A Perfect Weekend

I hope that you all had a nice and relaxing weekend. My weekend was almost perfect from start to end and I want to share with you some of the things that I've done and made it special to me. So this isn't a fashion post, for a change but please bear with me (some pictures come at the end of the post as a reward).

Let's start from the end. Yesterday afternoon I went to a movie. I know, nothing extraordinary but I hadn't been to a movie in ages and I was someone who used to go three times a week (OK, this is when I was a student and I had plenty of time but even after I always managed to see a movie every week. This until I became a mother and of all the things that I used to do in my previous life that I can't do any longer, the freedom of going to the movies whenever I want to is maybe the thing that I miss the most). There is almost nothing than I love more than going to a movie on a hot Sunday afternoon. I love the contrast of the shining light outside and the darkness of a movie theater, it makes me feel like I'm entering a magic world, which is how the first movie-goers must have felt. On the top of that the movie was GREAT and put me in a very good mood for the rest of the day (and I can still feel the effect today). I went to see 500 days of Summer (Summer with a big S because it's the name of the character), the indipendent "romantic" comedy with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. First, let me tell you that I always feel weird when I see a movie with JGL (by the way, check out the excellent "Manic" and of course his groundbreaking performance in "Mysterious Skin") because he reminds me a little bit of my husband when he was very young, before we met (we met when he was 25): it's like seeing an old picture of him coming to life (weird, I told you). Second, the movie itself is like a breath of fresh air and ranks now second in my personal list of best indie movies about love (the first being "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and the third the underrated "Flannel Pijamas"). I won't tell you more, but I reccomend to go and see it if you have a chance, it will make you miss those days when you fell in love for the first time.

And now back to Friday and Saturday, we did a little bit of tourism in the city. On Friday my daughter and I met my husband for lunch (after a hour-long bus ride). He works downtown, close to Battery Park, but we chose the Seaport (a ten minutes walk for him) for our "lunch date". I haven't been to the Seaport in ages (can you believe that I had never been to the Jcrew store there? I had to check it out but it was very disappointing) and it was fun to be like tourists in the city where we live (for those who are not familiar with it, the Seaport is maybe the most touristy spot in all the city because it's all the way downtown and unless you work in the area - Wall Street is a short walk - the New Yorkers simply don't go there. It's like a small-town by the sea, with a mall and plenty of tourist attractions. But I have to say that I saw some nice, more upscale, restaurants there than there used to be and that made me think that maybe it could be worth it to go another time for dinner, when the tourists are gone). Anyway, we had lunch in a touristy restaurant (when you have a joung children you look for that) and after lunch (my husband had taken the afternoon off) we walked up to Soho where I could finally checkout the new Madewell store (that I found very expensive); then once home we watched "Superbad" on DVD (for the second or third time) and we went to bed early after consuming a frugal dinner (because we were still full up from the fried calamari that we had for lunch) . A great day already ...

Saturday was our ... ehm 11th wedding anniversary and we both forgot (partly due to the fact that we had a "double" wedding - we got married at the Paris City Hall on the 4th of July and then at the church in Milan the 18th of July - and as far as anniversaries go we never know which one to celebrate). My parents saved the day by sending a "Happy Anniversary" email and to do something special we took another trip downtown in the afternoon and we visited the HighLine, which is the new attraction of the West Side, not to say of the city (for more info, click here). The elevated promenade runs from Gansevoort st. to West 20th and has injected new oxygen into the Meatpacking district. I have to say that I was impressed with the HighLine, it is something in pure NY spirit that integrates perfectly with the urban landscape and that everybody can enjoy.
Also, I hadn't been in the Meatpacking District (at least during the day) in at least one year and it was quite amazing to see all the changes around, with the new scene created by the newly come Standard Hotel (pictured below):

Because it was almost 6.30 by the time that we walked back to the starting point, we started to look for a restaurant where we could have an early dinner, something not easy to find on a Saturday night in a trendy neighborhood if you are in the company of a two-year-old. But without looking too far we found this Mexican place just below the HighLine with a great vibe and yes, child-friendly, so we had our 11th anniversary dinner there. This is the sign of the restaurant (called "Los Dados"), in pure Meatpacking style:



The light at sunset there is just amazing. This is taken from the restaurant's terrace (you can see the people standing at the end of the HighLine):


And this is 14th St:



Sorry for the long post but I still feel energized from a weekend well spent and I just wanted to share. I will post the outfits tomorrow.

Have you been to the movies recently? Have you seen "500 days of Summer" this weekend? Have you been to, or heard of, the HighLine?