New year's in New Orleans

This is a little late (about 17 days), but I wanted to share my experience in New Orleans.
I had the good fortune to travel with Kim, who is extremely knowledgeable about NOLA. We got to stay with her friend in the Lower Ninth Ward and see and hear a local's
perspective. Her friend is passionately involved with reviving her city. It was amazing to hear the love she had for her home and neighbors. Most people nowadays are not that connected to their neighborhoods. This pride in NOLA defines many people. I guess you have to be that passionate to come back to such destruction and to be strong enough to rebuild.

Water damage (and termites) in a house Kim's friend bought at a tax sale

After we left Kim's friend, we started the real tourist stuff. We met up with my friends, hung out on Bourbon Street, ate beignets, and had bloody marys with pickled green beans.

Singer's awesome shoes at a bar on Bourbon
It was hard for me to rectify these two different sides of NOLA - the residents that live here all the time and the loud, impolite tourists. It was just amazing to see the utter emptiness that still consumes some areas of the city and then the throngs of people on Bourbon.


I love New Orleans because of the unique culture there. If a natural disaster like Katrina had happened anywhere else, the resulting art and culture would not have been as profound. They have been able to keep Katrina in the minds and hearts of people through song, poetry and art. I suppose that is one positive result amongst all the devastation.

Greetings from ______________

It frustrates me when people travel somewhere but then never leave their hotel room or the confines of the 'tourist' district. How can you say you have been to a place if you haven't actually walked a street, dined at a local restaurant and made and attempt to get to know the place? It can be a very daunting task to get to know a city you are in for only a few days, especially if you don't know anyone there. But that is not an excuse anymore!
I just discovered a service that is offered in some cities: Greeters. Greeters are residents of a place that volunteer their time to show a visitor around. They introduce the visitor to their favorite local haunts, explain public transportation and, most importantly, personalize an otherwise overwhelming place. And it's FREE! (at least in NYC).
With this type of service available, it would be much easier to explore a new place that you are not familiar with. This is also a great PR tactic for cities with tarnished reputations. If you have friendly people showing you why they live in a place, it's hard to form a bad opinion.
There are Greeter programs in New York City, Chicago, Fairbanks, Houston, Toronto, Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Thanet district in Kent, England; Paris and Nantes, France; the City of The Hague, Netherlands; and ShenZhen, China. I think I will try to utilize this service if I ever find myself in a place that offers it.

investigating Indiana

It seems like I've been on the road for the last month or so. I visited Anna and Sam in Lafayette, IN, for a few days to check out their new set ups. While there, it constantly rained, but at least it was a reasonable temperature. Their apartments are fabulous, converted old houses in the historic district of town. I'm sure it will be pretty with a coat of snow, but also really cold. 

I met the girls' new friends and also saw our friends from the Honduras trip. It was great catching up with everyone and meeting the new people in my girls' lives.

The highlight of my visit was Breakfast Club at Purdue. Breakfast Club is a very unique tradition. For every home football game, Purdue students dress up in ridiculous costumes and go to the bar. At 7am. We saw everything from the Hungry, Hungry Hippos to Indians to Michael Phelps (with his speedo and gold medals of course). The girls and I dressed straight out of the 1980's, and I told people we were the Bangles. Our friends dressed as rednecks and pulled off the look impeccably. I would post pictures, but they could be used as evidence against me in the future.

a fourth like none other

For July 4th Caro and I made our way to Pensacola to spend the weekend with our good friend Sam. Sam just got back from a 2 month wander around South America, and we were very happy to be able to reunite some of the college gang before we all go our separate ways in the real world.
Sam's family lives on the sound in Perdido Key, so the water is literally a few steps from their back door. In addition to eating delicious food all day, we played in the water. The neighborhood association set up a giant slip'n'slide which we adults warmed up before the kids got there. Here is Miguel going down. It ended in the bay, and like all concerned citizens we diligently asked about the soap they were using to make it slippery and slidey. It was eco-friendly boat soap, so no harm was done to the bay. We checked the traps on the neighbor's dock and found a couple of these rather ugly crabs.

The water was beautiful and on Saturday Sam and I used a seine net to see what we could catch. Some little pin fish and a baby sheepshead were all that got scooped, but we were accompanied by a group of stingrays zooming around us. They seemed very curious and got really close.

It was a very relaxing weekend, filled with good friends and laughter. We didn't really do much, but it was one of those times that you will always remember and will be telling stories about when you get together 30 years from now.

As we all go our separate ways, I have to wonder how often we will get to do this in the future. As we move away, start careers, get married and start families we will see each other less and less. But I know we will always have a bond to keep us together. I was lucky to find such a wonderful group of friends to make my college years special.

Birmingham and back

I got Taye the Macbook back last week, fully functional but missing all of my files and programs. So I lost all my music and photos (original files and those not good enough for Facebook), oh and all of those pesky papers from grad school. so it's kind of appropriate that I am starting fresh with new memory.
So what did I do to celebrate the return of my faithful laptop? Why road trip to Alabama of course! Hannah had a job interview (still crossing our fingers to hear the news) and I didn't have much to do (besides finish all those freelance projects!). So I tagged along for the 8-hour trip. Hannah is persistently pushing a move to Birmingham for me. Of course others are pulling for the frozen tundra of the North. I will go where the jobs lead!
Birmingham was really nice. The weather was unusually cold, and there had been tornadoes in the area, but it was still very pretty. The hydrangeas were blooming everywhere as well as the dogwood. All the people we met were extremely friendly. I don't know if I would know how to react to every shop/restaurant owner exchanging pleasantries with me.

This is a view of downtown Birmingham from Vulcan park.

Parade of lizards

I was looking through some of my pictures today for a project, and I noticed a pattern. I seem to like to take pictures of lizards in exotic locales. Or perhaps that's just where I find the lizards?

This guy was running from us on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. He was hanging out at a plantation house where we were learning about sugarcane production.

This guy was hanging out in the banana trees on

 Roatan Island, Honduras, looking down at us as

 we tested the soil under his tree. 

This big guy was on the Isla De Mujeres, the eastern most spot in Mexico. He was right on a 100 foot ledge the wind was whip

ping around, but he seemed

 to be having fun.