The Best Kept Secret in the French Quarter

Let me take this oppurtunity to tell you all about Verti Marte.

Verti-Marte is a small grocery/deli/carryout that exists on 1201 Royal Street in the French Quarter in New Orleans.  If you're ever in the neighborhood, I would highly suggest a visit.  Particularly later in the evening, so you can socialize with the crazies and the drunks who are standing in line to get their mac and cheese or their jambalaya.

As silly a reason as it sounds, my reason for wanting to go to Verti-Marte during my trip to New Orleans had to do with Greg Dulli.  There's a song on the first Twilight Singers record entitled "Verti-Marte" and as soon as I found out about the deli, I wondered if maybe the song had been named after it.  The song is an odd, moody, lush, mostly instrumental  piece with random bits of dialogue repeated throughout.  Does not conjure up the image of a place you'd go get a sandwich at 1 AM. 

Verti-Marte, like all the best food places, is pretty inconspicuous.  You walk in, standing in line and wait to order.



You can peruse the large menu up front, advertising "Real Food for Real People at Real Prices".



Finally, you get your chance to order.  The food is worth the wait.



Anna and emerged with a muffuletta sandwich about the size of my face.  It was seriously large...and delicious.  Late at night sometimes, I dream about the sandwich.  It was so big though that Anna and I, together, could barely eat half of it.  I wish I had taken a picture of that sandwich now.

As we exited Verti-Marte, we were accosted by a drunk and/or crazy man eating mac and cheese who loudly exclaimed to us that it was the best mac and cheese he'd ever had.  A few blocks later, we run into this man on Bourbon Street walking a miniature horse outside of a gay bar (where another very nice, hairy man complimented my Twilight Singers t-shirt).


A few blocks after that, another very drunk and/or crazy man yelled at Anna and me that we needed to "love each other more!  There's not enough love in this world!"

Then we all had to meet up with our professor (who was taking a bunch of us college kids on this trip) who made us go to a bar to pick up his very drunk ladyfriend and drive her home. 

Overall, it was a pretty legendary night.

Sláinte Mhaith!

Today was St. Patrick's Day, a good day to wear green, drink Guinness, and pretend to be Irish.  Silly as this sounds, it was a good excuse for me to get nostalgic and think back on Marianne and I's trip to Ireland last July.  It truly was an awesome trip.  Marianne sent me a bunch of her photos from the trip and I had fun looking through them.  Oh, the memories...



There was the time when I felt a weird cumpulsion to hide behind this post in Cork.  I am also amused that there's a sign on the post for an Easter Rebellion commemoration.


And then there was the time I partied with these statues at our hostel in Dublin.



And then there was the time I crossed that trecherous rope bridge in Carrick-a-rede.



And of course, at every bar we went to, Marianne and I declared it METAL.


At our hostel in Belfast with Kelly from Canada and Jean-Marc from Miami, who I liked because he loved Anthony Bourdain even more than I did.  He's a chef  and when I brought up Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential, he exclaimed, "Oh my God, I read that book and thought, 'Holy shit, this is my life!'"  He also told me the night before that I was an "awesome girl" because I was the only one "not giving him shit".  The night before was pretty memorable, even though all that happened was a bunch of us hostel people hanging out in the back drinking vodka and beer.  I think a game of Kings was played.  Someone else got out a guitar and someone else played rap music and a bunch of people were talking and kicking a soccer ball around.  Oh, Paddy's, you were a weird and magical place.  I was possibly the only one not hungover in this photo, though I suppose it's hard to tell based on my facial expression.



And of course, what blog post about Ireland would be complete without the obligatory photo of a pint of Guinness?

At the end of each day, I took my Flip camera and recorded Marianne's final thoughts of the day, which we called our "Anthony Bourdain moment".  Here's my favorite one, at some fish and chips place in Dublin, the night before I was to fly home.

Poles on Puget Sound

I recently purchased a Groupon to take a handful of pole dancing classes at a gym in DC.  Pole dancing is a lot harder than it looks and requires a considerable amount of balance, upper-body strength, and coordination.  And, like any other form of exercise, it requires practice in order to improve one's abilities.  What sucks about pole dancing is that....you really need a pole to practice.  If you're stubborn like me and have to comply with certain agreements in your lease, then you're not going to set one up in your home.  Which means one must take to the streets in order to find adequate poles for practice.

This is also harder than you would think.  Good poles are apparently hard to come by.  They're always too wide, too narrow, or too unwieldy.

On our recent trip to Seattle, after wandering through Pike Place Market a bit, I took Anna and Joh down to the waterfront.  It was there were we discovered, near the weird statue of Christopher Columbus and by the Seattle Aquarium, was a raised stage... with some poles.



Now, as you can see...these are not quite ideal poles.  They were not nearly sturdy enough to do a catch-spin or to try and lift yourself off the ground.  Also, at least one side is situated on a step, so that makes things a bit awkward.  But I thought that they were decent enough to play around on and try a few tricks.  I tried to demonstrate some of these to Anna.
This mainly consisted of a lot of spinning around, since I had forgotten how to do most of the tricks I had learned in the one class I took a few weeks ago.







And trying not to fall off of the step to a concrete death.



Joh opted not to participate in the pole festivities, opting instead to play photographer.  Because she is not a shameless woman.

It just goes to show you that if you know where to look, opportunities are everywhere for random, shameless, fun antics with friends.

A Rainy Afternoon in Ballard

Anna, Joh, and I recently returned from a trip to Seattle. 



One thing that people kept trying to tell us before we went was that Seattle, being in the Pacific Northwest and all, is quite damp.  Rains quite a bit of the time.  You think that this would've been quite obvious. 

This fact did not become apparent until we decided to trek all the way from our hostel in Belltown to Lunchbox Laboratory in Ballard, because we were craving burgers in a bad way.



I'd read about Lunchbox Lab and its mythically large burgers, so it seemed like the good place to go to satisfy our insane hunger.  Two things you should know about Lunchbox Lab, if you ever have a chance to visit - 1) It is quite popular, probably due to word-of-mouth about its mythically large burgers and 2) It is ridiculouslously small inside.  It can comfortably seat... maybe 10 people inside, rather than the 30+ who had showed up, looking for food. 

Since we had come a long way and had no other options, we decided to park ourselves in one of the two very damp tables outside to sit and eat.  So, after having dried off our seats and table as much as possible, we sat outside in the cold, drizzly air, and ate our burgers.



They were even bigger than expected.  Regretably, I only managed to down about 1/4th of mine.

After that, we trekked down to my friend's apartment, where we took in some of the neighborhood sights.




My favorite were these concrete couches.  Which I would've sat in if they hadn't been so darned DAMP.


Only these tree-clocks rivaled the concrete couches for neighborhood quirky-cuteness.


Also, can someone explain this playground to me?  So confused here.  I would've climbed on it to test it out, but again, you know...it was damp.  Soon after this point we found my friend's apartment and spent many hours there trying to get warm and dry again.  Overall though, it was a very good afternoon.

Stay tuned for further accounts of our Seattle adventurings!

A Tribute to Tippy's Taco

Back when Marianne lived in the States, we would often get together at a place Tippy's Taco.  Tippy's Taco is a chain of very cheap, delicious Mexican food in Northern Virginia.  I don't know what started us on Tippy's in the first place.  But we continued to go whenever she was home from school.  And we went one final time before she moved to Spain in September.  These photos are from our final Tippy's visit.

They did have some amazingly delectable guacamole there.

I think about going to Tippy's sometimes.  And then I realize that I can't go with Marianne.  Sure, it would be awesome and tasty and cheese-filled, but it just wouldn't be the same.  It wouldn't be filled with chomping on chips while discussing school and boys and Pearl Jam and Crispin Glover and our eventual adventures in Ireland.

So, suffice to say, I miss my Tippy's trips with Marianne.  But, while I do miss her something most fierce, I should not let this deprive me of wonderful Tippy's Tacos.  One day, one day I will return again...for some epic enchiladas.

Year End Roundup: 2009

2009.

I think I might've been mistaken about you.

In my head, I thought I couldn't wait to be rid of you. That you were one of the worst years ever. The economy was crumbling. I had a horribly stressful job that I hated. Michael Jackson died. Creed got back together. People freaked out over health care reform. Glenn Beck became creepily popular. I began to worry a lot about the future.

Then I began looking at photos I had taken over this past year. Of all the things I've done and all the time I've spent with friends and the adventures we've had. And then I realized that I was wrong about this year. I had let too many little things get me down, too many things I couldn't control.

This year was actually really great. I've done many things I'd been too scared to do before and gone places I've never been able to before and had many, many good times.

So, let's epic-ly review...2009. In pictures!

JANUARY

I rang in the New Year, as usual, with Linnea. This time at a big party at Mallary's Arlington house.


January marked a few significant events. The most memorable of them involving a trip up to New York with Megan and Skye, where we watched ourselves get a brand spankin' new president. Other people migrated to our home base of the DC area to watch the inauguration. But we wanted to be different. Instead we watched it in Times Square, on all the huge big screens. Sure, there was weirdly no sound on any of the screens, but it was just as cool.



It was also during that trip where we saw this young wizard naked on Broadway (and I've never been able to watch a Harry Potter movie in quite the same way again).


FEBRUARY

One of my favorite things in February was my trip to Seattle, marking the first time I've ever taken a trip alone. It was scary as hell, but it was worth it and I had an amazing time.


I also got to see Dan Savage in person twice in one week!


MARCH

March was a good month. It marked many things. Including the first time that we went out for St. Patrick's Day, as a group.


It was also marked the anniversary of the birth of that dark forest of a man, Mr. William Shatner. I went and played Shatner-themed Cranium (dubbed "Crane"-ium, after Denny Crane of Boston Legal) at Lisa's fiance's apartment.


Megan and I took in a lot of events at the Kennedy Center. We also took in a lot of the view from their terrace.


Jenny and Chris also came to visit and I was reminded how much I missed having them around on a near-daily basis.


APRIL

April. I got to go to Megan's and make festive Easter cupcakes for the first time. Seriously, aren't these adorable?


It also began to get nice and warm again, which meant I could spend more time outdoors with friends.


MAY

May was a huge month. I went to Philadelphia one day, to watch a kinetic sculpture derby race.


And then a couple of days after that I went to Boston to go see The National.


On the way to the concert, I walked by Fenway Park. This would've been really cool if I was a Red Sox fan.


JUNE

June was also a crazy month. I saw a warehouse full of art in DC.


Mallary and I drove 6 hours to Watkins Glen, New York, to camp out with other crazed fans and see The Mountain Goats play in a barn.


Mallary and I also tried out Ethiopian beer for the first time, which was delish.


JULY

July was EPIC. Mostly because of Marianne and I's trip to Ireland.



I also moved out of my mom's house and Skye and I moved into a big, grown-up apartment together!


Boaz, one of my rats, passed away suddenly. I still miss his spazziness and complete inability to sit still.


AUGUST

August involved getting settled in to the new apartment.


Megan, Skye, Megan's mom, and I also went down to Colonial Williamsburg for a weekend. It was the first time I've ever been there, even though I'm a Virginian and you think I would've gone like...a bajillionty times by now.


We got to see the American Revolution begin, as it does every day in Colonial Williamsburg...promptly at noon.


Megan left for Morocco, and I thought that I would have to spend the entire next year missing her (but then she came back a year early and my heart was whole again!)


SEPTEMBER

In September, Skye's friend Allison came to stay with us while looking for a place and a job in DC.


Megan, Anna, and I went to New York to see some Broadway shows


Though sadly, not Spiderman, which has yet to open.


Marianne moved to Spain to be a teacher, and so we had our last ever meal at Tippy's Taco in Fairfax. I really miss Marianne and I's Tippy's trips, which we would take whenever she was home from college.


Marlowe also passed away this month. I'll always miss Marlowe, even if I get rats again. Marlowe would've made a great ambassador for rats. He was so wonderfully affectionate and sweet.



OCTOBER

We were officially into fall now, which brought many things, including a trip back to Fredericksburg to visit old college haunts.


Burlesque shows...


The Equality March in DC (which actually did pass marriage equality legislation, huzzah!)


And of course, that greatest of holidays, Halloween. Symbolized here by a carved orange pepper (Harris Teeter was out of pumpkins).


NOVEMBER

I think I suffered from a lack of picture-taking initiative in November. It seems as if the only pictures I have are from the camera on my phone from concerts I went to. But I did go to a crap-ton of concerts in November!

Public Enemy (sorry, it's with an iPhone so it's a very dark, blurry pic of Flava Flav...but you can see the big-ass clock!)


The Mountain Goats...the 3rd time I'd seen them that year.


And Saul Williams, as his alter-ego Niggy Tardust


I also saw Cold Cave and Metric in November, but sadly have no photos of either or those. Sigh.

DECEMBER

And now we finish off the year!

We had not one, but two snow-storms this month. The later, being the more intense, blizzard-y, 2-foot of snow affair, referred to nation-wide (or Twitter-wide, at least) as the great Snowpocalypse.


Megan turned 24!


And Skye and I put up our very own Christmas tree!


So that's my pictorial year in review! It's actually been a pretty fun year I think, and I've realized that I've actually done a lot of cool stuff, met some neat new people, and had plenty of hijinx.

So here's to 2009 and hoping that 2010 will be even more epic!