If’ you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that I LOVE NYC!  And ever since we moved out of the city to the suburbs (it is nice to have extra space with two kids!) Victor and I stay in the city for a weekend around my birthday.  We lived downtown and every time we go back we stay downtown – I love the laid-back feel of it, streets full of history and different moods and feels of the area.  We’ve stayed in Tribeca, Gramercy and Soho and this time around Victor convinced me to stay at Wall Street.  At fist I was a bit hesitant about staying WAY down but ultimately decided that it would be a good choice for this year.  I really wanted to take pictures of Brooklyn Bridge and since it is an easy walk from Wall Street to the Bridge, staying on Wall Street was very convenient.

The place we stayed at – Hotel Andaz – was pretty cool.  It is a new beautiful boutique hotel with funky decor and nice toiletries but the coolest thing about it (at least for us) is that the building is an old JP Morgan Building!   I used to work in a building right next door to it and would meet a friend for lunch in the courtyard of 75 Wall, which is now Andaz hotel!  A few years ago, when Wall Street became really residential (think Tiffany’s, BMW dealership, super markets and even Crumbs!), a lot of office buildings were converted to condos and rentals.  We were very curious to find out what these conversions looked like inside and I have to say that the one we saw looked really cool!

After we dropped of the girls at my parents for the weekend, we checked in and went to explore our old ‘hood.  We walked to Tribeca, then across Brooklyn bridge and watched sunset in Dumbo.  We had a dinner reservation at a lounge but instead (being old fogies that we are) we decided to catch a water taxi back to the city, go to our old neighborhood restaurant and then watch a movie in the room.   Yeah, by 10 PM we were in bed, in our PJs watching a movie – we lead very exciting lives:)

On Sunday after a very leisurely brunch we had an equally leisurely afternoon with more walking around the old ‘hood, sitting in parks and enjoying beautiful spring weather in our favorite city!  Afterwards it was great to see the girls and hear my parents rave about them.  And it made me realize yet again that couples only get-away (even if they are only for 28 hours) is a must-have for a healthy marriage! 🙂