January-February 2016

2016 started well enough. We got back from my birthday road trip, and January saw both a snow-day in DC, and a trip to New Orleans.

Our trip to the ‘Big Easy’ wasn’t planned very far in advance, as it was just a case of us taking advantage of one of R’s work trips, so the whole experience had an element of surprise to it. We hadn’t realised how much warmer it would be at this time of year further south, and we hadn’t realised that Mardi Gras goes on for a number of weeks, and we hadn’t realised how much we had been missing drinking outdoors… These things combined to make us go a little crazy in New Orleans. If you have never been, I would highly recommend it. It felt like all of America had decided to go on an early spring break; people were drinking in the street from at least lunchtime, there were parades, and bands, and bars with their doors open to the balmy January air. We had at least done some research into food in New Orleans, so even though we only had two full days we managed to fit in plenty of pralines, beignets, muffuletta and po boy sandwiches, and, of course, gumbo.

At a Mardi Gras parade in the French Quarter. Not just your typical parade, this one was the Krew of Barkus – if you look to the right of the picture you’ll see one of the themed floats.

Nothing to see here. Just a man out for the day with his parrot.

Relaxing by the river.

Back in DC I was pretty sociable, having established myself in a reading group and a choir and taken on some responsibility for organising social events for these. This was useful, as R was away quite a bit with work. When he was home, R and I became pretty well known in our local sports bar, where we watched pretty much all the Green Bay Packers games, and I enjoyed watching Peyton Manning and the Broncos win the Super Bowl.

Birthday roadtrip

Is it the end of the world? No, just snow.