It's been a busy couple weeks that started off with a few slow days at home, a few more days back at work and then I was off to New Orleans, which was beautiful and warmer and pretty for the sake of being pretty. Also seductive in that I several times considered abandoning my Chicago life and moving down there to set up a little art/paper shop in the French Quarter. We started the week with shopping in the Garden District, an architecture tour, visiting Lafayette Cemetery. Did touristy things like The Aquarium and a swamp tour later in the week, shopped more for vintage and art in the Quarter, had dinner on Bourbon Street a couple nights. (I ate everything I think I was supposed to--beignets, po-boys, jambalaya, gumbo, fried chicken and shrimp. Or at least what someone who doesn't actually like most seafood would. ) It was a brief repreive from January, which was coming down hard on the midwest this last week. I think my very favorite things were Hotel Monteleone's rotating Carousel Bar and the very cool Trashy Diva store on Magazine Street. I came home with mostly art prints and some other souvenirs. Of course, I also came home to winter and and it's horrible hands clutched around everything and a burning desire to go back until at least April.
