So, Rob and I have both been busy working and not taking pictures and neglecting this. We are trying hard to remedy this and make time for it!
I am very excited to experience my first Halloween here; Halloween is my favorite holiday. Today Rob and I finished getting various components for our costumes and then drove around on St. Charles looking at the mansions that are decorated for Halloween. These were some of my favorites:
This house had a bunch of large skeletons posed all around the yard with funny captions. This one hung over into the street - the face on the tree is cute
Most of the skeletons - the far right one was Bone Dry
The flash obscured the sign, but this is Rob in front of the Lazy Bones Skeleton
This mansion had really neat giant spiders all over it. You can see the largest ones in the top left corner. They had eyes that would flash glowing red!
We walked up and down the street car tracks for a while in the nice weather. We want to go to The Mortuary sometime before Halloween as well, if time away from work permits it.
We haven't had too much time to be going out to eat, but we have been to this amazing new place twice: Once for dinner, and once for breakfast with my parents: http://www.theirishhouseneworleans.com/. We got an appetizer and dessert with our dinner the first time (thank you Groupon) and ate every single bite of it. It was so delicious, we can't wait to go back. Sidenote: Mark Paul Gosselaar (Zack from Saved by the Bell) was eating there when we went to dinner there, random.
The weather has been cooler and less humid and very enjoyable. We go to Audubon Park a lot and take walks at night and enjoy it! Can't wait for the rest of October and fun Halloween activities.
So, since moving here, Rob and I have had a great opportunity to do what we like to do best together: eat. We have tried a ton of new places (most were very, very awesome). We like to watch the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives show and that's taken us to some great places. Ones that we've been to so far on there:
Joey K's. We went here before we saw this on the show. It was awesome! Rob got a pot roast and I had chicken cordon bleu and we really can't wait to go back. So many restaurants, so little time and dollars. This place is within walking distance, so definitely will return.
Mahony's. Rob and I walked here the other night to get some po boys. Rob got a po boy with french fries, cheddar and pot roast gravy. I had the root beer glazed ham and cheese. We split a piece of the sweet potato pie that the show on the clip. Overall, it was pretty good!
Katie's. Hands down my favorite, and Rob's favorite as well. We had the garlic feta fries and then the Bordreaux pizza. We were unable to finish all of the pizza, but wow was it great. We are dying to go back here - Thursdays is $10 pizza night, so this is definitely going to happen in the future. The only down side is that we have to drive there, but so worth it.
We have been to many other places and have a huge list of places to try still! We have only had fast food once since moving here in May, which is impressive. We cook a lot, but it's nice having so many options to eat (especially within walking distance) that are local and (more importantly) delicious. Thankfully, the workout regime is still in effect, so no New Orleans gut is appearing (yet).
Last night we journeyed to The French Quarter, and listened to some music. I met up with my wife at Popeye's for somedeep fried goodness and then went over to Yuki's for some super sexy plum wine and some even sexier old clips of Astroboy. The two guys playing classical guitar were also pretty good.
Then, we walked over to Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop and grabbed a beer while listening to Mike Hood on the piano.
Yuengling may own my heart, and Sam Adams pays rent but as far as local beer goes....Abita can live for free.
Since age is a factor, and it was getting late, we decided to head back to the street car but now before walking back up Bourbon and seeing these wonderful sights:
1) Crazy Old Jesus Freaks (tm) with a giant wooden cross and bullhorn preaching repentance in front of Hustler. (yeah, that'll work. keep trying pops)
2) Also in front of the strip clubs....middle aged sweaty white trash guy drinking beer and wheeling a stroller with his two kids. Refer to the beginning of previous sentence.
On Sunday, Rob and I ventured to City Park after my work meeting. We have been to City Park before; it's so huge that it will take many, many more outings to really explore all of it.
Naked lady fountain
We brought along some snacks and things to read.
Rob preparing the picnic spot
We laid around reading and eating for a while, and then got up to explore more of the park in the oppressive heat.
I find it hard to appear enthusiastic when I don't know when Rob is taking the picture.
Creepy attempt at seduction
I wish we could swim in there, because it was hot as balls
We decided to walk over to the Sculpture Garden and check that out.
Blockheads just like us!
Rob found this sculpture lacking in subject and decided to take art into his own hands.
Rob faces his literal biggest fear
I want this awesome nightmare for our yard.
I can't wait to go back to the park and maybe rent a paddle boat! Going to the New Orleans Museum of Art in City Park is definitely on our to do list. Also, we are looking forward to seeing the park in the fall; it's so gorgeous, but I bet it's even more gorgeous then!
So, there really hasn't been much going on here; no outings to report! Yesterday, I had a holiday day off from work, so Rob and I walked around on Magazine street to do some window shopping and real shopping (and eating). The only real shopping that we did was at Trashy Diva where I got a shirt for work and drooled over everything else in there - possibly my favorite store to look in.
Anyhow, Rob and I spent hours walking along Magazine. It's fun to walk around here - it's free and there's a ton to look at:
Guitar cat rockin' it out
This person's display changes periodically. Last time it was a bowling set up and I really wish I'd gotten a picture of that one! Now it has a random midget skeleton.
We finished our day at Juan's Flying Burrito for dinner; this place is so freaking tasty. We had the crawfish queso dip and wow, yum!! We are trying to not visit the same place twice yet so we can try new places, but this place is definitely already a repeat because it's just that good (and cheap). Everything either of us has tried was so delicious.
But, back to walking:
Working in the French Quarter definitely lends itself to lots of fun lunch break walks along the Mississippi River or just around the Quarter itself. I've started carrying my camera so I can take pictures of some of my favorite sights. It has been raining so frequently for days on end that I haven't been able to venture out much, but today I could.
Love this Medusa picture
Obviously one of my faves.
However, it would be uncomfortable/awkward to get good pictures of some of the things I'd like to capture such as random vibrant hobos and panhandlers. For example, I've seen some very dedicated clown get-ups (kudos to the bum in the wheelchair for entire face paint). Catching random parades on Canal when I get off of work has also been fun - last week I caught my first set of parade beads on my own! Wish I'd had my camera, but I'll make sure to carry it from now on.
Today was my 29th birthday, and that hill is getting a hell of a lot steeper :p. We got an awesome Oreo Cookie cake from Whole foods....which I can't stop drooling over. Yeah, We ate cake for breakfast.
Afterwards, we went over to the WWII museum. That place was pretty cool. In fact, we only got half way through it. We had tickets for Tom Hanks' Beyond All Boundaries which we very interesting to watch. Strobe effects for the win.
We then made our way to John Besh's The American Sector for a lovely ass dinner. My wife got lamb meatballs and I got the creole shrimp:
i
There were also amazing pickles and cheese grits. Now to relax.
The weather here this week has been sooooo incredibly dreary and yucky; I'd really been looking forward to some quality time in bed with a book on my day off. Definitely got some of that in, but didn't want to feel too lethargic, so Rob and I braved the weather and took the street car down to the Quarter to go to the Audubon Insectarium. I'd gotten tickets for us from livingsocial * a few weeks ago, so we figured it was a good day to use them.
Awesome giant koi fish
Butterflies also enjoying the very rainy view of Canal
Feasting!
Rob was still soaked from our walk; attempts to not smile when posing with butterfly
Rolling the ball of dung
Big earthworm
Check out my sweet armor
We had a good time. We were there for quite a while (at least 2 hours). They did have some food prepared in the back of the museum with bugs. Rob and I tried pretty much all of them - my favorite was the chocolate "chirp" cookies with crickets in them.
After a relaxing streetcar ride home (i.e. I almost fell asleep), we came home and relaxed.
For dinner, since we were both home and wanted to cook together, we decided to try a recipe we'd found: Crab Cake Mac N Cheese. In a quest to make this somewhat healthier, I swapped the regular pasta for Ronzoni Smart Taste macaroni and the cheeses for Cabot 50% reduced fat cheddar (normally I like the 75% reduced fat kind, but I figured since it needed to melt well for this that I'd get the 50%). This dish took a lot longer to make than anticipated, but the result was well worth it:
The topping is a hot sauce/panko crumb mixture
Yum!
Good thing we both really liked it, because this recipe made a ton! With the swaps that we made, according to my BodyMedia food logger, one serving (I put in that this made 8 servings, and they're pretty generous servings) is 423 calories. Not too bad.
* Livingsocial and Groupon have been a great place to find stuff on our "to do" and "to eat" list for cheaper. We've used a few now; we keep all the ones that we have on the side of the fridge as a reminder of fun stuff to do together when we have some free time.
Rob's birthday is Wednesday, so we have another outing planned: the WWII Museum (Rob's pick).
