Big ole update

Okay, it's possible we'll never finish filling out those bullet points. At some point it becomes more important to share what's been happening most recently. If we do fill out the rest, we'll post it in the original blog where they occurred, and we'll let you know in a new blog so you can go back and read some interesting stories.

But now I'll start with now and work my way backwards until I start to lose track of days. Today is Wednesday. Brendan and I arrived in Wisconsin this afternoon around 12pm. We had planned to spend the day in Chicago with Brendan's parents, but his mom is just getting better from a nasty flu-bug she got over the weekend, so we got on another train to Milwaukee where his dad picked us up. This is the view outside their house:

Snow! Glorious snow! It's really beautiful here, and we're told it might snow another 10 inches or so the day after tomorrow. Today we're taking it easy after a night on the train.

The train trip was quite fine. Leaving New Orleans by train is heaven for bird lovers. It goes through marshes, wetlands, swamps...I'm not really sure what the difference is between all those, but it goes through one or all. What I'm trying to get at is there are cranes, herons, various types of ducks, and it's such a treat to see all those birds. The cranes, especially, were everywhere, sometimes congregating in groups of twenty or more. I wish I'd gotten a picture of that.

Brendan did try to take a picture of the mist at one point. You couldn't tell where the Mississippi met the sky. But by the time we got the camera out and ready, we were no longer right on the water. But you can still see how misty it was:

Well, you can sorta tell how misty it was. On Monday we didn't do very much. On Sunday we had brunch with Jocelyn and Nate and their upstairs neighbors whose names I've embarrassingly forgotten. A little later on Sunday we went to a Couchsurfing potluck and met a bunch of really cool people, and got to know a bit better some we'd already met. We talked a lot to a fellow hitchhiker and he showed us pictures of various signs he's used to try and attract rides. This inspired us to take a picture of our most recently used hitchhiking sign:

On Saturday spent some time internetting, and on our way home we talked to Jocelyn to see what she was up to for the evening, and she invited us to join her and Nate for a tacky Christmas sweater party later. We said maybe. And then we remembered how we want to start saying yes! to things, or at least yes. About a week earlier, we had turned down an invitation to go into a halfway-house and see what it was like and as soon as we walked away from that opportunity, we realized we should have said yes. We miss out on unknown opportunities when we say no. This trip is our chance to say yes more than ever before, because we don't have any obligations or work schedules. To sum it up perfectly and serendipitously, as we just read this for an upcoming book club meeting, "Unexpected travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God," from Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

So we decided to say yes! to the tacky Christmas sweater party. But Jocelyn and Nate weren't going until about 10pm and it was only about 8pm or so. And then Michael called. Michael is a couchsurfer we met playing tag football last weekend. He decided to stay in New Orleans an extra day and wanted to know if we wanted to meet him in the French Quarter. We, of course, wanted to say yes. So we did, and we decided that we might still make it to the party later.

We met Michael by Jackson Square and began walking towards Bourbon Street. On the way we visited a beautiful art gallery, with pieces that sold for over $150k. We spent some time discussing what we liked best and finding out the prices from the friendly and helpful curator, and then we went to Bourbon St. Our first stop:

Lafitte's claims to be the oldest building used a bar in the United States. The tall man next to Brendan is Michael, and the two outer gentlemen just happened to be nearby and when invited to be in the picture they enthusiastically joined. Suffice to say the rest of the night was somewhat debaucherous, yet fascinating. Mingling with all the drunk people on Bourbon St. is more enjoyable when one is also drunk, at least for me.

As the night was winding to a close and we were keeping Michael company waiting for the streetcar, we were chit-chatting and the word "couchsurfing" came up. A young lady standing near us asked if we were from New Orleans and we found out she is a couchsurfer as well, here visiting her sister. So our couchsurfing circle widened, and we were able to see her and Michael again at the potluck the next day.

On Friday evening we had the second installment of a World of Darkness roleplaying game Brendan is leading. We've made some new friends through this and they are delightful people as well as delightful role-players. My character turned into a werewolf!

And this is where my memory starts to fade and days run together. We probably rehearsed last week, and we probably spent some time at CC's checking our email, and we probably walked a lot. The delightful usual.