New Orleans Day 2

Woke up to the wind blowing hard. There's a flagpole outside our window and Dan was actually woken up by the sound of it shaking with the wind. It was an overcast morning and we saw rain off and on.

After our hotel breakfast (free with room, and a pretty good one) I tried to talk Dan into going out for another exploring walk through the city but the idea didn't thrill him. However, he needed to go to the convention center to check in for his conference, so we decided to walk down there.  The rain had stopped and it looked like the sun was coming out.

I'm all ready to go.  I bought some sunscreen yesterday so I won't burn my face any further.

Passed this sign on our way.  Dan pointed out how you can see on the building the vestiges of what was once a building next to it.

Something about this crumbling building fascinated me -- probably the tree and other foliage growing on it, and the pigeons who were roosting there.

It was about a 20 minute walk down to the Convention Center, which is situated right on the river.  Don't let this unassuming facade fool you -- this place is just enormous.  It took us like another 10 minutes just to get to the part of the building that Dan needed to register in.

On our way through the Convention Center we passed this little decorated streetcar.  This is the second one I have seen in the city.  I wondered if it was something like The Crabtown Project in Baltimore, where about 200 fiberglass crabs were decorated by local artists and displayed throughout the city, then auctioned off to benefit the public school system.  After Googling it, it sounds like the Streetcar Named Inspire project does have a similar idea, but may not have been received quite as well.

After Dan registered, and I made as many nerd jokes as I could at the expense of the Microsoft TechEd attendees (even though I am technically a nerd myself), we walked across the street from the Convention Center to a green space called Mississippi Heritage Park.

This sculpture commemorates the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.

This was pretty much all there was to the park.  A big grassy area surrounded by a brick path with some benches.  I guess a grassy area might be difficult to come by in this city.

Dan and I ate at the very uninspired but also very affordable Subway for lunch, and then we hung around the hotel room for much of the afternoon.  Late in the day our friend Kevan flew in from Maryland to attend the conference so we met up to spend the evening together.

We decided to try and navigate the streetcar system.  For a while, I was able to get schedules and real-time ETAs on my phone.  But later the computer system appeared to have crashed and that no longer worked.

We waited probably 20 minutes for the streetcar.  We could have walked to where we were going in that time, but it turned out to be a lot of fun riding the streetcar.

We rode to Jackson Square in the French Quarter only to find that the diner we were planning to eat at had apparently moved, almost a mile away.  So we meandered around looking for an alternative.  We walked past cool antique shops, street artists, tarot card readers/voodoo priestesses, and many drunk people.

We finally settled on Stanley's, just at the corner of Jackson Square by the St Louis Cathedral.  I had a Thanksgiving Turkey Croissant sandwich which had the most strange and delicious combination of tastes in it.

I thought it was a good restaurant, moderately priced, decent service.  I kept grinning at the music playing because it was as if they had taken my favorite Pandora station and played it over the sound system.  We sat at Stanley's for a while catching up with Kevan.  I was reminded that it is rather lonely in Orlando without the close friends we had made over the years in Maryland.

Afterwards we went to the Cafe Du Monde for more beignets and frozen cafe au laits, then strolled along the river.  It was a lovely night, the humidity died down, but I soon noticed the dark side of the city:  Roaches and rats.  Both scurrying everywhere.  Florida has plenty of roaches too, and rats by the riverfront in a city are understandable, but still.  It gave me quite a sense of unease whenever I felt an unexplained tickle anywhere.

On Monday morning Dan will head to the conference and I will be on my own for the day!

New Orleans Day 1

My first trip to New Orleans, woohoo!

Last year I got to tag along with Dan to a Microsoft TechEd conference in Orlando.  We all know how THAT ended -- with us moving to Orlando two months later!  This year the conference is in The Big Easy, New Orleans.  The kids have made me promise that I won't come back from the conference and announce we are moving to Louisiana.

Arrived at Louis Armstrong Internation Airport at almost 10 pm.  On our flight from Orlando, we sat next to a very colorful grandfather who was a native of NOLA.  Chewing continuously on a thin coffee straw (maybe because he needed a cigarette?) he regaled us with tips on where to go, what to see, what to eat, what to avoid, and peppered them with stories.  Generally I like to avoid getting into conversations on airplanes, but I had such fun even just listening to this guy's accent.  I told him as we were separating at baggage claim that I hoped others in NO would be as friendly and helpful as he was, and he told me of course they would be!  "It's Southern hospitality!"

We took a cab from the airport to our hotel, just on the outskirts of the French Quarter.  It would not be long before we realized that Dan's reluctance to rent a car, due to the high cost of parking, was a good move.  Not only would we have had to pay for the car and for the parking ($30 per day!!), there is no way in hell that I want to DRIVE around this city.

Our room is pretty awesome.  It's in a renovated historic building of some kind, and the ceilings are ridiculously high.

I was anxious to get out and explore the city a bit, so after breakfast we set out.  The day started off very pleasant, but as the sun got higher and the buildings didn't block it anymore, it got pretty hot.

Here's Dan going down Canal Street.  It was nice to see palm trees -- reminds me of home!  My first impressions of the city weren't awesome, though.  It smelled kind of bad, kind of like Baltimore.  A lot of the shops were crappy souvenir shops, like Ocean City MD, catering to a certain kind of person (young and drunk).

And then there's Harrah's, catering to the old and foreign!

Wasn't too far before we reached the river, the mighty Mississippi!  My only experiences with the river thus far had been when as a kid we crossed it, at Memphis, into Arkansas.  There was usually a cloud of smog hanging over Memphis and over West Memphis in AR, so my impressions of the river were kind of dirty.  Well, it's definitely not a river that exists for scenery -- it is a working river.

Dan commented multiple times on the strong current.  It was interesting watching tugboats trying to push barges upstream.  You could tell their engines were cranking, but they just weren't moving very fast.  The sun beat down on us mercilessly but the sky was crazy blue, like at home in Orlando.

I guess this is a Mardi Gras dude.

Can you see me on this structure?  This was outside the Riverwalk shopping area, which was a unique and cool mall, but which is on its way out.  The stores that were left there are closing in June, we were told, and the mall is going to be renovated and reopened as some upscale outlet mall in 2014.

Friendly fellow in the mall.

At the end of the mall is the cruise terminal.  Here is the Carnival Elation, which was leaving later in the day.

Me and another friendly mall inhabitant, although he did try to cop a feel...

There just happened to be a Cafe Du Monde storefront in the mall, that was still open.  Our Cajun friend from the flight had told us Cafe Du Monde on Decatur Street was the place to go to get beignets and coffee, famous New Orleans fare.  Now we didn't have to walk all the way over there!  We ordered beignets and two iced cafe au laits.

I had heard this famous pastry was basically deep fried dough covered with powdered sugar, but I had not realized that that is basically the description of a funnel cake as well.  Sure enough, this tasted just like a more pillowy funnel cake, and was just as messy.

Messy but tasty.  A Cafe Du Monde employee, who sang his words rather than spoke them, provided us with wet paper towels for the necessary cleanup.

Spotted these on Decatur Street, outside a cool vintage womens' clothes shop.

The Sheraton on Canal Street had a lot of this style of dog art hanging in the windows.  This was definitely the largest.

The Immaculate Conception Church on Baronne Street.

We went out again in the late afternoon and went to Huck Finn's for po' boys.  Unfortunately I think a traditional po' boy holds some kind of seafood like shrimp or crawfish, and I don't eat that.  Dan got a roast beef and I got a turkey.  They were good, but they were basically just big sandwiches on French bread.

In a colorful tourist trap store on Decatur, Dan found the fedora he wanted.  There was no mirror, so I had to take a picture of him and then show it to him.

Some restaurants on the river next to Jackson Square.  A lot of the bottom level was gutted and unoccupied, but obviously someone lives or does something up on the higher levels and rooftop.  It looked beautiful up there.

St Louis Cathedral at Jackson Square.  With the tall spires pointing into the clouds, and all the horse-drawn carriages, it looked a bit like Disney World!  We didn't go over into the park (it closed up before we could) or walk over to the cathedral, but it is definitely on my walking tour list for this week.

On our way back to the hotel we passed this very patriotic person pulling his gun/ammo-encrusted vehicle on a trailer.  Note the inscription over the front wheel that shows he/she is very familiar with the Constitution but not so familiar with spelling.  :(  What a shame...

So that was our first day in New Orleans!

The Wedding, Part Three

In Which I Go Nuts With the Hot Glue Gun
And Eschew Oriental Trading Company and Claire's

(read part one)
(read part two)

When we last left our hapless heroine, she was sewing up fashion like a freaking Donatella Versace.  But I couldn't stop there, in my quest to be "unique" and "meaningful" and, oh yes, "cheap."  Next up was my flower girl basket.  I got a metal pail at the craft store, made a big bow out of Holly's purple sash material, and glued it on.  For Faith the ring bearer, I got a little wooden treasure chest at the craft store and stained it dark brown.  Then I made a cushion out of Faith's pink sash material and tucked it inside.  Both the pail and the treasure chest also got metal starfish that I found in the jewelry-making section at Walmart. Thea was going to hold my bouquet during the ceremony, so I sewed up a long ribbon out of her blue sash material to tie the flowers with.  I intended to just buy some flowers at the grocery store the morning of the wedding.

During the multiple-trying-on process for Thea's dress, the plastic pieces that attached the removable straps broke.  Thea thought this was a sign that she should just wear the dress strapless, but I took this opportunity to sew the straps on permanently.  As a compromise, we decided to attach little white flowers to the bodice at the straps.

An idea I had seen several times in wedding pictures on the internet was that of a hand-painted-looking sign that the happy couple held.


(photo credit www.katherineashdown.co.uk)
You can purchase such a sign in various degrees of hand-painted-ness on the internet, ranging from under $10 at Oriental Trading Company to over $60 on Etsy.  I have zero artistic skills, so I knew I wouldn't be able to make this myself, but I happen to have access to a pretty good artist:  Thea.  I bought her a blank canvas and four bottles of paint in shades of orange and pink to match the sunset we would hopefully have on our wedding evening.  Then I gave her the supplies and turned her loose.

Chester being super helpful

The finished product was even lovelier than I had imagined!  And I think the total cost was under $10, so suck it, Oriental Trading Company!

I don't have pierced ears, and neither do the girls.  And I was not intending on wearing any necklace or bracelet.  But since we would all be barefoot, and it was the beach, I wanted anklets for all of us girls.  Of course, I decided this less than three weeks before the wedding.

A quick perusal of brick and mortar stores found nothing that I liked.  I had a particular look/style in mind, and I turned to Etsy.  I found just what I was looking for in Brasslady's Etsy store, but the anklets were made in and shipped from Thailand.  I was doubtful they would make it in time, but I placed the order.  It took four days to get a shipping notification, and delivery was estimated in 14-24 days.  At this point the wedding trip was 11 days away.  I decided I would have to use my own jewelry-making skillz, so I got some colored thread/cord and some beads and went to work.

This picture does not even do justice to how awful my anklet attempt was.  It looked like a friendship
bracelet woven by a four-year-old on a bumpy Jeep ride.

Would you believe... the package from Thailand arrived in the mail just hours before we left for Florida.  I was so excited I just about cried.

Becky's	Thea's
Faith's	Holly's

LOVE IT!  It even jingles when I walk!

So here we are at zero hour.  The night before we left for Florida, I still had the trusty glue gun and all the craft supplies out, putting together flowered barrettes, clips and headbands for our hair.  Why couldn't I have just gone to Claire's at the mall and chosen from their large selection of pre-made hair flowers?  This is a burning question I can't really answer.

Oh and one more "mishap" -- less than a week before the wedding, the girls and I went to a birthday party where a henna artist was doing tattoos.  We each got one.  Mine was a stylized bird.  It was really gorgeous.  When the tattoos were dry, I suddenly put two and two together -- these henna tattoos would last at least two weeks, and my wedding and professional photographs were six days away.  Guess we got lucky that the tattoo artist was so good, because these tattoos were here to stay.

Stay tuned for the forthcoming and final installment:  The Wedding, Part Four, when we wrangle everyone to Florida and the big day finally arrives!