wow! I am actually almost a little bit disappointed now that I bailed on Los Angeles...

http://laist.com/2011/07/20/bicycle_anti-harassment_ordinance_passes.php

can't sleep, too excited to see san francisco tomorrow!

just checked out of the ambassador. going to mother's for breakfast and to get a po'boy to go. then we're going to cafe du monde for iced cafe au laits and beignets for the last time (until I come back, of course)...

first day in new orleans with tolerable weather.

today is day 5, took long enough!

new orleans

so, wow. I've only been here a little more than 24 hours and it already feels like a week.

natalie and I cruised into new orleans on thursday evening about 9pm and checked into the hotel. the third of our three musketeers troupe wouldn't be arriving at the airport until the following morning. so natalie and I decided to unpack and then explore locally by foot.

without getting a map and just relying on gps to ensure we don't get lost, we wander. circled are walked. backtracking, so much it hurts. we decide to go ahead and check out canal even thought the first two blocks had been incredibly lame. we're looking for *anything* that is open where we could sit down, have a drink, and hopefully listen to some live music. one block, nothing, next block, nothing. on this goes until we are about to turn around. then, like a beacon, we hear the universal sounds of "party". we look to the right and there is an alley closed of to vehicle traffic by police barricade. there are bars and clubs full of people. there is more live music than we know how to choose between. it seemed never ending as we peered through the crowd.

this was, of course, bourbon street.

we spent about two hours walking the length and taking pictures. what a fantastic way to ring in this leg of the trip!

we sleep about four hours and then get up to go pick up our friend from the airport. she's a waitress in Orlando and had gotten on a plane after having just gotten off of work. we expected she'd want to sleep for a bit, we'd all sleep, then get up and go have lunch or something.

ohhhhhh no. she's talking about this and that she wants to do and how she's too tired to sleep. natalie and I look at each other like, "can we do this on 4 hours sleep?" we obviously decided we could.

we walked from our hotel to cafe du monde which was about a mile and a half. stopped at Jackson park on the way. had beignets and frozen cafe au lait. jeez, how seriously delicious is a frozen cafe au lait??? *very good*

we came upon the aquarium and their deal. for $40 you get admission to the aquarium, the insectarium, the Audubon zoo, and one of their IMAX features. so we all bought a pass and went into the aquarium.

three hours (!!) later we finally emerge from the aquarium and have lunch near the hotel. our friend's new boss gave her the number for someone who works out here, and she learned that this friend was working tonight and really encouraged us to come by. we took our disco naps, I hit the gym for a bit, and we got ready to go "uptown".

we definitely wanted to take public transportation. it's cheaper and more fun. unfortunately, some people who clearly worked for the city had no idea that the line I'd looked up was still in existence. we spent way more time than necessary figuring out whether this train existed! never doubt an iphone!

the st. charles streetcar is super cool. figuratively, of course. with the 90 degree weather with the humidty, the windows are down and we are hanging our heads out the windows every possible minute when there wasn't a pole approaching and threatening to decapitate us.

after backtracking a little bit, we found the place where the friend of the friend worked. very cool place. old, local vibe. and an excellent live band.

it's definitely bed time now.
all I can think about is san francisco and the perfection I've left behind. would it be so terrible to skip right over los angeles and just go back to the bay area? I dunnnno...

cute brick wall !

this was supposed to be both of us waving at the camera..

but I got kinda cut off.

our room at the ambassador hotel in new orleans

whoot!

road trip from houston to new orleans!

I had to take a picture of me and natalie's iPad :))

flying out of las vegas towards Houston near sunset

las vegas

I swear, Sunday night's shower, after
camping Saturday night near the grand canyon and hiking Saturday and Sunday, was the most satisfying and filthy shower I've taken in a long time.

gross.

anyhow, so, wherever there are casinos there are weird things going on. in las vegas, you can smoke anywhere. in any place that doesn't allow smoking, las vegas will provide a sealed smoking sanctuary to ensure the happiness of the smokers. srsly, weird place.

on that note, food and alcohol is kinda stupidly cheap in the casinos. I'm sure everyone has experienced by now the glory of sitting down at a slot machine and ordering an alcoholic drink at no charge. I didn't do that, in fact, I never even gambled, but the sense that you can do basically whatever you want as long as you gamble is always in the air. suji took me to three different buffets while I was there and they were either super cheap or came with complimentary alcohol or offered incredible selection and quality or all of the above. I mean, really crazy place..

on Sunday night when suji and I got back from the grand canyon, we returned the rental car and then I persuaded her to drive down the strip so I could just see it, knowing we wouldn't party there. the pictures I took are terrible, but the traffic and noise we encountered that Sunday evening was surprisingly heavy. it really is a 24-hour party.

I am so glad that I included a las vegas stop into this trip. now, don't get me wrong, I'll never go back there willingly. it was great to spend some casual time with suji though. our last few visits were just a few hours here and there. excepting last summer when I stayed with her for five days as well while she was living in Denver. I guess we'll never be satisfied until we are living together again (hint, hint suji!!). she had a couple of other friends in town and last night we all met up at the las vegas beauty bar for their nickel beer night. I was a little bit apprehensive to go out in las vegas and have to go through the comparison parade. this is where all the girls size up all the other girls like cats so that they can win whatever the prize of the competition is. I've never understood it. but, the beauty bar was awesome! the djs were playing minor threat when we came in, which made me super happy, and the crowd looked a lot like san francisco, which made me feel at home. it's always fun to meet friends of friends and enjoy a good special at a good bar.

right now I'm on the plane, on my way to see natalie. she's going to pick me up and hopefully we'll have enough energy between us for her to show me some of Houston. apparently it's a real up and coming metropolitan city.

shehas graciously offered to let me stay overnight and tomorrow we are driving to new orleans!! on Friday morning we will be picking up charla, I think, at the new orleans airport. high school reunion! we don't have anything specific planned, that I know of. but I have a list of must-do's from a friend at the gym that we'll do our best to follow.

so excited to see these girls!!

look to the top of the ridge and you can see all the people.

so beauteous.

the grand canyon and me (looking.. uncomfortable?)

waiting in line to get into the grand canyon national park.

this is me driving to the grand canyon.

jacob, our ice bucket on our road trip to the grand canyon.

major tom, suji's main man.

the las vegas airport has casinos built in.

I'm on the airplane going to las vegas right now and I seriously can't believe that the couple one row ahead are
watching a full length film with the screen as bright as it will go and the sound as loud as it can be. unbelievable.

wow

it's been exactly a year since I've updated this. I definitely didn't plan that!

to catch up: I left ny shortly the next
morning because... well, because kalman and I had gotten back together just before I'd left for my trip and our rocky reuniting was kind of bumming my high, so to speak.

so, it's now a year later. kalman and I are doing great. (keep an eye out for engagement party invitations. not tomorrow, but soonish.)

I really like my job. I am the office manager (executive assistant? I kinda like the sound of that..) at Third Street Boxing Gym. it's definitely as awesome as it sounds.

most importantly, I found quite a bit of focus in the last year. I've learned all about the graduate program that, if/when accepted, will prepare me for a dynamic and fulfilling career full of variety and possibility. I wanna be a speech therapist. speech language pathologist. yeah, the latter sounds awesomer.

I've been the keeping-everything-in-order lady at the gym for almost a year and I got the itch to travel again. I contacted a few friends and over the last six weeks ago, we put this plan together:

leave SFO for las vegas where suji lives. stay for about five days. go to the grand canyon and the Hoover Dam while there.

fly to Houston on Wednesday. arrive late at night. get picked up by natalie, Thursday drive with her in her car to new Orleans where we'll meet up with charla!! high school reunion baby!!

spending ten days there. mostly with them. a few days at the end by myself. get on a plane to Los Angeles. get myself to the Venice beach hostel where kalman will have successfully shipped my bike.

prepare bike for adventure.

I'll probably spend about ten days in Los Angeles. depending on how lame it is. I'm super exited about riding my bike in la. and I'll see hoda and melissa. and adam is playing a show over the weekend. and a good friend from high school, steven, lives down there too, but I gotta get him to answer a text. aaaand... I think that's everyone. is there someone I'm forgetting? let me know cause I'll ride out to yr place!!

I wasn't expecting this, but it's what makes me feel confident about the third paragraph up there: I've been overwhelmed all day with how much I expect to miss kalman. we have a very independent relationship with each other. not very mushy, which is great. and my job keeps me out late and he gets up early and over the course of the week we often haven't spent much time together. but I've known all day that it won't be the same. I'm going to
miss him very much.

this is a picture of him today at lunch, looking at me.