After a Zydeco-playin', restaurant-hoppin', penguin-stealin', Nathasha-esque weekend...things are slowing down to normal tempo again. Our visitors left on Monday after a very fun and eventful 4 days. Here is short summary of "Justin, Katie and Kendra Do New Orleans":
1. Thursday - Justin and Katie were picked up at the Louis Armstrong Airport by Kendra and Tim. We all met up during our lunch break and ate at Cafe Reconcile, a local restaurant on Oretha Castle Boulevard, better known as OC Haley. After a very slow-moving but enjoyable lunch, we all went back to work and our visitors went back to our condo. Most of us managed to get out of work early in preparation for Natasha Bedingfield's concert at the House of Blues. Yes, we bought tickets to see Natasha (after much persuasion from the boys). We all met up at Liz, Leah and Nick's apartment off of St. Charles, then took the street car over to the French Quarter. We had a few encounters with locals before making it to the show, including friending a bellboy named Brandon who taught us that the word "dank" is lame. Maybe the cool vibe at the House of Blues influenced me, but I actually applaud Natasha's performance, and have completely changed my mind about her. Seeing everyone jam out to "These Words" made me laugh, but she's a cool chick. After our dose of British pop, we ate at a nearby (I think) pizza place...I don't remember the restaurant's name, but I do remember the amazing philly cheese steak pizza.
2. Friday- Marc and I managed to get off work in exchange for a phone conference that never happened, so we got to hang out with our visitors while the rest were at work. The first item on the list was a stop at the local grocery store to stock up on food for the weekend. We spent $120 on groceries. I hate the real world. After that I took an accidental 2 hour nap while everyone else explored New Orleans and danced in the rain (no, seriously). Since we did the whole French Quarter scene the night before, we decided to have some fun indoors by cooking a family dinner and having a dance party. Kendra, Katie and Marc cooked banana pudding (delicious) and David, Justin, Tim and I covered the chicken parmesan and pasta. Yay family bonding!
3. Saturday- The day started with a phone call at 10am from Nick, telling us to gather everyone and head over their apartment for eggs. After breakfast we all took the street car over to Canal Street in search of the Zydeco Festival, filled with free music and not-free food. I was more drawn to the food than the music actually, and almost bought a humongous jar of honey for no particular reason. We ate at a restaurant on S. Peters, ordered a fried shrimp Po-Boy, and left very full. We came home around 7pm and took a team nap for 2 hours. We woke up with only enough energy to watch Forrest Gump.
4. Sunday- After much discussion, we ended up eating lunch for breakfast at a restaurant on Magazine Street with Liz, Leah, David, Justin and Tim. Some of us went back home to watch soccer games and the rest went to the much anticipated Audubon Aquarium. We literally ran from the Canal Street to the Aquarium to catch the Sea Otter feeding at 2pm, explored for an hour, then sat to watch the Penguin feeding at 3pm. Let's just say that penguins were almost kidnapped--that's how awesome they were. We ended up buying a penguin from the store to take home with us. His name is Jack. After petting some nerf sharks and getting almost attacked by a sting ray, we went back to the Zydeco Festival in search of crawfish. We found some at the same restaurant from the day before. By the time we got home it was 7pm.
You think you'll run out of things to do here, but the only thing you run out of is money. I have to admit, I've underestimated how expensive living in the city would be, especially when trying to experience all that it has to offer (who wouldn't spend $17.50 to see the penguin's at the Audubon Aquarium?). Our weekend ended with the harsh reality that we need to live off left-overs for the next week.
Back at work, things are starting to pick up speed. Marc and I are making progress with the Scarf Initiative (Marc set up Ashe's first E-bay account!). The Ashe scarf website is almost up and running...so be on the look out for it! Today we drove over to Gretna to talk to the owner of Pak Mail about their being our shipping department and business partner. We think he's a winner. After making a stop at Smoothie King and almost "boarding a ferry" (that's what Marc's GPS system told us to do...really), we made it back to OC Haley to take some pictures of Ashe's sales boutique. This section of Ashe's website has been under-construction for over a year now, which points to two things: the lack to staff working on specific areas and how much the staff have their hands full with other projects. Marc and I are the only people besides Carol, Christine, and Fatiha (a volunteer and employee of the French Market) working on the Scarf Initiative. It seems as though Ashe is involved in most cultural events in the Central City, which makes me wonder how they ever have time for a lunch break.
Although going through a period of disillusionment with the whole non-profit sector, Ashe has revived my optimism for grassroots initiatives and non-profits in general. It's amazing being alive and around the time when the words "social entrepreneurship" are being thrown around and slowly becoming a common term--especially in such a blossoming corridor like OC Haley. This historically significant boulevard is a sort of brotherhood of non-profits, all working together with different focuses to reach a common goal: to resurrect the entrepreneurial spirit of the Central City, and and revive the citizens of New Orleans. OC Haley, formerly known as Dryades Street, is truly undergoing a Renaissance. The goal for most of these non-profits is to provide the necessary resources and services to locals so one day the street can be made up of small businesses, instead of non-profits, like in the past. Ashe does its part in this process by offering support and services to rising artist and musicians from the Central City area. Many of the artists showcased at sales boutique lost hope after Katrina, but found it with the help of Ashe.
I am happy to see Ashe move forward. They are moving progressively: attaining sustainability, broadening their network of supporters, and thinking internationally. I feel fortunate to witness the organization at such a great point of their development.
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