Whew.

I have just arrived home from my first official big catering function - a family reunion for about 100 people. Overall it went well - the client was extremely happy....but there were a couple of bumps in the road that I will address with the appropriate personnel.

The last couple weeks have been an absolute blast. I had a couple of super downer moments, none of which I will get into here. Yet. You like reading about the fun stuff anyway. I'll roll back to a couple Tuesdays ago, when I was greeted with my first Minnesota faces. My friend Angel was here for a conference and brought her friend Karen with. It was sooooooo unbelievably nice to have some familiarity in my life. We met up for dinner and a stroll down Bourbon. Hit up the Funky Pirate Bar to see Big Al Carson - who's AWESOME! TONS of laughs were had and I'm super sad they're gone now.

My Thursday plans got switched to Wednesday...we were going to check out this super cool wine bar, but decided on a night in front of the TV instead. It's a place called W.I.N.O - Wine Institute of New Orleans. You buy a card or start a tab, and you're able to sample 1, 2 or 4 oz. pours of 120 different wines. They have an amazing cheese selection and the hummus is To. Die. For. I'm blanking on what I did that Thursday...when it comes to me I shall recap it.

Friday was back to the Quarter. My friends were still in town, so we met at my hotel, had a couple drinks and apps, gave them a tour and then embarked on our evening. The original plan was to meander down Royal Street, stopping at whatever struck our fancy for an app and a drink. Of course, we detoured off our plan, and right into a Pimm's Cup at some hotel bar. Not just any hotel bar, but a rotating hotel bar. Yes, it's kitschy, but it was pretty cool. I had been there previously with a friend, and while it took some getting used to, overall it was a pretty cool experience. We were going to hit up an Irish Pub down the street, but ended up grabbing Mexican food at Felipe's. It's like Chipotle, only better and cheaper. We were going to try to avoid Bourbon street, but we ended up meeting some other friends of theirs at the Cat's Meow. I believe I've recapped the rest of this evening in a previous post....

Saturday I picked up the girls at their hotel and we went out to a local (to me) bar to watch soccer and grab lunch. After recapping their week, we called a cab and they headed to the airport. I napped most of the rest of the afternoon (much needed) and had resigned myself to an evening home alone. Welcome to Loserville, population Me. Around 10 in the evening, a colleague called asking if I had any interest in going out with some new people at work. Let me check my calendar....um....YES! We met at Rendezvous bar (fitting, no?), and from there to Balcony Bar (where the infamous kickball drinkoff took place the week prior). From there we were whisked away to Monkey Hill where they had a decent band playing and then finished up that portion of the evening at Philips.

I'm used to going out for happy hour, and being home, in bed, asleep by 10 at night usually. Even on weekend. Here however, no one really goes out until late (like 11), and since the bars don't really close, they stay out until the sun comes up. This does not make for any sort of rational sleeping habits, I tell you. Anyway, I met up with the girl I was supposed to live with when I moved here and we played Apples to Apples with some of her friends until the wee hours of the morning. It was super fun, and great to meet some new people. Sunday I slept in, was a horribly lazy bum, and eventually made it out to the kickball fields. Joined a friend for ice cream and had an early night.

This past week has absolutely flown by. Actually, the two months I've been here have been an absolute blur. Last week was filled with kickball and doctors appointments and soccer and cocktails. I was sadly unable to play the first week of kickball this week - hopefully next week I'll be back to normal. My team is super fun as is the whole league. It's in a different part of town than I normally hang out, so it's nice to see a new part of the city. Had a massive heart to heart with a colleague who I hope I can trust, took a trip back to being a kid and watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and had a bunch of ice cream and pastries. I really need to watch what I'm eating around here...all this rich food has the potential to result in not so happy things for me.

All in all, its been another amazing couple of weeks. This weekend is filled with the Running of the Bulls, soccer, kickball, more soccer and perhaps even Despicable Me. My knee is getting better by the hour (though that could be the painkillers my orthopedist gave me), so hopefully I'll be back in the Krav studio by Tuesday and contributing to our kickball team in some other way that beer drinking and clapping.

Did I mention the "Slap Cuzzies"??? If not, they're awesome on many, many levels.

Week Recap

It's been a week of ups and downs, that's for sure. Friday was somewhat a blur. Went to the local hotel bar with some colleagues, met a new friend and an old one showed up. Couldn't figure out anything to do so we sat. And drank. And laughed. And drank more. And laughed even more. Seems like a recurring theme with me. In any event, we had a great time, and I was out shortly after arriving back at the hotel around 10.

Saturday....I had to finally cowboy up and hit Tar-zhay. In the suburbs. Yikes. Now, I'm one of like three people on the planet that can go into Target to buy shampoo and walk out with said shampoo, and shampoo only. I don't walk in and walk out $300 later. However, this time, I had a list. In the future I shall rethink what I sell when I move. I could have saved probably $150 on stupid shit. I need everything. Literally everything. So I did what any sensible person would do. I made a list. I'm talking everything from curtains to a toilet paper holder (which I, of COURSE, forgot). When I saw how full my cart was, I put the over/under at $500. Final tally? $493 and change. I could have had a new pair of shoes for that! Stupid necessities.

After assembling my clothing racks, and putting my shower back together, I headed even further into suburbia to meet up with my friend Cory (see previous post for his heroics). His buddy was having a crawfish boil, which of course I was down for. I unintentionally took the scenic route, so I was a bit late, and unfortunately by this point, it had started raining. There goes the boil. His buddy Shawn brought over probably 10 pounds of the stuff, sausage, corn, potatoes, the whole 9. Then I discovered the video game obsession. We couldn't find Arch Rivals, nor CastleVania, but we did find Contra. AND he remembered the code! Awesome times 1000. Played until we beat the game, and then headed to the drive thru daquiri bar (YES, they have them here!!!), and to another friends for the UFC fight. Dude had a sweet golf cart....which I tried to trade my car for...different story....different post. After the fight (and a mini-nap), they brought me to their local bar. And for some reason they let me be the DJ....yeah. 'Nuff said.

Woke up on the couch at some point, had coffee and then headed back to the city. I was having a porch party that afternoon and wanted to be ready. Super fast stop at the hotel for a shower, hopped in a cab and headed home. Thankfully I remembered my keys were in my hotel room BEFORE I got home (yet another story for yet another post), so the cabbie was gracious enough to turn back. Not gracious enough to hit pause on the meter, but gracious nonetheless. The details of the rest of this day are in the previous post, so I won't rehash them here. Suffice to say it was mostly a great afternoon and evening.

The rest of this week has been pretty mundane. I've been rocking out at work (Chemical Brothers currently), hanging out at the local bar, convincing numerous suitors that I'm perfectly happy single, trying to get in the mindset of quitting smoking (must quit by my next b-day), eating copious amounts of gyros, and becoming better at biting my tongue. Next we shall work on our patience level (currently non-existent). I will rant about why that is such a challenge for me at a later point in time. I did discover a bar called....drum roll.....Bulldog!! And they have a fabulous beer selection! Drank a bunch of Rogue's beers last night with the work crew. It's super close to home, not walking distance, but definitely less than a $10 cab ride (some mistakes I actually DO learn from!).

Not much planned for this weekend though. Grabbing dinner with a friend tonight, searching out a laundromat and giving my apartment a good scrub down tomorrow, and I guess being dragged to SATC2 Sunday. Not that I don't love, love, love Sex and the City, I just haven't heard a single good thing about this film. And I don't really want to PAY to see it. But, it's a chance to meet some girls, and hopefully start to recreate my girls back home. I know they aren't replicatable (is that a word?), but I need some girly time sometimes!

Next week should rock pretty hard. My computer should arrive Monday, Imogen Heap at the House of Blues Monday night, which means I need to re-schedule my first Krav Maga class for Tuesday, MONO Wednesday in Baton Rouge and on top of it all, because I should have my computer, I'll FINALLY be able to start learning French! The easiest way to ease the homesickness is to stay busy, focused on other things. Yes, I just admitted I'm homesick. I miss the shit out of all of you back in MN. It's only been a month, and I know it'll get better, but it's still made me sad this week, and made me question the decision to move. I know in my heart of hearts it was the right thing to do, I just need to keep telling myself. And keeping my mind on other things here. So I shall.

XOXOXO ~ Me