Friday, April 18, 2008

...I drove my chevy to the levy but the levy was GONE




















Shana and Greg:
After a final breakfast with the Habitat crew at Yankie Stadium, we headed to New Orleans. First stop was at Tea Eva's for crawfish pies and pralines. Next, we went to Holly and Burt's house, with whom we stayed with for the next 4 nights. (Thanks, by the way!). They live right near Magazine St., which is an awesome young, cool neighborhood with lots of restaurants and way too many antique shops. Many of the other houses in the area (also called the Garden District) were gorgeous, large, old homes with huge decks (my favorite) and trees covered in mardi gras beads.

That afternoon we went to the French Quarter for the French Quarter Festival. We met up with our friends Mike and Ryan from Habitat at Cafe du Monde for some traditional beignets, which are basically fried dough in powdered sugar (and are AMAZING), and cafe au lait with chicory. Next, the 3 guys and Shana strolled around Burbon St. where there were way too many "gentlemen's bars." But, we did enjoy the very cheap drinks "to go" and all the live music in the street for the festival. The social scene was way more centered on drinking rather than music unlike some of the other cities we've visited. New Orleans is the 3rd place on our trip where you can drink in the streets, but this outdoor party scene just blows the competition away. We were also surprised by all the obvious underage drinking-- not that we're providing any suggestions (Joe!). We also enjoyed the many crazy T-shirts for sale. Our 3 favorites were: 3) "FEMA Evacuation Plan: Run, Bitch, Run", 2) "I drove my chevy to the levy but the levy was GONE", and 1) featuring a picture of both Obama and Hillary with the caption "Bros before Hoes"

The next day we went back to the French Quarter Festival but spent most of the time away from Burbon St. on the waterfront. We heard some incredible local bands, including a complete brass band and some great swing, country, jazz, and blues. For lunch that day we had the absolute best sandwich either of us have ever eaten. It was a Crab Cake Po'Boy with Remoulade sauce from Johnny's Po'Boys. The whole road trip was worth it for that sandwich!

We also got some delicious bread pudding with Burbon sauce at one of the festival food stands (which all had to be non-chain, local, sit-down restaurants). Later that afternoon we visited Tulane, which was appropriate since we had just started reading Grisham's The Pelican Brief which features a Tulane Law Student and her lover/professor.

On Monday, we drove to the Bayou and took a chartered swamp tour. Both of us were impressed with the beauty of the small bayous. We also made two important discoveries. First, alligators speak French/Creole (the guide called the gators to the boat by yelling "Ici ... viens ici") and, second, gators love marshmallows. We really liked the tour in general, and also enjoyed driving around afterwards. When we got back to New Orleans, we took a break from Cajun food and went out for pizza ... and $2 pitchers of local beer (Abita). Have we mentioned that alcohol is dirt cheap here?

On our last day in New Orleans, we took a walking tour of the French Quarter, led by the National Park Service. We learned a lot about local history, culture (finally found out what creole means: it refered to someone born in the colony, but now refers to the mix of French/Spanish/African/Anglo culture unique to Louisiana), and architecture. The tour guide also claimed that cola and root beer was invented in a French Quarter Pharmacy (which is counter to the Coca Cola Company's claim of inventing cola in Atlanta).

Although we had a good time, we found New Orleans a bit exhausting. The effects of Katrina are still very evident in that you shouldn't drink the tap water, you have to watch out for infections, and prices are much higher than usual. Life is just a lot harder, especially in the non-touristy areas. However, we were very impressed by the camarederie among the locals and the vast number of fleurs-de-lis displayed around the city as a symbol of pride.

We were quite exited to hit the road again, get to Austin, TX, and (especially) to listen The Golden Compass in the car.

Friday, April 11, 2008

I got hammered in Biloxi
























Shana:

For the past 4 days Greg and I have been waking up at the crack of dawn and working construction for Habitat For Humanity in Biloxi, Mississippi. Every day we are shocked that our right arms haven't fallen off from hammering so many nails. We've built 3 sheds (with roofs and shelving), lain down foundations, floors, and raised walls for 3 houses that will go to families who lost their homes during Katrina. Working from 8-4 in the Gulf Coast sun gives you a really good farmer tan!

For the week, we're staying at "Yankie Stadium" (don't worry, this one is spelled with an "ie"), which is basically set up like a summer camp. We sleep on bunks and eat dinner in a large mess hall underneath the stands. We've spent each evening playing cards, telling jokes, and having fun with our crew of volunteers-- Mike and Ryan from Canada, "Juvenile" Joe and Jim (his dad) from Michigan, and Liz from Connecticut. Basically, all the twenty-somethings had to stick together.

We highly recommend coming down here to work for Habitat. We've had a great experience. It's been a lot of fun and very fulfilling. It's awesome to work your body really hard and actually see a physical product of your labor.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Graceland



Shana:
Before going to Memphis, we detoured to Holly Springs, Mississippi, home of "Graceland Too."  This personal collection of Elvis Memorabelia owned by the self-appointed "Wolrd's Greatest Elvis fan" was incredible but very very strange.  Basically, the owner, also the tour guide, was incredibly Obsessive-Compulsive about Elivs.  He had thousands of Elvis posters, records, VHS tapes, clothing, cars, rugs-- basically anything Elvis hoarded in his small house.  He was very knowledgeable about Elvis, but also crazy.  It was certainly one of the most memorable tours I've ever had.
We were surprised how much poorer Memphis is than Nashville.  Elvis Presley Blvd. was full of cheap motels, fast food, and run down stores.  Downtown and Beale St. were vibrant and full of activity.  We especially loved that Beale St. is one of the 5 places you can drink your beer outside (2 visited on this trip, 3 to go).  Beale St. (made famous by the Beale St. Blues style) is also blocked off from cars and made into a pedestrian walk way.  We loved being able to walk from bar to bar, checking out all the live music, and watching the city celebrate since the Memphis Basketball team had just won its Final 4 game.  We saw an awesome blues band as we had a fried catfish dinner. 
The next morning we went to Graceland-- Elvis' mansion.  It was really interested learning about the life and career of Elvis, but the mansion wasn't quite as crazy as we had expected.  The green carpeted floor to ceiling "Jungle Room" was a site to see, but the rest of it just looked like typical 70's celebrity style.  And, now, we really want to find a Peanut Butter, Banana, and Bacon grilled Sandwich, Elvis style...
We couldn't find anywhere to make us an Elvis style sandwich, so we opted for a Dinner Style Seafood restaurant with 25 cent Oysters and crawfish by the pound.  We had a whole fried catfish, oysters, and banana pudding.  And, we got to watch the Red Sox game while we ate.  Greg wishes there was a place like that by his house.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

The Nashville Sound


Greg:

We arrived in Nashville on Thursday night. There we stayed with Tiffany and Joshua, a really nice couple we had found on couchsurfers.com and who let us crash in their spare room.

As soon as we got to downtown Nashville, we realized how much the city deserves the nickname "Music City, USA". Everything there is centered around the music scene. Every bar on Broadway, offers live music almost around the clock. Of course, country music dominates the scene, but there is a little bit of almost everything. We even passed by a hip hop bar/club.

On Thursday night, we went downtown for dinner and music. We ate at Jack's BBQ, one of the most famous places in town, which serves fantastic ribs and pork shoulder, and offers 6 types of BBQ sauce. They are 1) Kansas City Style (tomato based, sweet, smoky), 2) Texas Style (similar to KC style, but a little less sweet and more spicy), 3) Tennessee style (vinegar based), 4) Carolina style (mustard based), 5) Extra hot Texas Style, and 6) Music City White BBQ Sauce (made from mayonnaise and horseradish). The first 2 were delicious, and the rest were "interesting". After dinner, we walked up and down Broadway and stopped in various bars to listen to the live music. Very few had covers. Unfortunately, we arrived to late to take part of the free line dancing at the Wildhorse Saloon.

On Friday, we went for brunch at the Loveless Cafe, a restaurant opened in 1951 which was recommended in our roadtripping guide despite being 20 minutes out of town. Boy was the drive worth it. Both of us agree that the biscuits were far and away the best we had ever had, and the eggs, hashbrown casserole, and preserves were also delicious. After brunch, we visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and got to learn all about the style's history and characteristics. Neither of us are big country music fans, so we were surprised by how much we enjoyed the museum. We ended up spending 3 hours there, much of the time spent listening to excerpts of great songs.

That night, we capped off our whirlwind tour of the country music scene by going to a performance at the world famous Grand Ole Opry. This is a live radio show recorded in a large theater, in which about 15 member bands and singers perform one or two songs. Supposedly, the Grand Ole Opry has dominated and shaped the country music landscape over the years similarly to how SNL has dominated the sketch comedy scene. We had a blast, especially when Little Jimmy Dickens, a tiny old man in a ridiculous cowboy outfit, played and made jokes about his wife (e.g.: "my wife was looking at cars for Christmas, and said she wanted me to get her something that went from 0 to 160 in 10 seconds ... so I bought her a set of bathroom scales).

Before leaving the city we had to see the great spectacle of The Parthenon. Who knew you could visit Ancient Greece by visiting Nashville. A full size replica of the The Parthenon stands in Centennial Park. Oooh wee!

Next up: I'm going to Graceland, Graceland ... Memphis, Tennessee ... I'm going to Graceland.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Middle Tennessee





Greg:

After Atlanta, we head to Nashville, Tennessee. On the way, we made two very memorable stops. The first was at the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg (and no, we couldn't determine whether that's what the name of the town refers to. We took a free tour. It was very authentic, and not too corny or commercialized. We got to see (and smell!) the sour mash of corn, rye and barley, as well as the charcoal which they drip the whiskey through, and which distinguishes Jack Daniels, a "Tennessee sipping Whiskey", from Bourbon. The tour guide carried a bottle of "cough syrup" in his back pocket the whole time and spoke in a great southern twang.

After the distillery, we stopped at On Target Indoor Shooting Range and Gun Store. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. Neither of us had ever fired a handgun, and I had always wanted to try. Plus, I have the coolest girlfriend ever, and she was up for trying. We found the store/range on the GPS, and they rented us a .22, sold us 100 bullets, and gave us basic instructions. Shana got a free t-shirt because she was a rookie, and because she's hot. I, on the other hand, got a free bumper sticker which said "REPUBLICAN: Because We Can't All Be On Welfare!". I had to pretend to be a Republican, but it was worth it to get such a great souvenir. Unfortunately, Shana won't let me put it on the car. Surprisingly, both of us were pretty good shots. Despite enjoying the experience, Shana was a little freaked out by the whole thing. I, however, enjoyed the rush of testosterone and might want to try again. I'll pass on testing the assault rifle, though, unlike the guys firing bomb-like shots next to us.

Atlanta





Shana:
Atlanta is home of prestigious headquarters like Coca-Cola, CNN, and of course (most importantly) the American Cancer Society. I was high impressed the ACS's prominent and imposing building right in the middle of downtown. I was almost tempted to go in, flash my old business card, and ask to chat with the President of The Society.

Our first night we stayed at our friend Sarah's house which is located about 1 block from Folton Prison (not to be confused with Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison which would have been much cooler). Nevertheless, we enjoyed a impromptu Beirut / Beer Pong (the name all depends where you went to college) party to use up the left over beer from Sarah's Crawfish Race and Boil (if only we had been in town for THAT).

The next day we toured the Coke Factory and become inundated with their messaging that Coke is what brings people from all over the world together and makes everyone happy. It's all about "living on the coke side of life" or something like that. But, we did have the chance to taste other sodas made my Coke from countries all over the world-- all of which were pretty gross. We'll stick with regular Diet Coke.

Next, we went to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and Museum. The old photographs, quotes, and videos were very inspirational yet reminded us how much turmoil has taken place in the places we were visiting. I found it incredibly remarkable that MLK gave his first notable speech (in which he talks about the "fierce urgency of now" often quoted by Obama) when he was only 26. On our walk away from the museum we chatted with a homeless guy who had taken part in the marches and protests in Atlanta. He remembered MLK confronting the police and going into "white" restaurants despite being scolded by both the white and black communities. It was impressive to talk to someone who had taken part in something so important yet was living in poverty today.

Later that day we enjoyed a free Jazz concert in Olympic Park and then went to see a Braves baseball game. It seemed unreal to us that we could purchase tickets day-of and get decent seats for only $11. Although the stadium was beautiful with high tech jumbotrons and kids games in the corridor, everything about it seemed very un-Fenway. As New England baseball snobs, we thought it was pretty sad that the home openner for Atlanta was not even closed to sold out and that everything was just a little too new and fancy instead of classic old school that we hold so dear. But, we did greatly enjoy our dinner of a Georgia Dog-- a hot dog with coleslaw, onion relish, and BBQ sauce.

On the Road and Obamarama





I thought we’d share some of our favorite pictures and stories from the road. “Free Air” is always a good thing to have when you’re planning to breathe! And, the Sombrero Tower always indicates a classy establishment.

According to the Georgia billboards, their major productions must be Peach Cider and Fireworks. We indulged ourselves with a bottle of peach cider (yet to be tasted), a praline candy, and a small firework (also yet to be used).

I was also very surprised, and encouraged, by how much support we saw for Barack Obama while on the road and in the southern cities. Many cars and stores had Obama stickers and signs and a good number of people yelled their support to us from the street when they saw our bumper sticker. We met a Fletcher graduate who even left us 2 Obama pins on our windshield. I'm shocked, but there are many more Obama stickers around here than McCain or any other candidate.

Although the spring weather here is better than snow, we have encountered some crazy thunderstorms. In Savannah we went from 85 degrees and hot to torrential downpours and then back to sun. We once almost had to stop the car because we couldn't see through all the rain.

Another memerable moment was our quick stop in Meter, GA in search of some snacks for the car. Our thoughts were to pick up some carrots and hummus, but finding hummus was not as easy as planned. When Greg asked the cashier if they carried hummus he look at him in horror until pointing us toward the french onion dip and ranch. We settled for peanut butter.

Savannah



Greg:
The morning after going to Charleston, we drove to Savannah and spent a few hours there. Savannah is organized around about 20 lavishly decorated squares, which makes for a beautiful and very walkable city. Every street is lined with trees that look like weeping willows, each of which is covered in Spanish moss ("witches hair") which gives the town a southern flair. And yes, the trees are good for climbing.

We found that the city is actually quite young, hip, and yuppee. Shana was impressed with all the pita and smoothie places. Best of all, Savannah includes one of the five places in the US where you can walk on the street with an open container. Said place is River St (aka, bar row). We enjoyed walking up and down it, but unfortunately we didn't have the chance to try the 35 cent raw oysters at some of the bars there.

Carolina in my mind...




Shana:
We decided to take a detour to see more of the old south and headed to South Carolina for an extra day. On our way to Charleston we stop for some good ole' BBQ at Smoky Bones. The beef brisket and pulled pork were awesome, but even better were the two types of BBQ sauce, tomato-based and mustard-based. We're used to the traditional sweet, smoky, tomato style, but the Carolina mustard style with a bit of a kick was very unique and delicious.

The highlight of Charleston was the beautiful, grandiose, houses all with multiple wrap-around porches. I've decided I could use 3 levels of large wrap-around porches. We also visit the Charles Pinckney National Historic Site that was more enjoyable for its climbing trees and wetland flora than for its history of this South Carolina delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

Around town, we loved wandering through the beautiful neighborhoods and eating samples of the fresh made Praline surgary buttery candies and home-made Charleston Chews in each of the many candy shops. And, despite the advice of our guide book, we could not find one place to make us a mint julep. We noticed that we were by far the youngest tourists in Charleston-- the median age of everyone else seemed to be about 65.

Sweet Caroline-ah

Shana:
Next stop was Pittsboro, North Carolina, a very small town outside of the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area where Adam and Jen let us stay at their house. Unfortunately, just about every single place was closed because it was a Sunday-- except for the New York style Deli-- those godless yankees! So, Adam and Jen gave us a lengthy driving tour of the area. To our great appreciation, Adam displayed his remarkable ability to not stop talking for 2 hours -- guess he'll make a great lawyer when he graduates law school next May.

We did get the chance to walk around Chapel Hill, which was covered head to toe in light blue to support the UNC basketball team (we were there the day after UNC punched its ticket to the Final Four). We also saw the movie "Stop-Loss" which was incredible, but very depressing. The movie claimed that already 81,000 soldiers have been stop-lossed-- forced to go back to Iraq after their agreed upon duty had officially ended.

We also had our first taste of real southern cookin'. At Mama Dip's Kitchen we had fried green tomatoes, fried chicken, fried okra (see a pattern?), and corn pudding. Delicious! We also got awesome Loco-Pops which are basically Popsicles with really creative flavors like Cinnamon Latte, Chili Chocolate, Lychee, and (greg's favorite) Strawberry and Cream.

That night Adam introduced us to all of the Sports games on his Wii. You might not want to copy my crazy chicken boxing moves-- I was actually really sore the next day (video to come soon). We are both now very obsessed with Wii and want to get one when we end this crazy trip of ours.

Back in Time

Greg:
On Saturday (03/29), we left DC on the way to Raleigh-Durham. On the way there, Shana and I decided to embrace our dorkiness by taking a slight detour to visit Colonial Williamsburg. We rented the audio-tour headsets, therefore making us look even dorkier than the average dork there. We ended up having a blast! Most of the town is gorgeous, with the Royal Governor's Mansion being my personal favorite (and the model for my future home-- see picture). We learned plenty of cool things, the most interesting of which is that one of the last British Governors of Virginia, Lord Dunbar (we think that's what his name is), declared that all slaves who fought with the British against the revolutionaries would be emancipated. Somehow this didn't make it into our American history textbooks, leaving us to believe that Honest Abe was the first to emancipate the slaves. I wonder why?!