Living Easy in the Big Easy

Mike and I arrived in New Orleans at 9 p.m. on Thursday. By the time we checked into our hotel on the corner of Bourbon and Orleans Streets we were exhausted but hungry. Mike lived in New Orleans for a summer during his late teens and thought he remembered this really good burger joint just around the corner. His nose remembered because we walked right into Yo Mama's at 10:30 with the intention of getting a burger and a beer.

We stayed until 2 a.m.

New Orleans at night has a way of doing. It sucks you in, allures you with its loud music, blatant debauchery and easy access to booze. So it was that we spent our first night in New Orleans drinking late into the night and walking Bourbon Steet with people of various levels of sobriety. It was good people watching. And Yo Mama's was good conversation with the locals, so we couldn't not stay out. It was as if the city was beckoning us to walk its streets, listen to its music and eat its food. So we did. And we didn't stop for three days.

This is the interior of Yo Mama's. If there ever were a bar that was made for my Mike, it was Yo Mama's - home of the famous peanut butter burger. Yes, peanut butter on a burger. I highly recommend it to round out a night of drinking.

As we found out though, New Orleans looks slightly different by the light of day - quieter, with an old world beauty.

Of course, it's still New Orleans so even in the light of day there are still signs of the 24 hour shenanigans taking place in the city.

This picture after all, was taken on Bourbon Street at 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. I don't think any part of Chicago is this active at 4 p.m. on a Sunday.

While food and booze is the cornerstone of any NOLA vacation, what really made the trip for me were all of the street performers. Any time of day in almost every corner of the French Quarter, there are performers of all types - full bands complete with drummers and dancers, tarot card readers in Jackson park, duos of fiddlers with dogs and solo guitarists with their cases open and filled with hard-earned, and well-deserved money.

On Saturday night, Mike and headed out without a destination in mind. We wandered the city and started out at a German Jazz bar on Bourbon Street. We ended the night in the back room of a bar that housed a mid-sized concert hall, and one of the best Cajun bands I have ever heard. We danced until they finished playing.

By Sunday, we were heavier and more rested than we were when we arrived. It also was 65 degrees and sunny which was a most welcomed temperature. Remember, Mike and I had braved the Chicago Blizzard of 2011 just a few weeks prior. We wandered the city and at one point laid down in Jackson park for 20 minutes. We baked in the sun because we could.

On our way to get brunch that morning, we passed this man gently strumming "What A Wonderful World" on his guitar. As we walked by, Mike dropped some money in his case and I smiled because I couldn't help but think, it certainly is in New Orleans.

More to come. This is only a small taste of our wonderful trip.

Why Hello Again

Yes, yes I know. It's been a while (sorry mom). Even though I haven't been posting here, I have been diligently keeping on top of my photos of the day. I just haven't been very good about blogging them. Or anything else for that matter, including my fabulous trip to New Orleans.

It would take forever and a day at this point to post all my photo of the day photos, so instead I'll point you to days 38 to 57. They can be found here. Check out Day 43 in particular. That was an awesome day, one that will be hard to top.

I'll be back hopefully soon with photos from Naw'lins. It's definitely worth reminiscing about.

Project 365: Week Five

As I am sure you can guess based on yesterday's post, most of this week's photos are snow shots, like Day 31, Day 32, and  Day 33. The photos I took on the last four days of the week however are my favorites.

Day 34: Sunset
Day 35: Specs
Day 36: Expectation
But of course, we got more snow on Sunday, so my final day of the week, Day 37, is a snow scene.

Winter Wonderland

I am writing this post on Sunday night, not actually believing that I survived the week. It was a doozy of a week here in Chicago. We started it with a covering of rock hard snow on the ground, snow that had fallen weeks ago and didn't leave because it never had a chance to melt in our frigid temps. Instead it just slowly wore down to it's rock hard, icy under-layer, covering most of the city's greener spots. Then we got the blizzard. So we now end the week with more than two feet of snow on the ground. I honestly feel like a deserve some sort of reward for survivng these past seven days, but I'll settle for the pizza and beer I had while watching the Superbowl tonight.

The city got a light dusting of snow on Monday night, but the blizzard didn't pass through until Tuesday afternoon. I very luckily got to watch the first flakes fall from the comfort of my own home, while sitting in my PJs. I sat there on my couch until 6 p.m., watching the flakes fall, and then begin to blow and then almost completely obscure my view. And believe you me, I would have stayed in my home all night, but I had to pick Taylor up from daycare. So I put on my boots, hat, gloves and wrapped a scarf around my exposed face and stepped outside.

I have lived in the city more than six years now, and I don't think it ever felt as foreign to me as it did on that walk. The wind was howling, the snow was blowing, and I didn't see a single soul on my walk. In a city of millions of people, it's very strange to walk down the street at 6 p.m. and not see anyone else. It felt so apocalyptic.

I knew the storm was going to be as bad as the weather forecasters predicted just based on that walk. Already the blowing snow was producing two foot tall snow drifts. It's not like the snow just fell and blanketed everything with two feet of snow. It swirled around and left little rhyme or reason to where it accumilated. While walking Taylor home, I'd see a bare patch of cement and then immediately be trudging through two feet of snow to only a couple paces later be met by a couple inches.

By the next morning however, everything was covered.

My street looked like northern Michigan in the middle of winter. Sidewalks were no longer visible. Everything was covered in snow with the only variation being how much.

Entire cars were buried. Cars were stuck. Just down the street from my building was a car blocking the street that remained there until Friday. And that sight certainly wasn't an anomoly. Lots of cars were stuck. Those that were parked in a spot had little chance of successfully manuvering out of the spot, and then making it to the nearest plowed thoroughfare. I have never been so happy that Mike and I rent a spot in a garage just up the street.

None of this however daunted my dog.

Rest assured he is reveling in all the snow. I am certain that if we had a backyard, he'd make himself a snow bed and lay in it until the first thaw.

As a result of the storm, most of the city shut down for Wednesday. I worked from home the entire day and Mike was brave enough to trudge in for the afternoon. By Thursday though, the city was generally back open for business, so I headed in.

I made it, despite the trains running late. And a lot of other people did too. Downtown seemed about as busy with city life hustle and bustle as it does on most days. The only real difference being that mounds of snow lining the city streets.

This morning I woke up to find we had another light dusting - no more than a couple inches. At this point, that seems like nothing more than icing on the cake. It barely registers with the exception that it dusted everything in that fresh, new snow look. By in large though, I don't think anyone was fazed by it. At this point people have either dug out their cars or resolved to leave them until things thaw out. Which honestly is not something I am looking forward to. The snow, while a pain, has at least become manageable and makes the city look the way February ought to look. It's the muck and the mud and the mess and the daily Taylor baths that I am worried about. Because when the snow melts, that what us Chicagoans have to look forward to next.

Not this Chicagoan though. What I have to look forward to next is vacation. Mike and I leave for New Orleans this week. We'll spend three whole days in The Big Easy. And it's my hope that by that point, snow will be the furthest thing from my mind.