We are now both in Boston! Meg and Aaron have a cute apartment near Tuft’s campus in Somerville. We have enjoyed hanging out with them, celebrating Passover with them over a wonderful meal. I need to find the recipes they used for the Spinach Matzoh pie and Roasted Lemon Chicken. This morning, we caught the Women’s Olympic marathon trials, which was rather inspiring. In particular, I was amazed by Deena Kastor (the winner), Magdelena Boulet (lead most of the race until Kastor made up the 1:50 min difference in the last 5 miles) and Joan Samuelson (50 years old, won the gold in the first women's marathon in the Olympics back in 1984, finished 90th out of ~150 qualifiers). Watching these women run also brought back memories and emotions from the events of the Men’s trials last November in NYC – the feelings of pride when I saw Marc racing, the anxiety when he didn’t show up for a while towards the end, and the shock of the news about Ryan Shay. These men and women give this sport they love so much their all and are simply, AWESOME! (to quote Bush)

But to recap, I had a decent trip to New Orleans where I had an easy poster presentation (basically stood by it for 2 hours and chatted with people who came by), and attended a few good oral presentations by other researchers. It is always difficult to tell if a session will be good until you actually go and find out. I attended a few that I wasn’t impressed by at all (mostly because the presenters came across as poorly prepared), but also a few which surprised me. One for example was on somewhat complicated Markov modeling, but the guy was very eloquent and managed to explain it all in such logical and easy to follow manner it was remarkable. This is really a skill, and one that I am sure takes lots of practice to master – I only hope that someday I will come close to be able to teach so well!

I checked out the Garden and Warehouse districts on my Thursday AM run, which turned out longer than originally planned. It is fun to be able to explore places now by way of exercise. Between conference sessions, I went to a Cajun restaurant in the Warehouse District of NOLA, called Cochon for lunch, where I had fried alligator with garlic aioli sauce with mint, and hen & andouille sausage gumbo. This restaurant had been written up as one of the best restaurants in the country, so I had to give it a try. Fried alligator is quite yummy (the meat is a little tougher than chicken, but otherwise tastes like a mix of chicken & pork). I always thought that gumbo came with rice, but mine only had a few grains here and there, but otherwise it was delicious. The table next to mine had ordered baked oysters, piggy cheeks, and had coconut tart for dessert, all which looked tempting to me, but there was no way I would have been able to eat more than I did!

One afternoon, I also took a walk along the Riverfront for a bit (stopped for beignets at Café du Monde) and then on the outer edges of the French Quarter, where I found the Rampart Food Store which is a hole-in-the-wall joint that only locals and avid readers of the NY Times know about. Turned out this place is run by Vietnamese who were tickled to see me and learn that I am a fellow South Eastern Asian. My shrimp po’-boy sandwich was packed full of freshly fried crispy shrimp and cost only $3.30 – I was amazed.

I was unable to catch any jazz since I was exhausted by 9pm every night – my roommate for the conference complained that she couldn’t believe I was eating my way through NOLA and was not going to a Jazz gig at a bar with her (on the other hand she stayed out until 3am the next morning, so it was good I didn’t go!).

As visitors, it is difficult to really know how different NOLA is compared to its pre-Katrina days, but every local I asked told me that it is not the same, even 4 years later. While there was poverty before Katrina, it is far more rampant now. One man I spoke to while we waited in line for our Po’boy sandwiches said that there was a street near where he used to live that used to be bustling with activity and had a family in each of the homes along that street. But now, only 2 houses are occupied and none of the other houses have been repaired. He left NOLA after the hurricane and had settled his family in Alabama, but returns to NOLA occasionally, but finds it hard to be back as it is painful and depressing for him to see what has been destroyed and still not recovered up till this day. It was also quite astounding how many people had tents set up under the highways. Even in downtown New Orleans, there are many empty store fronts and abandoned buildings in disrepair. On the way back to the airport, the driver pointed out the water lines that stained the sound barriers along the highway. It is incredible to think how flooded the city must have gotten!

More in a few days… off to carbo-load with Marc & Jeff!

~ Shuwen