It's Thanksgiving time!

Hola! Bonjour!
I've been busy since I last blogged. So here we go ;).... the weekend of the 12th was so much fun! I was invited to the wedding reception of a girl who works at the aquarium. She is so nice! I feel really special to be the only intern invited :) She had gotten married in MS a few weeks before. Afterwards, we had a great afterparty!! woot woot! I got to see what the dance clubs here are like. They're smaller but are a blast! The next day, I got to try-out for the Wheel of Fortune (twice) and went to the Po-boy Festival. This festival is all about the sandwiches they have here called Po-boys. Po-boys were originally invented in the French Quarter and sold to the cab drivers (poor boys... hence Po-boys). They are huge sandwiches that these days sell for $4-9 but back in the day sold for 5 cents. They are delicious. Most po-boys are seafood but some are roast beef or pigs cheek etc. I went with Mary, the jellyfish intern, and we tried the garlic-stuffed roast beef, soft-shell crab (yuck!) and pigs cheek. The roast beef was delicious. And we ended it with a made-to-order crepe with strawberries and nutella mmm mmm mmm... This past week was great! Thursday was above all other thursdays as being the best day here EVER. Not only did I get to tour the ACRES (research facility by the Audubon Soc.) AND get to take an ALL DAY BOAT RIDE TO RELEASE TURTLES(!!!!!!)AND I got to meet the Stranding Coordinator BUT I SAW WILD DOLPHINS!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was truly a dream come true!!!! Other than that a normal week last week, getting resumes sent out. no word yet. Dean came on Saturday evening. His plane was held up an hour on the runway in Minneapolis, but he finally got here :)We went to the new Harry Potter, which was AMAZING! then Sunday we took it easy. He took me out for breakfast, and then we got groceries. Monday, I took him and we toured the entire French Quarter and showed him the aquarium. He even got to watch me train Buck :) I gave him a tour of the aquarium even though it was closed. Priviledges of working for free hahahahaha I will miss most everyone here.... It's a good and bad feeling. Sad to leave, but I'll be happy to see snow again as weird as it sounds! I think he enjoyed the Quarter. There's so much to see! We got to even take a carriage ride <3 We had a fun tour guide, and the mule's name was Cadillac. Not gonna lie, when she asked if anyone wanted to feed the mule a treat, I was the first to jump at it ;D hehe We even got some shopping done! Tomorrow, he and I head to MS for Thanksgiving! We are gonna take the girls out to the new Tangled movie and then celebrate T-giving with my sis and her fam. And Friday is well... Black. Friday. Shopping oh. boy. We will be in Target at 4 am. wow. I'll let ya know how THAT goes! haha well 'til next time...

Utterly Otters

Hard to believe it's already November eleventh! Today was a pretty good day, best day yet this week. I'm working on "toy" with Buck and Emma. So far so good. Can't wait for next week when I get to put "basket" with "toy" and they put the toy in the basket! I'm excited :) Buck and Emma make me smile. Emma is sweetheart. She holds her paws up to her mouth almost as if she was "nervous." Buck is so spunky it's admirable. Hard to think they have the bite of a black bear. Today I helped the asst. curator again, and I love helping her since she has a whole new perspective. Still training Muffy, the cockatoo. Today she bit me to see my reaction. it was more of a placing of her beak on my finger and looking at me. She sort of had the "What are ya gonna do?" look haha. So I walked away, but yesterday she stepped up onto my hand! So slow but sure :) Sharky, the goldfish is doing swimmingly :) he's onto the large tunnel since he is fully trained on the hoop and sm. tunnel. It's kind of funny how when I sit in my chair (next to the tank) he's at the corner of the tank staring at me. haha I'd love to take him home. Well I suppose that's all for today. I won in cribbage against Paul. Dean comes to New Orleans in 9 days! Can't wait to spend Thanksgiving with my nieces in the South :D Miss you all! scheduled 10:15:00 PM by veckhoff Delete

Week 5 Fall Fling Time!

Hello Everyone~
Ya know the whole "make the most of it" idea? I am living it to the fullest here in NOLA :) Tonight was the Fall Fling for volunteers, to which the whole Husbandry Dept. was invited. Jamie, John, Dee, Sarah and Eleanor and I all went to, and it was an absolute blast!! I got paid $6 to start the electric slide. No one was dancing! what was I to do? haha but dance! it was a blast. Once again, I got recognized as "the 40-hour intern" and got free drink tickets because of it. As it turns out, interns here only work 1-2 days a week. I also had one of the volunteers come up to me and ask me to dance. This man had to be in his 70's and danced jitterbug-ish/two-step. after we danced, which he giggled the whole way through, he gave me a debloom!! it says "Cajun Dancer" on it. If you've ever been to Mardi Gras, the deblooms are the coins the krewes throw. So that was tonight in a nutshell :) Lots of drunk people and a lot of fun haha
Work this week has been good. I have gotten to do quite a few more things with the animals! I can do directionals now, which means I point to where I want them to go and tell them to "go" or "come." I also get to tell them to grab a toy. It's so much fun! Yesterday, Jamie, Noel and I went to the AAC,the audubon stranding center. They have 35 turtles still there from the oil spill, 2 bottlenose dolphins, and about 6 nurse sharks. It's just angering to see all of these animals affected, and this is after they released 32 turtles a couple of weeks ago. I know that dolphins are 150% what I'd like to work with. It was a dream to even see a wild dolphin!!!! But the best part was I got to throw one of them some fish! It was aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh amazing!!!!!!!!!!!! My ultimate dream is to see a dolphin in the wild though! That's next :) Well Noel is gone for the weekend, so it's my time to get things done!
p.s. my new addiction are beignets haha mmmmm

Halloween in New Orleans... WOW

Hola mis amigos!
Not much happened over the weekend. I applied for a job and worked on my resume and cover letter until I was utterly confused and indecisive ha Not my most favorite thing to do but it's one of those "have to" things :) Halloween was a success!! I was a fairy :) More like a gladiator fairy with my band that went around my forehead haha My dress had a glittery bra portion with the same design as the headband and a pink and purple dress. I had figured out my make-up the night before and boy was it big and bold! After Noel and I took like 3 hours to get ready, we were on our way to meet the other aquarium people. Well getting there was quite an adventure!! Let's just sum it up in *small french quarter streets *HUNDREDS of drunk people *Sirens of an ambulance * and us stuck in a small car too close to the ambulance to get the patient in because of the people. So Noel decided to try to pass by the ambulance.... She drives a very tiny car. However, we ended up scraping on the ambulance's bumper and locals offering to lift the car up to straighten us out to drive away. WOW, ONLY IN NEW ORLEANS! HAHA We finally made it to meeting the people and we all walked to Frenchmens Street. that was an adventure in itself! People were EVERYWHERE. John, an aquarist, was dressed up as the 8th dwarf, Tranny dwarf :) Lmao. His mid-section was showing and he was wearing stockings with bows he sewed on himself (he made it known ;]) hahahaha Dee, an aquarist, was dressed as Napoleon Bonepart with a "helping hand...." ha Then john had a couple of friends there dressed as Buffy and Ms. Famous. David, penguin guy, showed up as a pirate wench LMFAO showing everyone his "blue pubes" that was actually a clown wig shoved in fake underwear hahahaha it was by far the best costume haha and his bf was a bullrider. Lindsay, Lifesupport, was the girl from the Jets that was blackmailing Favre. and a couple of people from the Aq. I don't know where emo and 80's girl. Oh and Noel was Snooki. Those were the people I was with, but there were so many people there! THOUSANDS!! At least 2,000 people filling the street! there were flash mobs and raves in the street with a portable club on a cart lol it was amazing. It was pimped up with a fog machine and a torch on top. It had a fire extinguisher at least! haha
We were out til about 1:20 and it was awesome! No worries I was not tipsy lol

The Aquarium went well today. Sharky (goldfish) went through the short tunnel today and Muffy (the cockatoo) didn't try to attack me today lol. Plus, Buck and Emma paid great attention today! So alright, tomorrow's another day. Let's hope it goes well.

Hope all of you are well! Thank you for being such great friends! You all mean so much to me and have stuck by me. You guys are the best!
<3 Nessa