Full

This whole weekend, including today, we stuffed ourselves with food. It all started with a food festival, covering all of 9th Ave. from 57th St. to 37th St., that Cecilia's friend Natalie invited us to. It was the true Mecca of food, and completely overwhelming. We managed to each find something to eat, and we sat in a park for a little while to chat with Natalie and digest our food. We decided we'd need to come back the next day because there were so many things that we were just too full to eat.

That night, we decided to go out. We arrived at the movie theater only to find that the movie we wanted to see was sold out, and while we were deciding what to do that next showing also sold out. We decided to see the later showing of our second choice, a film called Paris, je t'aime that we knew nothing about. It didn't start for another hour, though, so we hung out at Whole Foods until then. The movie was actually a compilation of short films that all took place in Paris and were named after different neighborhoods. Though a couple of them were quite bizarre, most were very good and we enjoyed the film.

Sunday we went back to the food festival to get crepes, and then came back to the East Side to go to the Met, where we spent a couple of hours. We then trekked downtown to visit a gelateria (at Mario Batali's restaurant) and then came back to the apartment for dinner. We wanted to order in takeout at least once while we were here, and we struggled for a while choosing what kind of food to eat. Cuban and Burmese were our two final choices, and we decided to go with Burmese, which turned out to be an excellent decision. After dinner we talked late into the night with the Austrian couple staying at the apartment, and they invited us to Valentin's exhibition the next day.

Today we went to a restaurant owned by family friends of the Nardis, and since we ate a baked potato ice cream dessert, we decided that we would save the gelato till tomorrow. We then headed over to the exhibition, where Valerie and Valentin showed us around. Valentin's designs were wonderful, as were many of the other pieces in the exhibition. We spent a long time walking around the convention center looking at everything.

Other friends of the Nardis had invited us over for a pizza dinner tonight, so after dinner we took the subway to their house and enjoyed a nice meal. Tomorrow we plan to go to our last gelateria and pack for our departure on Wednesday!