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Nawlins: Part 1

After suffering the agony of sitting next to a woman on a plane who popped her gum for the two and a half hours from Charlotte to New Orleans, I made it to the Big Easy.  My cab driver needed the assistance of my GPS to get us to Jessica's house, but whatevs.  This city is a maze, and I made it in one piece, so cheers to that!

Yesterday Jess and I hung out at the house in the morning before getting shrimp po boys from the equivalent of the local bodega/deli.  We ate these while strolling through her neighborhood, no mean feat let me tell you.  I dropped a shrimp at one point and felt something much like self-loathing.  

Her cubicle at the law library has walls that a very tall person could reach over, but made of something designed to look like very lawyerly dark cherry wood.  The door locks and the room is larger than my office.  I now have a theory about how people inhabit a space because while she has made minimal effort to personalize the room, it still feels a lot like her office in NY.  

We continued trekking onward toward Audobon Park where we did some high quality geocaching.  Don't laugh, it's awesome.  We saw about a thousand turtles, which we fed (as well as a nesting duck).  Jessica also witnessed some duck rape, although I was lucky enough to miss that, as I was rummaging through some bushes in search of a geocache.  We then took a shortcut across the golf course, which is supposedly allowed as long as you stay on the path and don't get in the way of the golf carts.  It was a lovely long walk, and I was infinitely impressed with Audobon Park.  It's quite enormous and well-maintained.  The pedestrian loop around the park has walking, running, and biking "lanes" and there are emergency call boxes and dog poop bag dispensers scattered around.  There are also lots of benches and gazebos should you just want to sit around in the shade or sun or any combination thereof.  

Then, pupusas for dinner (which were stupid good), and a trip to 12 Bar, "New Orleans' comedy living room."  This was the most awkward comedy watching experience of my life.  The back of the bar really is like a living room, with couches and chairs arranged around a microphone, so the comedians can look you in the eye.  When they first started the only 3 people there who weren't performers or bartenders were Jessica, Sean, and me.  Luckily my friend Alex (who was randomly stuck here to a flight snafu) and eventually some other couples showed up, but at first I felt that skin crawling sensation that makes me leave the room when I watch It's Always Sunny.

No real take-homes from all this, I just want to remember what an awesome low-key day it was and how much I love New Orleans.  This would be a lovely place to live.  

For photographic evidence, check out the FB album.

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