The West Village. Those winding alleyways. The brick townhouses and ancient schoolhouses and funny little buildings crammed in between. The bakery aromas wafting around each corner. The steep staircase stoops leading to pretty old wooden doors. The crooked trees lining the blocks, just beginning to drop leaves on the ground. The curtained old windows with window boxes with flowers- at which you gaze at in passing for just a tad too long, longing to spy into the fairytale lives that must, just must, be playing out in the amazing apartments within. There's something about the West Village that fades your worries and cares, and then draws you in close and gets you lost in the best kind of way. Its a tiny village wonderland of sorts, where narrow streets wind into even narrower streets, twisting in an unknown path which never fails to take you to some hidden restaurant or park or patisserie that's brand new to you, but turns out to have been hiding there forever. Somehow a stroll through the village always inevitably becomes a date, whether you like it or not. At least our strolls always do. Especially when the bambino falls asleep. Then it is just us two, feeling at the center of the world, in a maze of stone and history. This time we found ourselves on a deserted stretch of Bank Street, right next to where Bob Dylan once lived. Sigh.. it was awfully pretty. Oh West Village, why are you so romantic? I just can't get enough.
