Up too late...

So my nights and days are backwards lately.  I am innately a night owl but this is getting ridiculous!  It is after 2am and I still up jacking around.  What is my point?  I am still up partly due to the fact that I ate my first bad meal down here tonight for dinner.  Millsy and I went out for dinner b/c he has been working so much this week and we just felt like going out for dinner.  He worked today from 7 to 7 and he didn't get home until 11pm one night this week!  Geez, his job is stressful and hard work.  I don't know how he does it?!  I am just not cut out for the kind of job he has.  Anyways we went out for dinner and I had a BBQ shrimp po-boy.  Normally I like po-boys but this one was greasy as all get out!  I was ravished b/c I didn't eat anything all day (except drink coffee) so I scarfed it down even though it wasn't very good.  I felt sick almost instantly after eating it.  I have been nauseous and munching tums since we got home.  Yuck!  I talked to a good friend on the phone tonight for a bit and it was nice.  I feel kind of sheltered down here.  I haven't talked to anyone forever I feel like.  It is my own fault though.  I have cut myself off from my telephone for the past month....not really intentionally.  I just haven't called anyone.  I don't really know why.  I guess to get settled and just take a break from everything...everyone.  I need to get calling my friends or else I won't have any!  Speaking of feeling sheltered, culture shock is starting to set in a little bit.  The newness has wore off and I am starting to realize I am NOT on vacation.  I live here.  It is weird.  It is sort of like a different country down here.  A mish-mosh of lots of different places.  Downtown the architecture is very European and the people sort of have this "laissez-faire" attitude about things.  Which is sort of nice in a way.  No one is trying to be something they are not down here.  No one is trying to impress.  Everyone just kind of lets it all hang out (literally and figuratively).  But everyone and everything is sloowww.  I feel like I am constantly in a hurry (to get where or do what I don't know).  But I often find myself annoyed at the slowness of things down here.  (Oh and by slow I don't mean the driving....the driving is crazy, but that is another topic all together).  I have nothing to do most days or nowhere to be but I find myself being like "What is taking so long?  What the hell are they doing up there?"  I need to start getting used to the new way of life I guess.  Another weird thing is people talk different down here and refer to different areas of town (which can not be found on any sort map that I have found).  Lots of french references and words pronounced with a french inflection and dialect.  I think it is referred to as Cajun English (derived from Cajun French).  Like Richard is pronounced 'Ree-shard' and Herbert is pronounced 'air-bay'.  There are tons of french words and phrases used down here.  I need to brush up on the ole French!!  Good thing I was somewhat fluent at one point in my life.  Now only to get back to that point.  Oh like one word for example that you see a lot of places down here is "geaux".  They use the word "geaux" instead of "go".  Like in the word "bordeaux".  You see Bud Light billboards that say "Geaux Saints!" and stuff like that.  And I went to a furniture store yesterday called "Comeaux" and had to ask the lady how to pronounce it just to be sure and she laughed and said "Como!"  Sort of like "Duh, you silly girl...what a dumb question!"  Weirdness everywhere.  Surrounded by weirdness.  Ok, I will write more later about the weird and strange happenings of my life.  Like another lizard crawling up the wall my the front door tonight.  I don't think I will ever get used to that.  Ok, signing off.

Amanda