NOLA Odds and Ends

Walking the streets of New Orleans, I’m often reminded of other places— Portland, Oregon/ Washington DC,/New Smyrna Beach, Florida/ Belize City, Belize/ Savannah, Georgia/ Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco. But mostly New Orleans is indisputably itself. Some of its unique characteristics:

• The Seven Food Groups—Po-boys, Muffaletta, Jambalaya, Gumbo, Crawfish, Red Beans and Rice, Beignets.

• Open carry. Liquor, that is, not guns. People walking around the streets and in and out of stores with their cup of beer, daiquiri, hand grenade drink, what have you.

• Back-to-back clubs with bands playing everywhere, all styles of jazz, blues and other music (Cajun/ zydeco and fusions of all of the above.)

 • Where Martin Luther King meets Jefferson Davis. Side-by-side history of oppression and resistance and confusion over which to honor (though progress with recent removal of some statues of white supremacists). 

• A tradition of Mardi Gras Indians that exists exactly nowhere else in the world. 

• Steamboats on the Mississippi.

• Breathtaking architecture.

• Beautiful streetcars with windows that open wide, wooden seats and 40 cent (!) rides for seniors! ($1.25 normal) 

And so much more.

P.S. Yesterday I spent at French Quarter Fest in the…well, French Quarter… and after some cool San Francisco-like weather for several days, the sun came out in all its blazing heat. I decided to try to treat myself to an afternoon ice cream and after walking through just about the entire district, I couldn’t find a single place that sold ice cream! Come on, New Orleans! It’s a hot place here! Likewise, hardly any bakery or coffee shop. How strange! And haven’t passed a single movie theater in all the neighborhoods I’ve explored. A place can be defined by what it doesn’t have as much as by what it does.