One thing I was not prepared for when I arrived down in New Orleans was the food. I had heard about the crawfish and the alligator but I figured that my eating habits wouldn’t change that drastically while down there. Boy, was I wrong.
About a few days into the trip Heather and I started referring to our stomachs as “The Situation.” The Situation was that they were a little…larger. Full of fried shrimp, oysters, crawfish po’boys, alligator and bread pudding. A whole assortment of foods that my stomach and I were not used to, yet loved. Could not get enough of.
The love affair with Cajun food began the first night. Andy was pulling out the big guns and making us Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo and teaching me how to make it at the same time. I learned about why his right arm is stronger than his left (sure it’s from stirring the roux….suuuuuure) and I chopped an entire red onion without crying (which is a huge feat in and of itself–I ALWAYS cry with red onions for some reason). I watched the roux change colors and watched it stew. The finished product the next day was SO good and I was glad I had two bowls when, after getting drunk, we forgot to put the Gumbo away in the fridge and it turned moldy overnight. (A crime!)
The gumbo was the only homemade dish we had, the rest of the days and nights filled with one restaurant stop after another. I breakfasted at Surrey’s on Magazine in the Garden District with Chris and Ana and had the most amazing Crabmeat Omelette, while Ana had a fantastic Crawfish Omelette, Chris the Migra with Chorizo. Yes, we all swapped plates at one point so we could enjoy everything on the table. We joked about licking our plates clean (especially Ana’s because her’s was just SO good that we all would fight over the excess on the plate, if it had come down to that) but our waitress, clearly catching wind of our plan, intercepted our plates before they could reach our tongues.
Thursday night we went out for dinner at this out of the way local joint off of Canal street which I forget the name of. Madina’s or something of the sort. This was the night of epic drinking but it started with turtle soup, which I was unsure how I felt about eating since I had a pet turtle when I was little called Bubbles. But I had to try it. When they served us though, they told us it was fake turtle, actually veal, and I was disappointed. This was information they could have, I don’t know, shared with us BEFORE we ordered it?I only ordered it because of how strange it was! I’ve had veal before. Apparently turtle meat skyrocketed after Katrina and the only places that sell them did not include this restaurant. Nevertheless it was delicious. The second course was a whole lot of…fried. Fried oysters and fried shrimp. I could barely get through half of them without feeling like I was about to blow up. So good, but wow.
Somehow I drank enough to make me forget just how much fried crap I’d ingested and had some greasy disgusting pizza on Bourbon Street in my drunken haze later that night. Maybe all this grease helped me not be hung over the next morning? Maybe.
The food at Jazz fest was unexpected. I was not prepared for the amazingness that was crawfish bread, a cheesy concoction stuffed inside bread with these little crawfish which were quickly becoming my favorite item to eat. It was SO good. Between acts I picked up a crawfish po’boy for my dinner and immediately regretted that decision. While amazingly delicious (and oh, it was), it did not sit well with my stomach and I ended up in pain for some of the night until Andy pumped me full of pepto. I did bear through the pain though and ended up standing in line at Acme’s to try their oysters. People had been mentioning these char-grilled oysters that have parmesan cheese and herbs on top of them and I had to try them. YUM. So amazing. I was on the fence about oysters until this trip. I ate so many, I am now a huge fan!
Saturday morning we headed to Slim Goodies for breakfast, Andy’s supposed favorite breakfast joint. He recommended the Tex Mex plate, which included eggs, avocados, beans, cheese, salsa and other stuff. I was sold at the avacados! So naturally all four of us at our table got that option and we all devoured it. So yum. Somehow, I still had room for food–or at least biegnets from Cafe du Monde. Oh holy powdered sugar. SO GOOD.
And yet, I still had room in The Situation. That afternoon, the second day of Jazz Fest, I continued eating. I tried Crawfish Monica, a pasta dish with some kind of red cream sauce with crawfish. Again, amazing. What is with this town and it’s fantastic dishes?! Everything I tried was worthy of the fake reactions you get out of the Food Network stars (what? There is no way those reactions are real), only these reactions coming from me were 100% REAL. I had a bite of meat pie that was great and got a bowl of white chocolate bread pudding, quite possibly my favorite dessert that warranted two trips to that stand over two days.
Saturday night we all were pretty tired but a few of us ended up at Mona’s for some Turkish food, a small break from the fried shellfish–but still greasy. It was good but certainly not really worthy of too big a mention in the grand scheme of New Orleans foodgasms.
Sunday morning before heading to Jazzfest Andy, Margaret, Mollie, her brother John and I headed to our reservation at The Court of Two Sisters down in the quarter. It was a beautiful old restaurant with an outdoor garden seating area with a live jazz band. It was a buffet and while it wasn’t the BEST food, it was still good. I had three plates of food–one was fruit, the other eggs benedict with an assortment of carbs, and the third was a plate full of dessert. Clearly couldn’t go without that! To top it all off I had a delicious Bloody Mary, a drink I had been craving since Friday when Heather mentioned that she had just had one before coming into the festival.
Since sunday was my last day at Jazz fest and I was determined to eat as much as possible. I mean, these food stands were not going to follow me to Boulder (and boy, I was glad for that!) so I had to make good use of them. I had some catfish dish that was really good, grabbed more crawfish bread, some crawfish pie and yet another white chocolate bread pudding. I also tried a bit of some oyster bread thing and some banana bread pudding–both were very good. I was so full from that by the time the Allman Brothers ended and we headed back to Andy’s, I couldn’t even think about eating anything more.
Monday, my last day in New Orleans, was epic and not just for the music. It started with Heather and Jake at Mother’s on Poydras where we ordered the soft shell crab po’boy (shown above) and the crawfish etouffee omelette with a side of debris and biscuits to share. FOODGASM. The po’boy was amazing, the omelette to die for. Debris is the parts of roast beef that have fallen off into the gravy and was pretty damn tasty. We piled that on top of the biscuit and devoured everything on our plates.
The Situation was clearly growing larger, for both of us.
For dinner that evening we decided Felix’s for oysters was a must. Andy, Heather, Jake and I managed to put away four dozen oysters (our reasoning? The oil spill, extremely tragic and heartbreaking, was going to kill all those poor oysters and we had to eat as many as we possibly could). FOUR DOZEN. Three dozen of those were raw, one dozen was char-grilled. We had to mix things up a bit though and we got fried pickles, sweet potato fries and blackened alligator, which was SO good. That was the one thing I was determined to eat while in NOLA and it was looking like it wouldn’t happen but when we saw it on the menu we had to order it. I was impressed! It was chewy but really tasty!
And that my friends, was my trip to New Orleans. It was an epic trip full of amazing music, amazing food and some excellent company. I am still completely in love with it.
Originally posted on May 1, 2010 on Ashalah.com. This is to commemorate my trip to New Orleans this year to celebrate my 30th!
Standing on your feet all day really can wear you out, especially when one foot is swollen, itchy and in pain. Not only from the fire ant bites I had gotten on the first two days, but from flip flop injuries–the worst of which was between the first two toes on the same foot as the bites. Apparently my feet do not believe in equal opportunity for pain. LET’S JUST GIVE IT ALL TO THE RIGHT FOOT.
I was in such pain that I decided that evening I could not handle wearing my flip flops for a second more and put on my three inch pointy toed heels when we headed out for the evening. We were all tired but Andy and I had been spending too much time together and while all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch and sleep, I decided to give Andy some alone time and went to meet Heather and Jake after dinner at the Hermes bar where the Treme Brass Band was playing. Little did I know was that the bass drummer was a LEGEND and on the poster for Jazz Fest! We had a great time listening to them and even got some pictures with Lionel Batiste, that bass drummer. He was an interesting character, that’s for sure.
Here is my friend Heather with Lionel:
The band took a break and we decided to move on the Frenchman Street where we had heard some big names were playing in a few bars there. What amazed me was that these jazz musicians–these LEGENDS–were just hanging out on the streets of New Orleans. Playing to the masses as if it were nothing. These bands were coming in the front door like everyone else, no VIP treatment even though they deserved it. Discovering that the cover charge was a little steep, we decided to just wander around, there being so much live music happening anyway.
One one street corner we found a large crowd gathered around two marching bands, perched on opposite sides of the street, battling. It was AWESOME. We let ourselves get swept up in the crowd and danced along as they played various songs, including Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. I don’t know how long we were watching them but it was definitely a highlight of my trip. I was loving the energy this city was giving off, loving all the music and loving the people.
By Day Three of Jazz Fest, Sunday, we were exhausted but still intent on having a great time. Heather had this app on her iPhone that allowed her to schedule not only her music, but her food. The night before we had scheduled in some alligator pie, crawfish monica (so good!) and other such deliciousness. Of course nothing goes as planned and we didn’t meet up until later on at the Allman Brothers. Being it was our last day (or at least MY last day) we hit up the food stands like we would never eat again, stacking up on crawfish bread, crawfish pie and more white chocolate pudding before heading into the crowds of people gathered at the Acura stage to see the Allman Brothers and to meet back up with Heather.
Now the only Allman Brothers song I know is Ramblin’ Man, pretty much my own personal anthem. And a couple others I don’t know the names of. I was only planning on going to two days of Jazz Fest but once in New Orleans, I decided that I might as well go to all three days, I would kick myself if I didn’t. As was the theme of most of the weekend, I kept having to tell myself that it was just money and I can make more of it. But who knows when I’ll be in New Orleans again! Anyway, I didn’t know what to expect with the Allman Brothers but I certainly enjoyed it. It was one giant jamfest and they could jam. They were incredibly talented and while I didn’t know the songs they were playing, I appreciated and loved the music they were making.
Unfortunately they did not play Ramblin’ Man but it was a great end to three days of intense music. It also happened to be gorgeously sunny that last day, without a cloud in the sky.
That wasn’t the end of the music though. Monday night, my last night in NOLA, Heather, Jake and I headed to Tipitina’s to see a bunch of jazz musicians take the stage. Despite having my boobs proposed marriage to, it was the best way to end my trip there; I danced my face off, loved every band that took the stage and just had a blast. Soul Rebels were really fun and interactive, getting everyone in the bar down on the ground at one point. The lead singer from Cowboy Mouth was there again and I fell in love with the music of Trombone Shorty, even though I was dead at that point and very ready to go home and sleep.
Now, you might have heard about something called Boobquake. I had heard about it earlier in the morning, about how some guy from Iran said something about how loose women who dress improperly cause earthquakes and how in response, people were showing some skin to see if that was scientifically true. That night I happened to be wearing a rather revealing dress (hence the guy wanting to marry me–or my boobs) and discussed this with my friend Heather. The two of us alone should have been causing massive earthquakes all over the world but alas, I don’t believe any happened.
It was an amazing weekend for music. I love music, especially live, and this town has done it right.
I have at least one more post coming about all the amazing FOODGASMS I was having while down there. Yes, N’awlins’ food deserves it’s own post. I have never been to a city in the US where I did not have one single “American” dish the entire week I was there.
Now I will leave you with some more photos from this week:
The rain on the first day, at the Gentilly Stage.
The muddy lake I had to wash the fire ants off my feet in
Heather and I and her lanyard koozie at Simon and Garfunkel, Day 2, after the sun had come out!
Muddy feet! Ewwww…
Guy playing the guitar and harmonica on Frenchman Street
This is what I picture when I think of New Orleans: feathers and umbrella parades!
Band playing on Royal Street
Originally posted on April 29, 2010 on Ashalah.com. This is to commemorate my trip to New Orleans this year to celebrate my 30th!
New Orleans 2010: Take Me Back to New Orleans ALL NIGHT LONG!* (Jazz Fest and the Boobquake)
2012
It had been raining for several hours, torrential downpours that soaked you if you stood close enough to the tent opening where we had parked ourselves for the majority of the early afternoon while the thunder boomed around us. Yet there we were, among the crowd full of umbrellas and ponchos outside the Gentilly Stage, soaking wet and (accidentally) standing in a fire ant pile.
Do you know how much fun standing in a fire ant pile is? So much fun that my foot swelled all up and it STILL itches, 5 days later and has all these awesome red welts all over it. I forgot that the smallest ant on earth can cause such big damage.
It was Day One of Jazz Fest and I had been warned that it wouldn’t be Jazz Fest without a massive rain storm. I was told stories of flooded fields, people sitting in their camp chairs in several inches of water. But that no matter what, the show was always going to go on. When we arrived around noon on Friday we were thinking that Saturday was going to be our washout day, that the rain wouldn’t arrive til at least five that evening. As soon as we got halfway through the entrance, it started to sprinkle. When we reached the tent, the skies opened up and it was downpouring. Thunder was booming overhead as we sipped our Miller Lites (that were free thankyouverymuch!) and scarfing down bags of Zapp’s chips and M&Ms, a substitute for the food we were expecting to eat when we got there.
At one point, when the rain had eased up in just the slightest, we got sick of waiting in the tent, listening to the bass of a neighboring stage, and headed out into the mess. It took us a matter of seconds to get soaking wet, no thanks to our ponchos and umbrellas. The real problem was the flip flops. They splashed up the water from the puddles that you had to cross to get anywhere all over your back. And if you happened to be walking behind someone wearing flipflops? You were screwed. It wasn’t just water coming up and I got splashed IN THE FACE multiple times with mud. (by people I called FRIENDS no less!) For the first half hour we were out there, before the fire ant incident, Ana and I were laughing hysterically at how ridiculous we all looked, mud splattered up our legs, backs and fronts. At how wet we were all getting. My stomach hurt from all the laughing.
We eventually found ourselves at the food stands after seeing a band play and I had my first taste of crawfish–in something called Crawfish Bread that was AMAZING. It was cheesy and saucy and crawfishy goodness. Mmmm… Anyway, after a few more incidents of mud going up in my face (luckily completely missing the po’boy I was eating), we headed to the Acura stage to see…Lionel Richie.
Yep, that’s right. The man that makes women swoon just by singing Once…Twice…Three Times a Lady. And to think I had considered going to see the Black Crowes instead!
He sang, we danced, it rained, we got muddy, we had a great time. The two songs we were all looking forward to the most were Hello (only the most ridiculously creepy video EVER**) and All Night Long*** and he delivered both of them. And we danced some more and did some required dramatic singing.
Day two, which was supposed to feature even stronger storms and already had tornado warnings tacked all over it, was cloudy but not a drop of rain was to be seen the entire day. The storms we were supposed to get, passed north! We did have to deal with massive amounts of mud and I got mud all over me once again, but without the rain it wasn’t so bad. We started the day at the tent again, which always turned into a long process since Andy worked for the sponsor of the tent and knew everyone in there.
The first day I was unable to meet up with Heather and Jake, thanks to incredibly uncoordinated plans but this time we managed to snag Heather right outside the tent. Shortly after we got there and downed a beer or two, we headed over to the Acura stage to see Cowboy Mouth, a band I had first seen perform when I was 15 years old at a music festival in Atlanta. Such a fun show! He wasn’t the greatest singer but boy, he could entertain.
After Cowboy Mouth we devoured some more food and I was introduced to White Chocolate Bread Pudding. Oh my. YUM. Everything I had that day was delicious and I even twittered about how I never knew that Jazz Fest was going to be such a culinary experience. And that was the end of my live tweeting since my phone died. Who was the genius who left her phone charger in Colorado? OH THIS GIRL. It became a fun game of trying to find where everyone was, without a phone. Luckily Andy was gracious enough to play phone tag with my friends, helping to coordinate Heather and Jake get to us in time for Simon and Garfunkel.
Despite having a lovely tent with lovely bathrooms, sometimes you just gotta go and sometimes it’s in a portapotty. And all the time I’d really rather not ever have to do that. Especially at a large festival like this one. But we had to do it otherwise I’d be doing a pee dance at S&G and it wouldn’t be the pretty little dancing I’d be doing to Mrs. Robinson. It would probably come with facial expressions. Unpleasant ones.
ANYWAYS. Too much talk about peeing. Not enough talking about Simon and motherfucking Garfunkel.
The entire reason I went to New Orleans. The ONLY reason I decided to go to Jazzfest. I am not even kidding. I am one of their biggest fans since like the dawn of time (or the dawn of me) and when I got an email saying they were going to be there I, the girl who hadn’t had a desire to go to Jazz Fest prior, jumped out of my seat and declared that I HAD TO BE THERE.
I was like a giddy little school girl, sitting on our tarp under the sun that had come out only minutes before they took the stage. They took the stage, Heather and Jake arrived and what we thought was going to be a concert for relaxing sitting down, turned into everyone standing, dancing and singing. Garfunkel had laryngitis so it was a tad painful to listen to him but he stuck it out and still put on an AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, *INSERT OVERLY POSITIVE DESCRIPTION HERE* show. I mean, outstanding. The Boxer still gave me the chills, Homeward Bound reminded me of the concert me and Kira put on in the Danbury Mall parking lot after fireworks like seven years ago, Paul Simon played some of his solo stuff off the Graceland album.**** I knew all the songs, except for maybe one or two, and well, what can I say? It was awesome.
AWESOME.
OK so I thought I’d be able to recap jazz fest in one post, but apparently not. It’s getting too long! You’ll have to stay tuned….
* Take Me Back to New Orleans, song by Cowboy Mouth and All Night Long, by Lionel Richie.
**Hello? Is It Me You’re Looking For?
***When I worked at Hotel Hell out in Montauk, we had a singer who was friends with the GM of the restaurant come out and perform at the restaurant. He once performed All Night Long and the entire restaurant, full of people, started singing and dancing along, staff included. It was one of those awesome moments that I will always be reminded of!
****Sadly he did not play You Can Call Me Al–only the best video EVER–the song that REALLY defined my childhood. We have many a video of my brother and I when we were really little dancing ridiculously to this song. It’s also one of my earliest memories. The entire album reminds me of my childhood, but most particularly that song.
Originally posted on April 28, 2010 on Ashalah.com. This is to commemorate my trip to New Orleans this year to celebrate my 30th!
It takes a lot for me to like a city. It has to have a certain blend of character, beauty both naturally and architecturally, culture, and people. There has to be something unique about it, something that stands out. It has to elicit that feeling from me. You know the one. That feeling of ohmygod I must live here NOW.
It takes a lot for me to like a city, and even more for me to love it. For me to dub it the best city in the US I’ve been to? That…I can’t even tell you what that takes. But New Orleans has it, and had it from the minute I stepped foot there. Last Tuesday I arrived, not knowing what to expect besides a lot of crazy fun. My friend Andy picked me up from the airport, asked me how my liver was doing and I immediately knew I was in for a wild ride; further reinforced by telling me I was going on a drinking tour of New Orleans.
We started our evening with some strawberry beer up on his roof overlooking downtown, grilling up some chicken and andouille sausage for the gumbo we were making. He taught me how to make the roux, which he stirred for 45 minutes while I chopped up the “Holy Trinity” of vegetables: celery, green pepper and onion. We put all the ingredients together and let it simmer while we watched Super Bad, a movie I’d never seen before. The night was capped off by an informal dart game and I went to bed knowing I was going to thoroughly enjoy my stay here. A big part of this because I was going to be with great company–an old friend from college that I’ve known for nearly nine years and I was about to spend a full week with him in his city.
Lucky for me I also had a good friend from New York, Heather and her boyfriend Jake, in town and Wednesday, during the day while Andy worked, I headed into the French Quarter where I drooled over the old houses, dug the live street music and the energy–the ENERGY! It was intense! I met up with Heather on Frenchman Street, just outside of the Quarter, at a small cafe where we caught up on life, our former jobs (we both used to work for the same company in the city), and how excited we were to be in this city. I continued my wanderings, snapping pictures every few steps, in awe at just how gorgeous and old everything was. I was in love with the city already.
That evening we picked up Chris, Andy’s old roommate from college, and Ana, his girlfriend, from the airport. I had never met Chris since I had transferred out before they lived together but we all hit it off instantly.This began the start of a few days of feeling like I was part of a semi-coupling with Andy since things were done with Chris and Ana and Ana’s brother Juan and his girlfriend Martine, a NOLA native. I was glad to not be the only single one there but to outsiders it clearly seemed as if we were together. They stayed the night on Weds, all of us (with the exception of Andy) camped out in the living room. We ate Andy’s gumbo, which was delicious, and hung out on his roof drinking and goofing off. During conversation it came out that neither Chris nor myself had seen Goodfellas and so we ended up watching that, despite our semi-drunken states. Of course we all passed out halfway through the movie so I still haven’t seen the whole thing. At least we tried….
We had been fairly tame with our drinking up until that point since Andy had to work in the mornings. Thursday was a whole other monster though, since no one had to work the next morning thanks to Jazz Fest starting. Thursday was spent running around NOLA’s suburbs getting my tickets, getting lost in Center City and seeing Heather again at another cafe. But Thursday night. Thursday night was…mass insanity. It started innocently enough, with a volleyball game, some delicious cajun food and a few glasses of wine. That turned into an eighties party at One Eyed Jack’s dancing away with vodka sodas in our hands and where Andy got bit on his chest by a gay man. With literal teeth marks and everything. Suddenly we’re on Bourbon Street drinking Hand Grenades, some green concoction that I’m not sure what was in it but whatever it was, it was a strong motherfucker. To top THAT off, we got a couple Hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s to share amongst the four of us and well…let’s just say that did us all in. We danced our way back to his apartment and Andy and I “sobered up” by drinking more beer. Eventually we passed out but I was awake at four a.m., feeling like death, sweaty and vowing to twitter that I would never drink again.
But morning came and again, like a couple mornings the weekend before, I woke up, looked around wondering why I was on Andy’s bed and he was on the couch where I was supposed to be, and realized that I was still alive. That I was not hungover.
I didn’t understand it either.Apparently my body has become a rockstar at repelling hangovers.
On a side note, one thing that is amazing about this city that I noticed every single day, was just how damn proud of their city these New Orleans locals are. How in love with it they are, how they shout it from the rooftops and want you to remember it long after you leave. Of just how great of a city it is (and, oh, it is). They also are in love with the Saints; every band that played at Jazz Fest, that we saw live in the streets, every single person was so damn proud of that team for winning the Super Bowl. It was on everyone’s lips, even months later.
It takes a lot for me to like a city, and even more for me to love it, but New Orleans managed to win my heart in only a matter of hours.
…And that’s where I leave you for now. Tons more to talk about though! Up next? Jazz fest and an entire post written about the amazing food of New Orleans!!
Originally posted on April 28, 2010 on Ashalah.com. This is to commemorate my trip to New Orleans this year to celebrate my 30th!
One of my favorite things to do on the weekends once the weather turned warm in NYC was to grab some of my hung over girlfriends and head to the nearest restaurant’s patio for some hair of the dog and some grease.
As I’ve gotten older it’s been less about curing that hangover and trying to piece together what happened the night before and more about enjoying the sun, awesome food and delicious champagne concoctions. To me, brunch is the epitome of spring and summer and as soon as the weather allows it, I’m in the mood to be on a patio in the sun.
When I left NYC one of my biggest concerns was regarding food. If you know NYC, you know that the food there is as close as you’ll get to authentic ethnic cuisines and there’s just so many amazing finds on every block that you get quite spoiled after a while. I LOVE food, consider myself an amateur foodie (not quite in the same league as my friends Grace and Doni, to name only a couple!) and the thought of not having fresh, delicious sushi just around the corner from my home was a little scary. I worried that brunch was only a city phenomenon.
It turns out Boulder is not only aesthetically pleasing, but is a foodie’s paradise. It may not have an authentic Korean BBQ or Mario Battali’s newest venture in fine dining but we have really good Indian, a speakeasy that serves the best lobster I’ve had outside of the East Coast (not to mention delicious inspired cocktails at Manhattan prices) among countless fine dining establishments that grace our downtown.
Oh, and these restaurants have hopped on that brunch bandwagon too.
For me a good brunch consists of a few key ingredients: eggs, meat, cheese and champagne with my fruit juice. I’ve been to a fair share of brunches now that I’ve lived here for over two years and I have my favorites. North Boulder Cafe was the first breakfast place I went to when I moved here and their Boulder Omelet will always have a special place in my stomach. You cannot go wrong with Walnut Cafe’s large selection (Eggs Marco is my go-to) and they even have daily pie options, if you feel like having dessert with your brunch.
Then there’s Brasserie Ten Ten, this cute little French restaurant with a killer patio that offers amazing scrambles. Personally, I like the Ten Ten Scramble with smoked salmon and cream cheese and the Bordeaux Scramble is a must-have as well. It’s cooked in your own personal dutch oven with mushrooms, goat cheese and some wine reduction sauce all over a scallion biscuit and it is delicious. Coupled with bellinis, a sunny patio and pretty pansies in their flower boxes, it takes home the award for my favorite brunch spot. Their happy hour is pretty spectacular too.
There’s one restaurant that is a staple to Boulder and some people might include it on their lists. I think it deserves mention but it doesn’t fall into my favorites, even though I have taken many guests there. Lucille’s is a New Orleans’ style breakfast spot located in a cute yellow house with a great front porch and it does have some tasty options. New Orleans is one of my favorite cities and probably my favorite culinary destination–the breakfasts I had while there were incredible and I still dream of the crawfish omelet I had on my second-to-last day there. Lucile’s does a decent job with the creole flavor but it’s just not the same. Their creole omelet is very good as is their Eggs Jennifer and their buttermilk biscuits with housemade jam are incredible. But if you’ve ever been to New Orleans, stay away from their beignets, they will disappoint (as will Brasserie’s, I should add) but if you’ve never been to Cafe du Monde, go right ahead. You won’t know the difference. 
The flowers are blooming, Boulder is having an early summer and I’m on the hunt for more perfect brunch mornings, even expanding my reach down to Denver. What’s your brunch go-to?
A lot has been happening as far as my travels are concerned and I think it’s time for an update!
Plane tickets have been bought for both New Orleans and St. Simon’s Island. Spent about $50 more than I planned on spending for New Orleans but spent about $100 less than what I planned on spending for St. Simon’s so it worked out well in the end! That extra $50 I saved is going straight towards the hotel in Savannah since I did not double check my dates and am arriving a day early. No worries, though, because my friend Jen is going to drive up and spend the day exploring Savannah with me!
Hotel has been booked for St. Simon’s Island for Friday June 29th through July 3rd. We are staying at The King and Prince Beach Resort and just take a look at this photo! A beach vacation is EXACTLY what I need right now and I couldn’t be more excited! Good pick, Jen!
Concert tickets for the first weekend of Jazz Fest have been purchased. Wait, wasn’t I going the second weekend? I was, since my birthday is over that weekend but the first weekend’s lineup was way too spectacular to pass up. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Bruce Springsteen, Trombone Shorty, Bon Iver, Feist, Cee Lo Green, Janelle Monae? Yes please. Plus, Florence and the Machine is playing at Red Rocks. And I’ve got tickets. (She was why I wanted to go to the second weekend.)
Where am I at budget-wise? Well if you remember, my big bad goal was $6,000. I have saved $3,000, which puts me half way to my goal! Some of that money is already allocated for the recent purchases:
- Plane ticket to NOLA: $349
- Tickets to Jazz Fest: $165
- Plane ticket to Savannah: $258
- Hotel in GA: $250
What about China? Tickets right now are hovering around $1100. I still haven’t finalized dates and I really would like to have a travel partner (taking applications! 
) but the price is about $300 lower than what I’m projecting I want to pay so I’m happy about that. Dates right now are October 1-18th in China, and October 19-22 in San Francisco for my best friend’s wedding.
I’m not going to lie, my China mojo has been suffering and I’ve been tempted to either push China back to Spring 2013 or pick another location for October. I’ve had a few unexpected expenses pop up that has me a little stressed out (I owe the government $900. No big deal. @!$^*#$%!#) Not to mention the idea of traveling by myself to China is becoming more and more daunting. I know I can do it, it’s a matter of whether I want to or not. I’m sure this won’t be the last time you hear about this. I just have to keep reminding myself how amazing it will be and how I really need to start planning this bad boy. I think the unknown is what is causing me to feel doubts–not knowing how I’m getting around when I’m there, where I’m staying, what the culture will be like…oh and that little thing called the language barrier.
Either way, I’m at a great place for it only being March 19th. The next $3,000 (and hopefully more) shouldn’t be too hard to come up with by the time I leave for China in October. I just have to keep on track with my saving and try not to shop like I really want to with this change of seasons!
I just passed my two year anniversary of moving to Boulder back in late January. I remember the move well; the spontaneous decision to move to a place I’d never been to before, the long drive across Iowa and Nebraska (which were two days of HELL) and seeing the mountains for the first time. The first year was all rainbows and unicorns–meeting new people and discovering all the cool things about my new home. The second year was all about settling in and getting more comfortable here. I have a great apartment with a view, grown up furniture, a better job, and a good group of friends. Life is pretty good here in Boulder.
I’ve entered my third year of living here and life has gotten pretty comfortable. I’m starting to notice the things I don’t like about living here but the beauty of this place, the awe I feel every time I see the mountains, still takes my breathe away and reminds me why I love living here. The sun shines all the time, I have an active and busy social life and I don’t have much reason to complain. Despite this, the nomad in me is starting to make her presence more known and that two year itch to pick up and move, to start over, has begun to tickle my spine.
Ever since I was little I moved every two to three years. Most people stayed in one place, have friends they’ve known since preschool and couldn’t imagine moving and how hard it must have been. It wasn’t hard–it was my normal. I didn’t know any different and every time I moved, it was exciting. I got to meet new people! I got to see new places! It wasn’t until I was in High School that I started noticing how different my life was from my classmates’. It wasn’t until then that I started disliking moving and for the first time at 15, when my parents once again uprooted us from our suburban Atlanta home and moved me back to small town Connecticut, I fought against moving and held a grudge that lasted quite a few years. Soon after, though, it was time for my own wanderings–goimg to three colleges and choosing where I wanted to live, not being told where my dad’s company was moving us. (Surprisingly, I was not an army brat.)
I lived in New York for six years and every couple years I would get the urge to move. I would stifle it, push it down and continue, after all I loved New York. Who didn’t want to live there?
But life in New York got messy, I hated my job and I did the easiest thing I knew how to do–I ran from it. I went off to Europe for three months and then landed in Boulder by way of Ann Arbor. I like to think that I was running towards all this when I left New York instead of running away from it all but the reality of it is that when the going gets tough, or I don’t like something, I go into flight mode.
This time around I’m not unhappy with Boulder, there’s nothing I’m running from. The nomad in me is just starting to poke and prod, desiring new destinations and changes. Brown cardboard boxes and new faces. I’m hoping that all the travel that I’m going to be doing over the next twelve months will quench the nomad’s thirst and keep me happy to be staying put in Boulder at least another year.
In the meantime, I’ll keep dreaming of where I will move to next and maybe next year….
It’s St. Patrick’s Day and around the world everyone suddenly becomes Irish, wears green and drinks a ridiculous amount of beer, most of which is also dyed green. I can’t say I’ve ever drank a green beer or have even really celebrated this holiday properly but I am Irish (even if it’s just a tiny bit) and Ireland happens to be one of my absolute favorite countries.
I’ve been to Ireland twice; once on a family trip around the west coast to “find my roots” when I was freshly 18 and legal to drink on that side of the pond, and then again when I was 24 on a week-long visit with my mom to Dublin. The country is spectacular–gorgeous landscapes, friendly people who have awesome accents (that I can’t really understand), and awesome food. Their breakfasts make our breakfasts/brunches pale by comparison. Everything is green, lush and old.
I’ve walked past the Blarney Stone (but there’s no way you’ll ever get me to kiss it. Fear of heights and all those germs will keep me from doing that), been to countless castles, have hopped electric fences to get to old graves, stood on the Cliffs of Mohr, drank quite a bit of Irish whiskey, had my first Guinness in a pub with my Dad (and discovered I do not like Guinness) and stood overlooking the Guinness Lake during one of the craziest bus tours I’ve ever been on (that also involved quite a bit of whiskey).
One of my favorite travel stories was from the first time I was in Ireland. We were in a very tiny town called Ballymakea Beg where my Great-Grandmother Julia O’Brien and her VERY large family were from, searching for the family home that a Great Uncle of mine had discovered a couple years earlier. Equipped with a single photo, we drove around in circles on the one road they had in this small seaside town trying to find this house. A house that did not exist. Soon, we ditched the car and started walking around, talking to the locals, asking them if they knew Martin O’Brien, my Great-Great Grandfather.
Oh, yes they knew him. They’d smile and exclaim, “Oh, Marty! He had a thing for the drink! But I’m sorry, we don’t know where the family home is.” It became quite clear to us that this man, Marty, even in death was not known for his published poetry, but as being the town drunk. That takes talent in Ireland, let me tell you.
We were losing hope we’d ever find this house and were about to stop looking when we came across this old–no, antique–man, sitting on the side of the road.
Quick side story. Martin O’Brien was a whiskey barrel maker and a poet. During the potato famine in Ireland, he wrote a couple poems that have been published. In one of the poems, the one everyone in my family knows the best, he writes about how him and his brothers were so desperate for heat that they chopped down the neighbors big oak tree and made it into firewood.
So we approached this old, crusty man and asked him if he could remember where the O’Brien house was. He looked at us and snarled, in a not very nice way, “Oh, MARTY.” We were excited, he knew him! He knows where the house is! “That bastard chopped down my tree.” Our jaws hit the floor. OH MY GOD. THIS IS MARTY’S NEIGHBOR. FROM THE POEM! This guy had to have been over 100 years old to have personally known my Great-Great-Grandfather and to have been the man who owned that particular tree Martin chopped down in his poem.
He did indeed know where the house was and we happened to have been standing about a block away from where it sat in the backyard of someone’s more modern house (the people living there confirmed that yes, that was where Martin O’Brien, the town drunk, had lived with his family). It was a pile of rocks and foundation, not quite the fully-standing house that was shown in the picture that my Great-Uncle had given us. We are still not sure where he got that picture from, the only explanation we can come up with was that he got sick of looking, wound up at a pub and some locals having some fun, got him drunk, took him to a random house somewhere and told him that was the O’Brien household.
I hope to return to Western Ireland, and maybe even that little town again someday soon. I love everything about Ireland and while I may not be the biggest St. Patty’s Day celebrator, I still like to dress up in green and drink a couple Irish beers in honor of one of my favorite places in the world.
To end this, I will leave you with a little quote from my crazy tour bus driver who took us around the Wicklow Mountains near Dublin:
The Irish drink only one specific day of the year: St. Patrick’s Day. All the other days are just practice.
I was only supposed to be in Amsterdam for three days; the trip wasn’t even planned until about eight hours before and I had a flight out of London to catch to Spain shortly after. Spontaneity had become my good friend at that point in my trip and this particular travel decision would have a domino effect on my travels.
I was booked at a hostel in the red light district for the first night and then at the Hotel Aalborg for the following two. I knew I was going to have fun in Amsterdam but I didn’t know just how much I would love it. So on that third day, I decided I was going to change my flight to leave out of Brussels and stay in Amsterdam for another three or four days. Except Amsterdam was effing expensive over the weekend. We’re talking 50-60 euros a night. I certainly didn’t have that kind of money. My travel companion mentioned Couchsurfing and before I could even come up with an excuse as to why I shouldn’t do that, he had created my profile on their website and we were emailing potential hosts.
What is Couchsurfing?
If you haven’t heard of it by now, it is a wonderful community of people who are traveling who need a place to stay and people who are willing to host those travelers in their own homes. It is an incredible way to meet the locals, see your destination as locals see it and just have a good time. I’ve had some amazing experiences–but I’ve also had some not-so-savory experiences.
The Good
My first experience with Couchsurfing in Amsterdam was an incredible one. I found myself staying with Anneke, a lovely Dutch girl who let me crash at her place. We got to talking one night and it turned out she was heading to Morocco, a place I was dying to see–but not by myself. She also expressed concerns over going by herself and suddenly we found ourselves planning a trip to Morocco together. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and if I hadn’t couch surfed, I never would have gone to Morocco, I never would have ridden camels in the desert, or hiked Todra Gorge in the Atlas Mountains, or had grilled fish on the beaches of Essaouira. Anneke was an amazing travel companion and I was so grateful for being introduced to Couchsurfing.
The good experiences continued–I stayed with four jazz musicians in San Sebastian, Spain who were incredibly generous, making me food, basically giving me free concerts every night, taking me on an early morning surfing trip, and into town for pinxos. I stayed with a lovely couple Elena and her then boyfriend (now husband!) Alex in Barcelona who cooked me the most amazing pumpkin risotto (which I’ve recreated but I’m afraid not as well!), stomached my lemon dill chicken and oh-so-nicely let me keep my bag there while I traveled through Morocco. Anneke, her friend Richard and I stayed on the edge of the Sahara and couchsurfed with a guy and his family in his guesthouse and were cooked delicious meals and had a big comfy cozy bed to sleep on after being taken out into the desert on camels.
A lot of my experiences during my three month trip were made memorable because of Couchsurfing. But there was one incident that stands out as a huge blemish on all that and serves as a warning to other travelers to be careful, and know when to back out, no matter what.
The Bad
When I first got to Barcelona I stayed at San Jordi’s hostel, one of my favorite hostels in all my travels. Unfortunately they were booked through the weekend and so I turned to Couchsurfing. I found a guy, we’ll call him Bob, who seemed nice, had good reviews and was willing to host me for a couple nights. The night before I’m set to stay with him, I get an email saying that somethings come up, his roommate isn’t okay with him hosting that weekend and he’s so sorry, but maybe I could check with his friend (we’ll call him Ed). He gave me his profile, seemed like a nice guy, so I emailed him and it was set up for me to stay with him.
I met up with Ed in the afternoon and he showed me around town, first making me a delicious dinner, then took me to a bar and taught me how to salsa dance. We wound up at this Couchsurfing party with a bunch of locals and travelers from this community. Bob happened to be there, as did my travel companion, Russell, from Amsterdam. I hung out with everyone, had a drink and then things got interesting. Bob was clearly drunk and getting drunker. At some point in the evening he comes up to me, hits me on my arm and laughingly tells me that “You better watch out, you’re getting raped tonight.” Followed up with a couple “I’m joking! I’m joking!” Real funny, ha ha. Except who does that? To a complete stranger?
I was willing to overlook it though since he was clearly drunk. But then he did it again. And again. AND AGAIN. Along with comments about how easy American girls are. Russell, upon hearing him say it, got defensive and told him he needed to stop saying that, it wasn’t very funny. Instead of backing down and apologizing, Bob got angry and started arguing with him. I broke them up but told Russell that I didn’t feel comfortable staying with this guy and that I wanted him to escort me back to their place to retrieve my stuff. It was around three am at this point. We all take off back to Ed’s place and it was very clear that Bob was also going to be staying with Ed so there was definitely no way I was staying in the same place as them. Bob was still rather agitated and at some point on the walk back he deadpanned me and Russell right in the eyes and told us that Russell was “dead” and I was “fucked.”
Needless to say that despite the very late hour of four am, I grabbed my stuff and high-tailed it out of there. The wonderful people at the full San Jordi hostel let me crash on their sofa when I wandered through their doors at four in the morning. A war on Couchsurfing then commenced with negative reviews flying back and forth–mine truthful and actually, pretty damn nice, while his were scathing and untrue–accusations of my not being able to hold my liquor (I had one drink the entire night) and other such nonsense. It finally was resolved–but I wasn’t about to take down my negative review. It happened and I wasn’t about to sugar coat it just so that he could have a squeaky clean profile. Two years passed.
And now we have today where I was clearly reminded just how immature this Bob is. He wrote another negative comment on my profile, a profile I, embarrassingly, haven’t even used in over a year and a half. It’s been two years and the same untruths are still there. And there’s nothing I can do–last time I reported him for slander to Couchsurfing, I got no help.
(There is one other incident which I should mention as a warning to solo female travelers. Anneke and I stayed with this guy in Marrakech who seemed great, very friendly and hospitable for the first night and day when we were there with her friend Richard. Richard wasn’t able to stay with us the second night, though and both me and her were woken up in the middle of the night by him pulling on our feet, trying to get us off the bed and onto the floor with him. I thought I was dreaming until Anneke recounted her night and I realized the same things that happened to me, happened to her.)
I do love this community.
I didn’t let those two incidents ruin the rest of my time on Couchsurfing. I stayed with several more people while traveling and really enjoyed my times with each. I even recommend Couchsurfing to my friends–but with these cautionary tales. Couchsurfing is awesome but like any situation, you have to be careful.
Pick your host–or guest–carefully but do know that even with stellar reviews, you’re not going to always have the best experience. Make sure you have a backup plan–a hostel or hotel nearby that you can go to if you need to. If you don’t feel comfortable about the situation, don’t feel bad about coming up with some excuse–any excuse, to get out of staying there. Your safety is more important than their feelings. Listen to your gut. Have boundaries; after my incident in Barcelona, I chose to stay with women or couples while traveling by myself.
There’s upsides and downsides to everything out there. I don’t mean this as a tale to scare people off of Couchsurfing, but to make you aware of what I went through so that you can be prepared for your adventures with couchsurfing.
Have you ever couchsurfed before?
By the time my dad and brother’s train left Copenhagen’s main train terminal on September 11, 2009, I was more than ready to start my solo travels. After two weeks of staying at my brother’s German apartment and a week of solid travel through Northern Germany, we had had enough of one another. I love my brother and have had many adventures with him but usually in ten day increments. We had passed that a couple weeks earlier and the culmination was us having a screaming fit at each other at a ferry terminal outside of Hamburg.
My brother and I right before they left for Iceland. And yes, he is that much taller than I am.
In a way it was great; any fears were completely masked over by my desire to get as far away from my brother as possible. I had no idea what traveling solo would be like, I had bought my one way plane ticket a couple months prior to this point and hadn’t been thinking about the alone part. Just the part where I was tearing myself out of a life I didn’t enjoy anymore. I didn’t start panicking until just before I flew over the Atlantic and even then, I had a buffer period before I was finally on my own. There I was, standing in a train station, watching the only people I knew travel off to Iceland while I waited for my midnight train to the tip of Denmark and onwards to Norway. If those first 48 hours were any indication, I was going to be okay.
Right after my dad and brother took off, I wound up in a square in Copenhagen and spent my first hour of freedom listening to a street musician perform one of my favorite songs, Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley. I successfully made my midnight train and subsequent train and ferry connections and wound up in Stavanger, Norway where I was given a ride from a very friendly local man who, when realizing I was stranded with no way to get to my host’s house (Hi Lisa and Austin!), offered to give me a ride without even knowing my name. At every turn I encountered bumps in the road but was always met with extremely generous hospitality and a helping hand everywhere I went.
The old man who gave me a ride to Glencoe, Scotland in the pouring rain when I arrived four miles away from where I was supposed to be and no taxis would give me a ride. The girl who gave me a ride from the bus station to downtown San Sebastian upon realizing I’d arrived on a holiday and no buses were running. The couple from Ibiza I met in the customs line in the Fes airport who let me tag along with them when I arrived in Morocco two days ahead of my friends and had no idea what I was doing or where I was going to stay. (They seriously kept me from becoming a hysterical mess.) The fancy town car driver in Paris who gave me a ride at about 75% off regular price when I’d underestimated the distance from the metro stop and my hostel. (I was probably the first guest to arrive in such style!) I could go on and on. For every unsavory person I met (and I met a few!) I met at least ten amazing people who helped me out in any way they could and made traveling as a female, solo, that much better.
Just me, my flipflops and some Spanish sun in one of the most beautiful places I've been--Nerja, Spain.
I’m telling you all this because I’m scared about traveling solo to China. It’s kind of a way to remind myself that I’ve done it once before, with extremely successful results, that surely I can do it again. China is not Europe though. It’s not a western country and the only experience I have with a non-western culture and country is Morocco. Morocco nearly walked off with best experience of my entire three month trip; Paris only barely walking off with the first place prize, since Paris never made me cry.
My experience with Morocco was amazing–but it was also really hard. The first two days I was essentially alone and I cried myself to sleep that first night. I had been traveling for two months but all it took was a few hours in a crazy hectic market with men grabbing me, yelling at me and feeling completely overwhelmed by everything to make me break down and cry. I wandered around for a couple hours by myself the second day I was there while waiting for my travel companions to arrive from Casablanca and wound up hiding out in the hotel with the owner, a cute 25 year old Moroccan man who tried teaching me some Arabic in exchange for my teaching him some English. I was ready to board a plane back to Europe.
Camel ride through the Sahara with Anneke (pictured) and Richard
Once my friends got there it got loads better and I was happy I didn’t run off back to my safety net–the irony being that the safety net and I couldn’t communicate at all either and I was constantly at a language block there. (Hi Spanish, why aren’t we friends?) It was a stressful ten days though and while it was amazing and full of all these great adventures and experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything, it was very different. It was hard.
I know the Chinese culture is different. I know I won’t run into the problems that I ran into in Morocco but I’m still scared to travel by myself there. In Spain at least I could look at my phrasebook and know how to pronounce them well enough to be able to communicate with the locals. Don’t even get me started on how hard the Chinese characters are. The chances I’ll pick up Chinese in the next eight months is pretty slim. Let’s just say I’ll be lucky if I can say hello!
I have many other fears to work my way through but the first roadblock is always the hardest. I know I’ll be okay, even if I run into problems while there but I wonder. Do I really want to do this trip by myself? What would you do?
