Sleepless

In the City That Never Sleeps, I hardly ever sleep either, it seems.

Thursday found us watching the second part of the six-hour marathon that is "La Meglio Gioventu" (The Best of Youth), certainly one of the best films I have ever seen. Of course, brainy nerds that we are, we had to discuss the movie for another hour after it finished, which meant that we didn't get to bed until 2am.

I dragged myself through Friday at work, perfecting the rest-chin-on-left-hand-and-right-hand-on-mouse nap, and met up with Pia afterwards for a Veggie Burger at Spring Street Restaurant. From there, we headed to the Friday Happy Hour at The HappyCorp, a SoHo design company that opens its doors to those who know about it on Fridays and serves free drinks to a colorful crowd of art students and other interesting fellows. Sascha knew about it and told us where to go, so we met up with him and his Cooper union friends, and also got to know a few other memorable folks. Saad for example, whose name means "happy" in Arabic, and who frequents hipster clubs in Lower Manhattan on weekends. During the week, he works at Deutsche Bank, and I do hope he adapts his look to his corporate surroundings, because I couldn't believe it when he pulled his business card out of the pocket of his oversized white fake fur coat.

Pia, Saad and Sascha

Sascha's roommate Charles and happy party kids

On Saturday morning Pia and I got up early and stood in line for an hour and a half to get last-minute tickets for Paco de Lucia at the Carnegie Hall. Pia's friend Mark de Young joined us and we warmed up with New York's best hot chocolate and soft boiled eggs at Le Pain Quotidien before Pia and I took off to take advantage of the good weather and walk across Brooklyn Bridge. Making your way across a 500m long wooden walkway with hundreds of cars passing through underneath you is exciting enough, but having the Manhattan Skyline as a backdrop is quite a sight to see. (Photos to follow)

The Passion Fruit margharita that Bill treated us to before the concert that night felt very Sex and the City (mainly because my jeans and cowboy boots lost the battle against the serious Prada and Gucci action that was going on around us), and from there we climbed up to the dizzying heights of the Carnegie Hall gallery to see the world's best Andalusian guitarist work his fingers. Spicy (!) Buffalo wings and milk shakes at Brooklyn Diner concluded the night out, and the gang said goodbye to Mark and Sam and retreated to the Skypad, where we watched the remaining hour and a half of La Meglio Gioventu before collapsing into bed.

On Sunday we finally introduced Pia to Central Park, snuck into the Mandarin Hotel Bar to get a nice view of the park from above, and saw a (rather disappointing) exhibition on Slavery in New York and 9/11 relics at the New York Historical Society.

Needless to say, that night I slept very, very well.