Postcard memories from New Orleans

During my trip to New Orleans last fall, one of the many fun things that Laure Ferlita has us do was make a postcard to send to a secret travel buddy. This is the postcard that I made and sent to my secret pal. We were to think of what our secret buddy really enjoyed about NOLA and try to incorporate some of her favorites in our postcard. Cafe Du Monde was one of the special places that we visited and I knew my travel partner would enjoy a memory of our visit there, the coffee, and of course the fresh beignets totally covered in powdered sugar!! It was a fun assignment, and extended the trip for all of us as we anxiously waited for our postcard to arrive in the mail. Great idea!!

New Orleans Adventure: Looking at the Architecture

During our walking tour of the French Quarter in New Orleans, our tour guide pointed out different architectural details. The three buildings side-by-side on the left page all have the same structure and composition. However they are each finished a little differently. The Creole cottages were simple and cute and the Creole Townhouses were a bit more ornate. It was fun to see the variations in styles and learn more about them.

Happy Birthday.....

In case you are wondering ... no, its not "my" birthday.... Today, March 6, 2012 is the 100th birthday of the Oreo cookie! The National Biscuit Company (later to be known as Nabisco) sold its first Oreo cookie on this day 100 years ago in Chelsea, New York City. Since then 491 Billion Oreos have been sold. There are even special varieties sold around the world. That is a LOT of cookies!!

I remember Oreo cookies fondly from my younger years. It was always a treat when mom would bring home a package from the grocery store. However, in recent years I can't even remember when I last bought them now that I'm older and my own boys are grown. I'll confess that I bought a package on my way home from work today to celebrate this big birthday. I hadn't tasted them in a very long time, but as soon as I started to open the package.... I recognized the familiar sweet scent of the cookies and memories of Oreos came to mind. I don't know about you.... but growing up - we had fun twisting our Oreos apart, followed by licking the frosting inside, and finally eat the chocolate cookies. Sometimes we would take them apart and reassemble them as our own "double-stuff" Oreos before the company caught on and decided to sell them as a variation.

With all the Oreo birthday festivities they have released a special package of "Birthday Cake Oreos" that have "sprinkles" inside in the cream filling. Gee... what will they think of next? I'm going to follow the advice of their new slogan, 'Celebrate the kid inside', and I think I'll go celebrate with another Oreo!!! Yum!

P.S. I added confetti to the image 2012-03-13.

New Orleans Adventure: Walking tour

I had so much fun on our walking tour of the French Quarter in New Orleans. On these pages I captured a cute shop down in the French Market area, the Central Grocery store where the Muffuletta was born, and a cute Christmas shop that caught my eye. Unfortunately all of my text didn't scan very well.... maybe I'll have to break down and use a bigger tip for writing on other pages.

P.S. These pages are from my travel journal from NOLA Live with Laure Ferlita.

The beginning of our walking tour through the French Quarter

Continuing on my New Orleans adventure ... I thoroughly enjoyed our walking tour of the French Quarter. I think it was supposed to last an hour, but we were still going at the 2 hour mark. Our tour guide was quite a character and he was full of interesting information about the area. I found it fascinating when our guide shared that this street view was Walt Disney's favorite view of the French Quarter, and that it was an inspiration for New Orleans Square at Disneyland.

New Orleans Adventure: Lunch at Antoine's

Continuing to finish my journal of my trip to New Orleans last November (NOLA Live!) ... I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed our first lunch together at Antoine's. I felt pretty spoiled in the elegant setting, with delicious food, and new friends. I even had my first Martini - for all of 25 cents. Unbelievable!

Antoine's Restaurant originated in 1840 and is one of the great dining establishments of New Orleans. They serve amazing French-Creole cuisine. After lunch we got to take a peek in their 14 dining rooms! Amazing place.

Kodak moment

A bit of sadness and nostalgia swept over me today as I read that Kodak has decided to stop making cameras. What? Even though I knew that they had lots of competition in cameras, the news still came as a bit of a surprise to me... Kodak had been synonymous with 'cameras' for so many years.

My own memories came flooding back to me of my first camera -- a little Kodak Instamatic 104. I vividly remember the bright Yellow-Gold and Black box that it arrived in and how excited I was to be able to take "my own pictures". I was pretty proud of my little camera and it was always a big deal to take in a roll of film for developing, and go back to pick up the prints (and negatives of course). I think getting my camera was yet another step along my path towards independence - it enabled me to choose what "I" wanted to take a picture of, but with choices also came responsibility. The rolls of film with a fixed number of shots, and the cost of developing, caused me to be more mindful and selective. I had to plan ahead on a trip to ration the number of 'shots' as each roll was limited to either 12 or 24 shots and the developing cost quickly added up. Simple times!

What a difference from now! I just checked my files for 2011, and I took 8500 photos last year alone!! If that were old fashioned film, think of all the trips to the drugstore and lots of $ in developing costs!! Taking this many photos in a year would have been unthinkable back then with my Instamatic 104!!

Looking back...Kodak was founded way back in 1880, and became known for its simple Brownie and Instamatic cameras all over the world. I remember my Dad fondly talking about his Brownie camera. I was surprised to learn today that Kodak even created the first digital camera back in 1975. But, they were up against serious Japanese competition during the 1980s and Kodak wasn't able to keep up with the shift from film to digital cameras. It is a sad day for me to see them stop making cameras.

How about you? What special Kodak memories do you have? To help jog your memories.... here are some Kodak slogans I found on the web:

America's storyteller

You press the button - we do the rest

The real Kodak moment happens when you share.

Share moments. Share life.

I especially like that last one "Share moments. Share life."!!

Kodak, thanks for the good times and the memories!