Back before the holidays, we rented a cute little apartment in uptown New Orleans for a long weekend with another couple. It had been altogether too long since we’d been home, and it was such a good time!
We packed a million things into our time in New Orleans. We didn’t photograph some parts, but we treasured our time visiting David’s mom, having a sleepover at my bestie Leah’s farm, loving on her family and babies, and trying to get face time with as many of our long-distance loves as possible.
Tulane facilitated that- it was homecoming weekend, and there was a surprising amount of our old friends back in town for the weekend. Torrential rains, reminiscent of my first undergrad homecoming, couldn’t hide that fact that Tulane has gotten all gussied up, and the new construction looks amazing.
It was my best friend Maille’s birthday that weekend, so I blew her mind a bit by surprising her on her doorstep- I’m a pretty good present, if I do say so myself. I third-wheeled her birthday dinner with her darling boyfriend at Saffron, and we made time for both a low key girls’ night and a super fun house party celebrating the beautiful birthday girl.
We couldn’t go home for the weekend and not get tickets to the Saints game…. the last home game we attended was the day after our wedding! We lost in overtime to the Tennessee Titans and it was agonizing, not gonna lie. But I bleed black and gold, regardless.
Post game, we walked down the familiar streets to the Boot, to honor one of my oldest friends at our old on-campus bar. I met Brian McKenna the first week of college, and we shared a birthday and core group of friends- he’s always been one of the good guys. Last summer, a mountain biking accident rendered him a quadriplegic, but in typical Brian style, he’s recovering astonishingly- with incredible spirits and the encouragement of people like Drew Brees and Ellen Degeneres. It was good to visit with lots old friends while raising funds for Brian’s care and recovery … he’s so often in my thoughts.
And no trip to New Orleans is complete without visiting The Columns. We went for cocktails with friends, but I always get all misty on the steps where we got married.
“I returned to New Orleans, and as soon as I smelled the air, I knew I was home. It was rich, almost sweet, like the scent of jasmine and roses around our old courtyard. I walked the streets, savoring that long lost perfume.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
loveRavayna
