Hurricane NOLA

    NOLA means "Na'awlins, y'all". New Orleans, that is...LA means the state of Louisiana. 

    We did a whirlwind visit today, complete with some afternoon rain, with the eye centred on the French Quarter. Riding the classic old trolley streetcar ($3 for an all-day transit pass!) down St. Charles Street, I realized that NOLA has miles and miles of the same gorgeous residential mansions as Galveston, so many that it was pointless to begin photographing them. You could fill a coffee-table book, they're all so diverse and attractively designed. 

    We spent the day eating jambalaya, gumbo, red beans and rice, and boudin (a kind of sausage); and came up with a riddle: when is a "po'boy" sandwich not for po' boys? When you buy it in the French Quarter, where you pay tourist prices. We learned quite a few new foods with new names, and we'll probably make some of them ourselves when we get home. 

    Since we'd missed both hurricanes and Mardi Gras, we stepped into the State museum on Jackson Square, where we were treated to exhibits about hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the faulty thinking that has led to such disasters - many people consider Katrina to have been a man-made disaster, and they have good reasons.  "Natural disasters" has turned out to be one of the themes of our big winter trip this year: volcanoes, earthquakes and hurricanes. 

    At the museum we also enjoyed a deep dive into the history and traditions of Mardi Gras, the Balls, the parades and masks and Courirs.  That was a good way to spend the heat of midday; then we did the AAA walking tour in the guidebook - as good a way as any to find your way up and down the streets of the French Quarter. 

    Some local called NO "the only third world city in the U.S.", but that description lacks grace and generosity.  There are skyscrapers and giant shopping centres of marble, brass, glass and concrete, but the charm of the French Quarter is something to be treasured and maintained.  Some of the parishes seem pretty poor; maybe that's what he was referring to. 

    Here in New Orleans we're staying at the home of Brooke Kelley, a.k.a. TruthFairy. Don't we look like the Canadian flag in this photo? She'd been was at the G-20 protest in Toronto.  She has a history as an activist and career journalist for the past fourteen years, and is now trying to launch a new magazine. She tends to travel a lot and live out of her car "like a turtle", she says. 

    Brooke is the third of our four most recent CouchSurfing hosts who've actually given us their own beds to sleep in - sort of like giving a man the shirt off your back, isn't it?  She has little, aspires to have even less, and shares what she has. 

    Brooke wrote a blog for a fledgling online magazine at akashicmagazine.com, but the link has gone dead.  This might be the shortest blog I've written, but NOLA seems to be something you'd best just do for yourself...and I think we might have to come back to experience Mardi Gras for ourselves; but hopefully not a hurricane. These are some of the things we saw.  

    We're off early in the morning to Memphis, where we'll stay with a professional tuba player, listen to the blues, and learn about the Mighty Mississippi.