June 10, 2012
Yesterday was a very New Orleans day. I’m totally a local now: I went running down the St. Charles streetcar tracks, because the sidewalk are for tourists, obvi. It was kind of fun dodging streetcars and seeing the half-buried mardi gras beads embedded in the dirt path. There was a heavy cloud cover and the humidity was oppressive until it finally rained, which was really refreshing.
June 8, 2012
I’ve been living without a pause the past few days so I haven’t even had a chance to type up a blog post.
June 7, 2012
The title of this blog post is based on an old New Orleans expression, “making groceries,” which is another way of saying grocery shopping. I’m starting to see how, at the market, people make friends while they make groceries. Just another way that the market facilitates those connections and on a bigger scale, a sense of community.
June 4, 2012
I met one of our neighbors this morning as I was coming in from my run. I said, “Hi, I’m Caroline. I just moved in here and I’ll be here all summer.” She said, “Are you from North Carolina?” She recognized my accent just from those few words! I learned that she’s from Boone. I also met her dog Molly, who looks like this: http://www.petplanet.co.uk/petplanet/images/breeds/oldenglishsheepdog12.jpg.
June 3, 2012
This morning I went to brunch with a friend of a friend, a woman named Virginia who is a
New Orleans native. She was so friendly and incredibly helpful in getting me oriented in terms of the city’s layout. She printed out maps for me and wrote up lists of places to go, and after we ate she drove me around and showed me how to get to those places. It was really fun meeting her and so valuable gaining that understanding of the city from her, especially since I’m generally bad with directions. And now I have several more pages of recommendations that I’m excited to try out, as well as a new friend in the city. I am so appreciative of how friendly all the people I’ve met have been. Even when we were in the restaurant and Virginia was drawing out a map for me, the girl at the table next to us overheard and spoke up to welcome me to New Orleans. Moments like that remind me how glad I am to be here!