neighborhood news.

It's been a long while since I have posted on developments in the neighborhood, and there has been a lot happening! I am most excited about the M street underpasses. They finally announced the winner for the art installation that was designed for the underpasses. The NoMa bid made it an international competition and the rendering for the winning design shows an awesome rain-light shower...and they are going to start installing it in the next month or two...

We also found out that a stand-alone italian restaurant - Masseria - is going to open behind Union Market! We can't wait.

In the last couple of weeks, the Union Kitchen Grocery opened over on 3rd street - we haven't been yet to check it out - but thrilled to have a corner store.

The Highline apartment building by Union Market also announced an updated look for the building that they are going to begin construction on soon....

And in huge news, the beer garden by the metro just opened, Wunder Garten! We are psyched to have an outdoor beer garden and apparently REI is partnering on a bunch of activities and plans with them - so we'll have to see what comes of it...

And just to finish this off - some random news from beyond NoMa. Designs have been put out for McMillan Park - some cool stuff going on there! And apparently gondolas between Georgetown and Roslyn could actually happen one day...

And last but not least, this piece from the Washingtonian last month is quite something - apparently we haven't seen anything yet...

travelogue ~ pietrasanta, italy.

We are very lucky that Ben's parents wanted to do this trip, and they basically left the planning and details to me and Ben. So, over the last couple of months, we planned out an itinerary including restaurants and our day trips and activities. This also included finding a villa that we rented in Pietrasanta for the week. It was glorious. The Villa was perched up above the sea (way up above - the drive up was 25 minutes of switch-backs!) and the views were just amazing. So, based on pictures alone, we were very excited to make the drive from Rome to Pietrasanta.

The drive from Rome was about 4 hours, so we decided to break it up with a full 3-course meal about mid-way. And as it turned out, this meal was one of our best of the trip. We had made a reservation at Osteria del Merlo in Cetona (just outside Siena) and the restaurant did not disappoint. We actually ended up being about 2 hours late for our reservation (because of a tense and complicated morning leaving Rome!) but it was not a problem. The food and service were phenomenal. The rabbit ragu pasta that we had was, in my opinion, the best pasta dish of the trip. And the desserts (not pictured) were out of this world. We also ended up buying some wine from them and after having commented on the jams they served with cheese - the owners (perfectly italian and only italian speaking) ended up gifting us two jars! It was just an amazing meal and we would highly recommend it.

Extremely full - we worked ourselves back into the car and onward to the Villa and the pictures online had not done justice to what a great place it is!

We met the owners, dropped our bags, did a quick-change and headed out for dinner. For dinner, we wanted to stay relatively close and so we headed to Locanda di Bruno in the hills by Pietrasanta. Tucked into a small little town, it is a lovely restaurant - and they have particularly good fish dishes.

Over the course of the week, we made day-trips to Cinque Terre, Siena, Lucca and Florence but we also thoroughly enjoyed the villa. This included pool time...

And for two of the nights, we scheduled a chef to come to the house and cook dinner for everyone. This turned out to be a really nice addition to the itinerary since the 20 minute drive up and down from the house at times felt long and that way we could enjoy the views and relax.

Still more to come...stay tuned!

graduated.

March Madness - definitely my favorite time of year. But second to that is probably graduation speech season! Who doesn't love watching graduation speeches? Feeling inspired for 16 minutes - and then inevitably thinking of everything you would have probably done differently post-graduation. I love it. So, I have compiled some of the speeches for your viewing pleasure. Oh, and if you don't have time for that, this WashingtonPost video is a compilation of some of the funniest lines. And we're off!

• Natalie Portman at Harvard

• Tim Cook at George Washington University

• Ed Helms at UVA

• Maya Rudolph at Tulane (fast forward to the 2:00 minute mark)

• Cody Keenan at NYU (hat-tip Stephanie) - but you can't really understand his delivery - so here is the link to the printed speech for a good read. 

Enjoy everyone!

forget it.

On the plane over to Italy, I watched Still Alice. Stephanie had mentioned it a couple months ago and talked about how sad it was. I apparently was not listening carefully enough cause umm...yeah...Still Alice is incredibly sad. I was crying and snotting myself on the plane. If you need a good, hearty, deep cry - I would recommend watching it asap. The short of it is, Alice Howland (played by Julianne Moore) is diagnosed with early-onset alzheimers and the film tells her struggle to stay connected and keep remembering. It is heartbreaking.

This NYTimes piece, A Marriage to Remember, from last August - which includes a short documentary - was touching and powerful as well. Maybe its the pain and sadness about alzheimers that has always hooked me, but it  is one of those things I can't help watching and reading about. And, this was before I ever met Ben. But with Ben there is an additional dimension because his grandfather had alzheimers and his memories of it - visiting his grandfather with his Dad are heartbreaking to hear. But so important.

travelogue ~ rome, italy.

The Italy trip was amazing. I had never been to Italy and Ben has long been touting Rome as his favorite city in the world, so the bar was set high from the start. The anchor to the whole trip was Ali and Davide's wedding in Florence and Ben's parents turned it into a family trip for all of us. Very lucky! I am going to break the trip into a couple of posts, starting today with Rome.

Our trip was bookended by Rome - the perfect start and finish to the trip. In total, we really only ended up with two days but we definitely made the most of it. We landed in Rome on Friday morning and hit the ground running...

We checked into our hotel - Hotel Babuino 181 - which we would definitely recommend, did a quick change and started walking the city. First things first, Ben took me over to Sant Eustachio Il Caffe - just around the corner from the Pantheon - it is a little coffee shop and roaster that has been there since the 1930s. It is fantastic.

And from here, we began walking through the heart of Rome...our first stop was the Forno Campo di Fiori where we popped in for pizza. 

Immediatly following, we headed over to Carapina for gelato.... 

And onwards to the Coliseum. Rome is breathtaking and incredible, and obviously the Coliseum is just awesome. We opted to wait in line so that we could go in - Ben has obviously been in various times before - so it was a true gesture of love to stand in the line we did....but it was worth it...

From the Coliseum, we doubled back to visit the Arch of Constantine...

...and on to Palatine Hill. It was a beautiful and cloudy day and actually not all that crowded, so we slowly made our way past the ruins of the temples and palaces...

After the full afternoon, we headed back to meet up with Ben's parents for a drink before dinner at the Piazza Novona.

I loved all the painters...

For dinner, we headed to Armando al Pantheon, a classic, old restaurant serving up fantastic pasta and traditional italian.

It was a lovely first meal in Italy and with that we wandered back to the hotel and crashed for the night. We woke up the next morning early to get a quick run in before we left Rome. Our run was gorgeous. The streets were empty and we ran up to St. Peter's along the river and then circled back...

And that was my first taste of Rome - all in about 22 hours...next up Pietrasanta!

big money.

Did any of you read this New York Times piece, Poor Little Rich Women?  Alex sent it to me and I read it yesterday on the plane - quite something. The anthropological angle to it makes it smart...and the rest of it just makes me feel lucky that I am not an uber-wealthy woman on the UES. Yikes!

weddingness.

How was your long weekend?! Ben and I got back late last night from Italy and I am going into full cleanse and recovery mode for the next week! For anyone planning to go to Italy in the near future, I will be sure to post some recommendations (especially restaurants) in the next couple of days. But before that, right before we left, we were up in NYC for a very close friend's wedding. It was small and charming and beautiful. They had the wedding and reception at Haven's Kitchen in Chelsea. We stayed in an airbnb in an awesome location just a couple blocks away (here is the link in case you are looking for a place to stay). We also went for a great run along the west side...

And got a fantastic brunch at The Standard Grill in the meatpacking district...followed by a walk on the high line!

We happened upon the Gansevoort Market which is phenomenal...and we would highly recommend for a snack/lunch...

And not pictured is a lovely mother's day brunch with Ben's parents on Sunday morning and some stops into some of our favorite haunts (Third Rail Coffee and Fish's Eddy).

The wedding was wonderful and it was so good to see friends and to have a spring weekend in the city...here are some photo highlights!