Sailing!

It's Binzer here....well, we had a grand weekend. We ended up having a Rengada.....which in sailing terms means racing sailboats. Bri and I have both been on a sailboat, in total twice, and didn't have a clue what we were doing. Our landlord's boyfriend has a friend with sailboats on Lake Pontchartrain....about a half hour out from New Orleans. The lake flows into the Gulf, so it at times is a salt water lake. (They have even seen sharks in the lake!) We had a blast and learned to "tack" "jib" and all this other stuff..... we spent the whole day out and out of 3 boats closely racing, we nearly collided a couple of times and won second about three times. Needless to say, we were the less experienced boat.

We were in first at some point!


Shrimping boats were everywhere, as it's shrimpin' season.
THis was by far the highlight of the day. We went out to where the shrimp boats were in the lake, and tons of dolphins were following behind! The shrimp boats throw out their scraps, and the dolphins eat them up! I had never seen a dolphin before. I couldn't believe it! IT took about ten shots to get this picture, but I couldn't believe how good it was! They really were this close to the boat!
Mom-I finally ate gumbo--and I sucked the crawfish meat right off the claw as you can see...it was spicy and yummy.
Brian has officially met people to 'jam' with. His friend Joel from school on the left, Joels girlfriend, and Andy-our new friend who is engaged to a cool chick in my class. They played together on Friday and then took us out to show us more of the city.....
The Mississippi River near downtown-we strolled the streets of Frenchman....
Joel and Yvette introduced us to French donuts called Beniges or something like that....sooo good. This little outdoor cafe has been selling only these and coffee for over 150 years!
Here I am looking tough again. I don't know how this picture ended up down here!

Drive to Florida

While everyone else was driving to pick pumpkins and apples (up north), we took the weekend to drive to the beach. We ended up driving out to Fort Walton Beach in Florida and it was really gorgeous. On with the pictures!

So, I took about 20 pictures of seagulls for some reason.

Here' the ol' beach. We went walking on the sand in the morning and the weather was really nice.

The sunset shot.

We drove along the coast through Gulfport and Biloxi which was nice, but it took us awhile to get out to the beach.

Here's Gulfport.

Woo Beach!

Oooooo

This could be you in a couple of months Joey...or you...Caitlin?

Crazy Festival Weekend

Life has been pretty good down here thus far. We've had a ton of good food, it's always sunny, there aren't anymore hurricanes coming, so, all is good. Both of us have kinda gotten into the swing of things with school and were slowly figuring out which classes need to have all the readings done and those which need minor perusing.

This weekend, we had a really good time going to three different festivals throughout the city (I think we missed about three others!). We ended up going to the Steam Train Festival, the Congo Square Rhythms Festival, and Art for Arts Sake. The rhythm festival was literally a two minute walk from our house with live music and food, and Art for Arts Sake was a gallery tour, with all of the cities galleries opening up and offering free wine and food.


I selfishly bought some mussels the other day because they're really cheap, but Lindsey ended up liking them.


Some of the music at the Rhythm Fest, there was a lot of percussion and traditional African dance.

This is one of the galleries we walked through, although this one was dumb, there were a lot of really good pieces. Also, there was free food and drinks everywhere.


We volunteered for a NoAids walk two weeks ago. We were going to be traffic cops, but then the real cops showed up so we just stood around, ate popsicles, and cheered.


This is my new buddy Joel and his girlfriend Yvette. Joel's in the Planning program as well and he lives right around the corner from our place.


We didn't spend much time at this festival, but there was a cool steam train that has been restored.


There was a lot of live music all over the streets during the Art Show.


Another gallery!


Here's a few dancers at the Rhythm Fest, which was super cool.


These kids are a group of young Mardi Gras Indians, a long tradition, that of which I know little about.

Brian's Birthday!

I just want to put up an I love you and Happy Birthday message to my honey, Bri. I can't wait for us to have at least seventy more of these....:) I'm so lucky to have such a brilliant, thoughtful, and fun husband. I'm glad we are able to spend your first birthday together as a married couple....love you and happy 26th!

French Quarter and Our House

Well, you haven't seen the inside yet, so here it is! This is what our new place looks like right after you walk in the front door.


Here's looking from the last doorway into the bedroom and beyond into the kitchen...


Cabinets...check.


The new couch! Our one piece of non Craigslist/hand-me down/old furniture.


Here's our little backyard. It looks super small in the picture because it's all cut off...but it is pretty small. We're hoping to get some used patio furniture in the next couple of days to spend all this nice fall weather sitting around outside. Oh...and that's my mango tree in the plant on the bottom left...she's doing good.


Lindz and I took a little bike trip to the French Quarter a week ago. It's been really nice weather lately, mid-70's and sunny. So, we just went and walked around a little bit. It's about 2 miles from our house.

The classic shot of the church in Jackson Square.

This is just a view of the French Quarter looking down towards the business district. I should have taken some pictures of the balconies with the overflowing plants and what not...but I didn't.


I thought this was cool. This is the street we live on (just two miles north) and it runs right through the heart of the French Quarter.


Oh Bourbon St. Love Acts and pizza? Who knew? This is the kind of stupid stuff you see all over down there. But, if you stay off of Bourbon St., the Quarter is really beautiful and really nice to stroll around.

Brian Calls the Marines

The Marines are everywhere..including our apartment!
This is a photo of the helicopters that were flying over continually before and after the storm in both Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Soooo..... we are adapting to all the stress of our first full-on schedule of classes, attempting to balance this with cleaning, moving in, and getting to work. I have gotten lost 3 times on my bike going to and from school, as the roads here are not on a grid system and one road can lead you in the completely wrong direction. I actually had to call Brian to come pick me up in the car on Monday because I'd kept biking in two different directions in the 90 degree heat.

I am very happy because we've both met a lot of cool people and our neighborhood rocks. I also just found out I will be doing work study with Save the Children....this is awesome because they are an international organization, as well as all over the U.S. and are difficult to get a job with. They don't offer internships for people trying to get a job, so therefore, my working with them for five hours a week for the next year and a half could really help out with connections and networking. Next semester, I will be starting my field placement, which will be an internship at another organization. All the hands-on experience has gotten me really excited, but both Bri and I are struggling with the amount of reading we have to do in a day.

Brian has an assistanceship at his university. He will be making a website for a neighborhood that has not taken off since Katrina. His website will be a model for the revitalization of all of the New Orleans neighborhoods. Hopefully after this, he will be working in conjunction with a professor about bike-way initiatives in New Orleans. For all of you who know Bri, this is right up his alley.

Now, the whole point of this e-mail. While we are adapting to all of the newness here in New Orleans, we are still trying to remember when and how to set our apartments security alarm. This morning, at 8:00, Brian decided to open the backdoor to check out the clouds going by for Hurricane Ike. The alarm goes screaming off, the community-wide alarm and I rushed up to turn it off. Ten minutes later, we are sitting in our kitchen, and I'm still in my pj's. Four marines walk directly by our kitchen window, meaning they hopped the fence to our backyard. Brian was like-what the heck? I told him it was because of the alarm and he kept saying, "No, no...but how did they get back there?" He went to the front of the house and sure enough, the Marines were securing our neighborhood because they'd heard an alarm go off.

The result: Post-It notes on both doors for Bri to remember, and I guess happiness that we live in a secure neighborhood. What a way to start the day!

We Survived Gustav

We didn't see much destruction when we got back to New Orleans, but this was a clear sign on Gustav rolling through.


This is the aparment we stayed at, on the second floor. A lot of trees went down and we lost power pretty quickly in our stay.


Here's one of the many trees down in Baton Rouge, which was hit much worse than New Orleans. Especially since no one there was ready for the storm and no one stocked up on supplies.


Here we are sitting in the dark eating crawfish pie! It was actually really good.


When we got back, the cable line was across the road and taped off. The mayhem!


Some of the National Guard troops stationed around New Orleans, helping to keep the looters at bay.


This is right near our house, they were there when we went grocery shopping the other day.


Lindsey wanted a picture of the stop sign down...seems like Gustav didn't listen...har har har.


Traffic! It took us about three hours to make it out of town when we left New Orleans, it should usually take about 1.


At least we were going the right way.


The only thing to do when the power is out...conquer the world...at which I failed.


In retrospect, I shouldn't have gone with the standard 'thumbs up'.


Line outside of Walgreens in Baton Rouge.