halloween, pt 1

Had a fantastic Halloween weekend in New Orleans. (I took my Pentax, so have been waiting to get my film processed before posting about it, and still have another roll to finish.)

We had weekend passes to the Voodoo festival. We saw Jonsi (who was wonderful!), a bit of Weezer, Muse, Florence and the Machine, White Rabbits, Janelle Monae (had a stage and time change, then started 45 minutes late, but was still good), Interpol (one of our favourite bands, always good live) and MGMT.

The venue, City Park, was great. Although the main stages were out in the open and got quite hot in the middle of the day, there were lots of nice big trees and shaded areas to sit. Pretty good food stalls too, lots of local food.

We also fit in a visit to the aquarium, and a couple of very tasty meals in the French Quarter at Deanie's Seafood (incredible charbroiled oysters and BBQ shrimp) and Crescent City Brewhouse (nice beers brewed in-house, and good food to match –
we had a deli platter, more baked oysters and hot wings. Yum).

Hope you had an enjoyable Halloween. And if you want to see, there are more photos on Flickr.

• • •

We recently drove down to New Orleans to meet up with one of my cousins, who's two-thirds through a 93 day tour across the States. Spent our day in the French Quarter, and did pretty much what we usually do there – lots of eating and lots of walking. We caught up on what's been happening here and back home in the year we've been away, and heard about the things she's been up to on her trip. It was stinking hot, but a fun day. Such a treat spending time with friends or family
who visit.

(Tried some Lomo film this time. More photos from this roll here.)

mardi gras!

This post has taken a while to write – especially since I've been giving the blog a mini make-over instead of typing posts :)

Anyway, Mardi Gras was last Tuesday the 16th. It was also the day after President's Day, so Jon had the Monday AND Tuesday off work. Gotta love long weekends and three day weeks. On Saturday, we went to the Spanish Town parade in downtown BR. It was great to see so many people around, having a good time. There have been a couple of times we've gone in to the city and seen hardly anyone else around. On this day though, the streets were lined with happy people! We found lunch soon after we got in, then spent a while walking through parts of the parade route. The parade was fun, with lots of floats and bead-catching.

(I actually weighed our beads the other day, and we caught about 2kg each! Pretty heavy weight around your neck, I can tell you!)

We decided we'd head over to New Orleans on the Sunday too. We were a little worried about how crowded and crazy it might be, but thought we really couldn't not go. And we were so glad we did. The atmosphere was great. It was like a massive street party, with people drinking, BBQing, cheering, celebrating. There were lots of people around, but we still had plenty of room to move. We ended up walking along a large section of the parade route, and on our way back, ran into a friend (and New Orleans native) from Jon's work. We spent the evening in their tent (more like a marquee though, in case you get confused) watching the Krewe of Bacchus parade. The floats were much more elaborate than the ones in BR (some of which were trailers with a portaloo in the middle!). Each of the floats had themes, and all the people on them wore costumes and masks. There was also music, from marching bands. And plenty of beads, again! Such a fun day!

There are more photos on Flickr too.

who dat!

Last night the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts to win the Super Bowl! We watched the game at a friend's house, with a few other friends from Jon's work. The Saints didn't get off to a great start, but the game got pretty exciting in the second half, with the Saints coming from behind (10-6), to win 31-17.

I must say, I'm not really into sports. I don't know American football very well either, having never seen a game until college football started last September. Football is huge here though, and for the Saints to win – it's a pretty big deal.
So, I'm excited to be here for their win, and excited for New Orleans and all the Saints supporters. It's also Mardi Gras season here, so I'm pretty sure New Orleans will be partying like crazy! Speaking of which, these are some fun photos I found of people celebrating the Saints' win in the French Quarter:

(All photos are from the Times-Picayune – NOLA.com)

If you are interested, you can read more about the game on the NFL website.
Go Saints!

back to the french quarter

We spent another afternoon in New Orleans last Thursday. We had a visitor from Australia, and it was my 25th birthday – good reasons to head down to the big easy.
We basically spent the afternoon eating, drinking and walking through the French Quarter. I took a few photos, though they're mainly of building signs, like this...

You can see more on Flickr.

hello december

I can't believe it is already December – and another month I haven't posted anything on this blog (so lazy of me). Starting now though, I'm promising a post a week (was going to make it a new year's resolution, but why wait?!) So, now to remember all the things that we've been up to since my last post...

It's old news really, but our Halloween was pretty quiet. We didn't end up getting any trick or treaters, but it was a good night. We lit our jack-o-lanterns, ate homemade pizza and Butterfingers (yummy peanutty buttery toffee chocolate bars), and watched Ghostbusters.

In early November, we went down to New Orleans again. We went back to the French Quarter for lunch, and Jon got his first tattoo. It's an outline of a swallow (no colour or shading). He's wanted a tattoo for a while, and got some money for his birthday (back in July) to get one. Anyway, it was quite quick (about 20 minutes), healed pretty quickly and looks really good (check out the pics on Flickr). Afterwards, we drove over to Magazine St (in the Garden District) for coffee and a look at some second hand clothes and antique shops. It was a nice day.

Just thought I'd share this picture too. It's what I saw on my iPhone map of our entrance to the freeway leaving New Orleans (we were on Claiborne/I90, trying to get on to the I10)... eek!

We went to our first game of football – LSU v Louisiana Tech. We tailgated all day, then headed over to the stadium in the evening. We missed the first quarter rushing my backpack (not allowed in the stadium) back to the car, but once we got in and found our friends and seats, it was exciting. The stadium was full, everyone was dressed in the LSU colours and sung/cheered along to the marching band. Football and the Tigers are so huge here, so it was great to get to a game (and lucky for us, LSU won).

We spent Thanksgiving day watching the Macy's parade on tv, followed by the National dog show, and some episodes of The office (we have become addicted to this show, and watched five seasons in one week on Netflix). We also made a pavlova and some cheese and vegemite scrolls, which we took to dinner at Jon's supervisor's. It was a nice evening with lots of food – including an 18 pound turkey!

Demcember's been nice so far too. We got a little bit of snow on Friday night. I don't think I've ever seen falling snow, so it was pretty exciting. We'd been hearing in weather forecasts that there was a chance of snow, and while talking to Jon's family on Skype, we heard some people outside and they sounded pretty excited. We both rushed to the window and saw SNOW! It wasn't a lot, but enough for us to take our cameras outside for some photos like this (more on Flickr):

This weekend we did a bit of Christmas shopping. It is starting to get cold here, so we also got some jumpers and slippers to keep warm! Sunday was our first wedding anniversary, so we treated ourselves to pho for brunch, coffee and beignets for afternoon tea, and our favourite dinner – etouffee (with chicken, andouille AND prawns!) We also made some mini red velvet cakes with cream cheese icing, which we ate while watching Best in show. Awesome!

So that's everything. Until next week :)

PS. Hi Sam! Grits is ground corn. It's common in the South, and can be eaten for or with any meal – like the shrimp and grits, or as a side to eggs and bacon for breakfast.

the french quarter

What better place to spend a Sunday afternoon than New Orleans?!

Was a long weekend here in the US for Labour Day, so Sunday afternoon we headed east on the I10 for our first trip to the 'big easy'. Only took us about an hour to get there, but what felt like another hour after that stuck in traffic and trying to find a car park. Narrow streets and people everywhere! We had no idea it would be so busy but found out later this long weekend is time for the Southern Decadence festival.

After lunch at The Market Cafe, we spent the rest of the afternoon looking around the French Quarter. So what did we see? Street performers and buskers, tarot card and palm readers, souvenir shops selling feathered masks and colourful beads, and bars selling beers and daiquiris to go. Lots of people, food, colour and music. Lots to see and do in New Orleans. We're looking forward to returning again soon!

More photos >