When we chose the Crescent City for vacation this year, we did not realize that it would coincide with the biggest football game of the year – especially when the Saints would win its first Super Bowl ever. Restaurants closed, parades were planned, and even the elephants got in on the excitement. On Saturday, we explored the Insectarium near our hotel, then chased it with crabmeat maison & shrimp remoulade, seafood gumbo, trout amandine, and shrimp etouffee at Galatoire’s, the classic NOLA establishment where the menu never changes and the waiters have served for decades. Chicory coffee and beignets from Café du Monde dusted our coats and wrapped up the night. On Superbowl Sunday, we awoke early for a quiet walking tour of the Garden District, and even managed a last minute reservation for the Sunday Jazz Brunch at Commander’s Palace. A detour to visit the furry inhabitants of the Audubon Zoo, however, left us stranded without a cab. We walked for nearly an hour before sharing a cab with a flock of LSU Saints fans, arriving 30 minutes late for our reservation but just in time for the last seating. The gumbo Ya Ya, turtle soup, and pecan-crusted gulf fish were yummy, but the Eggs Cochon de Lait and creole bread pudding soufflé with whiskey cream sauce stole the show. After some lightning-fast service and a restaurant tour by the waiter, we were rushed out the door for the staff to make the kickoff. At dinner, our lone waiter kept deserting us for the TV in the kitchen. The Saints won moments after we left the restaurant, and we were swept along to Bourbon Street to participate in the celebration. We spent Monday touring the Honey Island Swamp, where we spotted one round nutria but no ‘gators. A po’boy from Mother’s kept our hunger at bay as we perused this year’s floats at Mardi Gras World before dinner. At Mr. B’s Bistro, their tender Mississippi rabbit was no match for the barbequed shrimp, easily the best shrimp dish I have ever experienced. On Tuesday, we toured the French Quarter and feasted on fried chicken at Willie Mae’s Scotch House – supposedly the best in the world, but not worth the adrenaline rush of traveling through that dangerous neighborhood when we attempted to walk to Parkway Bakery for their award-winning po’boys (and we found them closed!). An afternoon visit to the Aquarium and a snack of sweet Louisiana oysters kept us busy until dinner at August, John Besh’s flagship and New Orleans’ finest restaurant. With a view of the parade from our table, we enjoyed excellent crabmeat gnocchi with black truffle and another decadent cochon de lait, despite a disappointing tasting menu. Our flight home was thwarted by snowy weather, leaving us stranded with a “distressed passenger” stay at a nearby Holiday Inn overnight. Like our trip to Montreal, our journey through Creole cuisine in New Orleans reminded us that French gastronomic influence simply opens doors to foodie heaven.

January has been a packed month. The drudgery of daily glaucoma clinic and an unhealthy overdose of ED shifts were interspersed only by moments of reprieve with the department holiday party at Hotel Marlowe and the fellow lectures and dinner at the Taj. Last weekend, we returned to Flushing for Taiwanese pulled noodles and to Brooklyn for dim sum with my parents. We even got to check out the Tim Burton exhibit at the MOMA. The small but packed gallery featured an eye-popping collection of sketches, models, and concept designs from the artist’s darkly humorous imagination. For my birthday weekend extravaganza, we had our usual seafood feast with friends in Chinatown, and also a higher-end Italian dinner at Mama Maria. The hearty meal was marred only by the lofty price tag, including a $20 cake-cutting fee and perhaps even part of our cake, as our friend pointed out that none of our 8 slices came close to a 45 degree angle. Now who ever said that high school geometry was useless?

Having the honor of being on call for Thanksgiving, Christmas, AND New Year’s Eve, we ended up ringing in the new decade at the Mass Eye & Ear ED (or as I call it “the dungeon”, since it has neither windows nor cell phone reception). Fortunately, the night was quiet, and Melody got to come in to work to join me as we raided the cafeteria for chips and ice-cream, and watched tons of people in Times Square jump for joy on Dick Clark’s Rockin Eve. Sadly, another big snow storm struck after my week of night float. We spent the weekend stranded at home – eating, sleeping, watching TV, and playing video games – what a great start to the new year!

I was back in NYC for the past several days for a family issue – an experience which opened my eyes to healthcare delivery from the patient’s point of view. Sadly, my knowledge of medicine only emphasized the myriad errors that slip through the crack, and how methodical yet callous the medical community can be, even when handling our most vulnerable population. With the big snow storm, my trip back home was equally harsh. At 5 in the morning, I had to stumble past three city blocks from the hospital before finding a cab. I arrived at Port Authority, only to find that all buses were canceled. Desperately, I trudged across town to Penn Station, battling through the crowds to secure a seat on a train that ended up being 6-fold more expensive and 2 hours delayed. Once aboard the train car, I gazed out at the blanket of snow, pondered what it means to be a doctor, then fell fast asleep. After an exhausting 9.5 hour journey, I was just glad that the ordeal was over.

Fortune smiled upon me this holiday season and kept my pager quiet throughout the weekend. This year, we spent our Thanksgiving with Melody’s boss’ family, where we dined on traditional turkey (dark meat, of course), stuffing, yams, and mashed potatoes. And despite doing a somersault with a 4-foot dive onto the hardwood floor, Melody’s pumpkin cake still made a respectable showing at the dinner table. My parents also came up to Boston to celebrate my dad’s birthday. Beside the usual seafood feast with steamed black bass and peapod stems, we also revisited H-mart, our newly-discovered Korean mega-grocery store in Burlington which offers enough sampler tables to rival its own pan-Asian food court. Back home, we embarked on the new fantasy epic Dragon Age: Origins. Like our previous role-playing adventures, our character will be another elf rogue-ranger-assassin, who will again battle the imminent onslaught of devilish creatures in yet another apocaylptic event, while also engaging in a myriad of unnecessary yet entertaining side quests, many of which will inevitably involve obtaining some key to open some chest. Yes, it is predictable – but that doesn’t mean it still can’t be loads of fun. For something more original, I strongly recommend the new film Up in the Air, which we saw at a free screening tonight. The creators of Juno once again delivers a sarcastic, thought-provoking perspective from an unlikely hero.

Today, I caught a glimpse of a mouse scuttling across the floor in clinic. This was the second I’ve seen (or was it the same one?) since starting my rotation at the VA Eye Clinic. Being away from my home institution has opened my eyes to the world of community ophthalmology. Here, patients are complex, confused, cantankarous, and cataractous. The clinic is run by a small staff, all of whom assume multiple roles. I, for example, am an ophthalmologist-general practitioner-technician-optician-secretary. In the past 2 weeks, I’ve learned tricks like using a needle driver to remove corneal sutures when there’re no jewelers forceps, or how to hit things a certain way to get them to work – the stapler, the printer cartridge, the indirect ophthalmoscope. The perk is being able to take call from home, which until last week had been a foreign concept to me. It gave me the chance to attend a Bat Mitzvah (the female version of a Bar Mitzvah) for the very first time – surprising since I grew up in Brooklyn. It would have been more interesting if we had known Hebrew, but the dinner party was pretty posh. Nevertheless, we opted for Indian food for a friend’s birthday before joining the celebration and dancing.

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I chose to cover the ED at Mass Eye & Ear on Halloween weekend. While heading home last Friday from our posh dinner for the annual Chandler Conference, I watched as hoards of drunk teenagers stumbled off the T, wearing a variety of novelty costumes with no protective eyewear. After surviving a week of flying solo on night float, dealing with dog bites and crazy glue in the eyes, I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. Luckily for me, the weekend itself stayed surprisingly quiet. We even got a chance to discover amazing bun rieu at Pho 2000 out in Dorcester. Believe it or not, the Vietnamese bakeries in this little neighborhood carry some of the best French bread in the city – freshly-toasted and perfect for the duck liver pâté we got from Budapest. Yum! Meanwhile, we’ve also become hooked on Fox’s new series Glee. Combining the music and melodrama of a young, diverse cast with the bitterness and sarcasm of Jane Lynch, the show is refreshingly entertaining. It reminds me of our SING! performances in high school, but with more pizazz and fewer Asians.

Budapest had a noticably different flavor from Vienna – uniquely beautiful and full of character. Despite forgetting our change at a train ticket booth and getting lost on our way to the hotel, we quickly adapted to the new environment. Lunch was at nearby Horgasztanya, where the hot, flavorful catfish soup put smiles on our faces. Refueled, we strolled along the Danube to the Chain Bridge, then took a funicular up the hill to the top of the castle district of Buda. Our walking tour took us past the Hungarian National Gallery and Budapest History Museum to Matthias Church. Here, massive scaffolds concealed some of the roof tile mosaics, but the intricate interior decor was breathtaking. We then experienced the fine art of bathing at Szechenyi Baths, where we soaked away our stress and fatigue in a variety of whirlpools, Roman baths, and saunas. Our post-bathing hunger was satiated with an all-you-can-eat Hungarian buffet, which allowed us to sample many different but indifferently-prepared classic Hungarian dishes. Day two began in bustling Central Pest, where we were bedazzled by the Art Nouveau architecture of the Posta Takarekpenztar, the former post office savings bank, and Gresham Palace, now a Four Seasons Hotel. At St. Stephen’s Basilica, we gawked with the crowds at the mummified hand of the first king of Hungary, for which the cathedral was named. Even more impressive was the Parliament building, where a guided tour allowed us to explore its elegantly gilded interior. After some fozelek and palacsinta for lunch, we tiptoed through the House of Terror, which despite sounding like a carnival freak show was actually a depressing exhibit about the Hungarian victims of the Fascist and Communist dictatorial regimes. But Melody brightened up with a trip to the Zoo Budapest, where we petted noisy goats, fed hungry hippos, and frightened a lethargic lion. For dinner, we shared a platter of venison, wild boar, and pheasant that neither of us could finish. We spent our last full day shopping along Vaci utca, using up our remaining fiorints on a scarf, a vase, and some paprika and saffron. A brief detour to the Museum of Applied Arts provided us another chance to admire Budapest’s architecture. We wrapped up the evening with some night photos and yummy crepe-like palacsintas at Nagyi Palacsinta (“Granny’s Pancakes”). On our final morning, we squeezed in the last tastes of Budapest before our flight home – freshly baked retes and a big bar of marzipan.

We began our fall vacation in the land of classical music and schnitzel, where the word wiener meant more than a hot dog, but a city’s identity. After checking in to our hotel, we set out for our first taste of wiener schnitzel. The thin crispy veal accompanied by apple sauce and sour cream was delicious and surprisingly filling. We walked it off with a brisk runthrough of Stephansdom and a survey of Vienna’s ancient armor, musical instruments, and imperial jewels at the Neue Burg Museums and Schatzkammer. Exhausted, we turned in early, but awoke early the next day for breakfast at Café Sperl. Our first taste of the famous sachertorte was not what we expected – apricot jam in a chocolate cake? Seriously? We spent the rest of the morning seeing the Naschmarkt come to life and admiring the intricate façade of Majolikahaus. We also joined the crowds for the morning exercises at the Spanish Riding School. After having our fill of equine ballet, we hopped across to the Hofburg, which recounted the lives of the Hapsburg monarchy, particularly that of Princess Sisi. The long morning made us very hungry when we arrived at the Gulasch Museum for lunch – so hungry, in fact, that we ate a horse … goulash. In the afternoon we immersed ourselves in music – first at Mozarthaus, where the composer spent three years of his life, and then at a funky interactive museum called the Haus Der Musik, where we learned about the mechanics of sound and conducted a digital orchestra. After such a productive day, we treated ourselves to tea and cake at Café Diglas and pricey seafood at Lobsterdock. The next morning, we went to Schonbrunn Palace before opening hours to explore its neatly-groomed gardens, reminiscent of our chilly visit to Versailles. Leaving just when the tourists were arriving, we returned to the city for a tram around the Ringstrasse. On the way to lunch at a local biesl, we stopped for a lesson in psychoanalysis at the Freud Museum and anatomy at the Josephinum. The afternoon was spent playing with the free interactive exhibit inside the Parliament and hanging out at the Rathaus. Although the building was devoid of rodents, it gave us a backstage peek of a visiting circus. A well-deserved nap prepared us for an evening at the Konzerthaus, right across the street from our hotel. After enjoying some Hayden, Bach, and of course, Mozart, we snacked on toasty bratwurst from a street stand and apfelstrudel from a cafe. An early train took us out of Vienna the next morning, bound for our next destination.

Our goal for this weekend was to relax and spend quality time with my folks back in NYC. After lunch in Chinatown, we went home and learned how to make lo mai chi (coconut-coated sweet rice balls stuffed with crushed peanuts – often called “snowballs” because of their appearance). On Sunday, we ventured out to Edgewater, NJ, where we revisited ramen heaven Santouka at the Mitsuwa marketplace. The springy noodles, fragrant broth, and tender pork cheeks were a hit as always, and we even left with a broiled eel for the road. These whirlwind weekends back home always feel too short, and the traveling seem too long … but they are still well worth the trip.