiny man in a romper, and the adorable 60-something male couple shuffling around together while wearing earplugs. goals.
sometimes, i have really good ideas, and one of those ideas was to buy fudge before dinner at penney patch candies. it's such an indulgent, quintessential vacation activity, and now i have a block of chocolate heath bar crunch and a block of chocolate peanut butter and life is good.
dinner was at pepe's wharf, an absolutely beautiful beachfront restaurant that was straight out of a damn nancy meyers movie. we were seated on the covered patio and this was our view:
it started raining, but thankfully there was one of those clear rain curtains, all fancy-like.
we got oysters rockefeller to start:
i went with the seared scallops with bacon-potato fondue and brussels sprouts and kathleen did the whole clambake, complete with full lobster, clams, and corn on the cob. so. good.
then there was a rainbow which i couldn't document because of the dumb rain curtain. it was incredible.
we had a few minutes before our ferry, and i had it in my head all day that if i were to buy a souvenir, i wanted it to be a tie-dyed sweatshirt because i'm inexplicably very into tie-dye lately. so we stopped at one of those massive tacky t-shirt stores called "shirts 'n stuff" or whatever, and there it was! the tie-dyed crew-neck p-town sweatshirt of my dreams:
kathleen was like "that's so YOU" and i was like "I KNOW" and it was great. i slept in it last night, that's how much i love it.
all in all, a perfectly cape cod day. p-town forever!
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