New Orleans for the Holidays

I am loving every moment of New Orleans! I have done so much in the past few weeks so rather than write it all out I'll just post pictures. 

Last weekend was the Po Boy festival in Uptown. There were sooo many people there so after waiting in line for 45min for a 3" Po Boy I was ready to call it a day. The Po Boy was from Zea and it basically changed my world. Asian sesame fried oyster Po Boy. Oysters are now officially my favorite food here. 

Servin' up the deliciousness at Po Boy Fest

The random guy did a terrible job taking our picture

Raw Oysters after work!

So we got off work early on Friday and decided to go out to lunch at Parkway, a famous Po Boy shop in Bayou St. John. We took our Po Boys to go and sat on the canal. I got the Thanksgiving Po Boy: 8" hoagie with turkey, stuffing, and cranberries. Whoa. I devoured that deliciousness! I meant to take a picture of it before I ate it but I was so hungry I just inhaled it. I didn't mean to eat the whole thing because as a recovering vegan I didn't want stomach issues after eating a large amount of turkey for the first time in 15 years, but I literally couldn't put it down. That's when I knew I was more "recovering" than "vegan".

View from my tree perch in City Park

Urban Outfitters for Black Friday!!

Some friends and I went to City Park Friday after Thanksgiving for Celebration in the Oaks - a festival of lights. It was absolutely lovely! They had Christmas lights up in all the beautiful trees, we got to walk through the botanical gardens and see some sculptures in the sculpture gardens, but the best part was the cajun version of the Night Before Christmas, read aloud with lights to depict. 

As far as work goes, it's been awesome! I am getting closer to my team and learning and getting experience every day. This a picture of one of my favorite days at work so far. Sarah and I were sent a house to pull up a temporary pole used for temporary electrical service, but the pole was 20' and after 30min of struggling we realized we could never pull it out ourselves. So we got some 12AWG wire out of the van, tied one end to the top of the pole and I took the other end. Sarah took the saws-all and we lumberjacked it. Here's the aftermath. 

OK, now on to the holidays! Traditional New Orleans Thanksgiving dinner: WOW!! It was so different from my family's normal Thanksgiving but it was so incredible! One of the families in my church was loving enough to invite me over for dinner. All the food was home made! Turkey, carrot souffle  home made rolls, seafood gumbo with rice and potato salad (potato salad in gumbo is kinda weird to me but apparently it's normal at least for Thanksgiving), and then the best part: oyster dressing. Oysters, ground pork, chicken liver, and stuffing. Whew, changed my life. I think I might need to be in New Orleans for every Thanksgiving from now on!

After dinner at the family's I went with to an Americorp person's house for my second Thanksgiving. They had a lot of good food, and the Turkey was a garbage can turkey (cooked in a garbage can?). 

So basically I've eaten more nonvegan than vegan the past few days and guess what? My stomach is intact with no apparent damage. I'm a pro at recovering.