New Orleans

[warwickland]

This is a place holder until I can process everything into a coherent thought, but remember to do this before my memories get a little faded. I got back here in St. Louis last night about 3am.

In general, most of my thoughts will revolve around the non French Quarter NOLA.

[loftguy]

This is a place holder until I can process everything into a coherent thought, but remember to do this before my memories get a little faded. I got back here in St. Louis last night about 3am.

In general, most of my thoughts will revolve around the non French Quarter NOLA.

C'mon.  We don't want coherant.  We want the REAL story.

It is NO, after all.

[ColumbusParkian]

I love New Orleans!!!

-Drinking on Frenchman
-Tuesday nights at the Maple Leaf
-Shopping on Magazine Street

I want to go back so bad it hurts.

[KC0KEK]

Heading there next month. Haven't been since 2006.

[warwickland]

I'm having trouble synthesizing everything...didn't take any photos, but I'm pretty sure I was there...I'll just shotgun what I have out there.

Frenchman Street/Marigny
Uptown
Bywater
Mid City

Riding the St. Charles streetcar as the sun came up under a beautiful pink sky behind silhouetted palm trees, passing the old money and professional classes strolling and jogging along the neutral ground. I was returning from Snake and Jakes in uptown.

Watching sea going freighters slowly make the turn on the Mississippi River for an hour or so, getting good and buzzed off a proper hurricane - - until the bum fight.

Good street performers on Frenchman.

Kind of a post hipster vibe here and there if that makes sense.

Completely solid, fresh (or fresh to me at least) simple seafood meals of all kinds, lots of standing up eating oysters and crawfish at the bar and swilling beer...heaven. Po-Boys at Parkway.

Refusing drugs from a dealer in/near bywater and being drunk and loud about it - amazing I wasn't shot.

Meeting fantastic locals everywhere -- in fact, I've never been to another city where people, waitstaff, etc, were so interested in helping you to have a good time. People very happy to see you (kind of reminded me of a trip to Detroit once).

Y'all being from Missouri and knowing the pleasure of a swimming pool when it's 97 and humid - it's pretty awesome swimming in a nice cool pool outside in new orleans. My AC is out in my car and when I arrived I immediately jumped into the pool (I had a wet towel around my neck all the way through Mississippi).

Clearly having a guardian angel.

Blowing chunks on Robert E. Lee's ridiculously massive statue (I was really just kind of looking at it) completely out of my mind about 8 am and shortly thereafter giving a man from Kansas City 5 dollars for a burger from Crystal after he helped me down and perhaps kept me from getting injured one way or another. (I figure at least when I got hammered I spread my money around town, and didn't fall over backwards at 7 pm drinking a hand grenade in the quarter).

I probably should have left that one out - i don't recommend doing any of that.

Never seen so many very grown up ass adults violently falling down everywhere I turned. HILARIOUS.

Lots and lots of Texan visitors (I felt like they were keeping NOLA going during the summer) and Texan transplants, and I kept running into roving bands of St. Louisans and people from St. Louis now living in NOLA. There was one group I was walking with down the street in uptown and they told me to get on the wrong streetcar - they were from "webster" *shakes fist*

Walking through the Quarter at sunrise. You simply must see this! It's like a zombie film... and getting beignets and chicory at Cafe du Monde...sounds cliche and is in all the best ways. marvelous.

Oh, there's more, but all I know is that I'm deeply in love with New Orleans, and that it's a very surreal place to me. I am also very, very  lucky I didn't get myself into more trouble, and of course that's a cheap thrill in of that itself...but I should know better. I had a great time, nonetheless. It kind of sounds like all I did was get trashed, but trust me, I soaked up way more "real" (not too real...) NOLA than most visitors to that city. Now I'm thinking about the Real World New Orleans (glad I didn't think about that when I was there).

I will probably visit NOLA more often than every 3 years going forward and focus more on food and other things than playing Jack Kerouac...most likely in the cooler months of the year, however. It's oppressive by St. Louis/Kansas City standards right now.

[rxlexi]

awesome, thoroughly entertaining post, thanks for sharing.  Last time I was in NOLA, we stayed at that hotel, Cirque I think, right on Lee Circle in the warehouse district.  Robert E. Lee is facing north ya know, staring down us yankees. 

Uptown and Frenchman are both great.  I love the far eastern quarter and Marigny in general, what a great neighborhood, with beautiful, shabby chic Esplanade Ave running between.  I've always wanted to venture further east, into Bywater, but have never had the chance. 

New Orleans has such a a unique look and feel; a magnetic aura.  Truly one of America's great cities, and a personal favorite for me.

[Highlander]

My first experience in NO was crossing Canal Street and an obviously crazy (and drunk) woman was standing in the middle of street yelling profanities at strangers and then she suddently threw up all over herself and then after appearing a little startled went back to yelling profanities.  That incident notwithstanding, NO has always been good for a party and for fantastic food but it's probably the one city in the US that I would not leave Houston for as a place to live.  Haven't known many non natives who had nice things to say about NO as a place to live.  Nice place to visit though.

[grovester]

Ha Ha!  I would definitely leave Houston to live in New Orleans! But I take your point.  I lived on Frenchmen St. as an 18 year old and it was WRONG.  The devil was tempting me with a life of debauchery.  I go back every couple of years and love it.  Not talking the Bourbon St. New Orleans, that's not much different than spring breaks the world over.  I'm pondering weathering the humidity for Satchmo Fest this August.

[warwickland]

There's something about the way that some things are approached that is refreshing to me down there. I kind of feel like it's the "mother" of many  of the kinds of things I appreciate. It definitely felt like the Texans were the "calvary to the rescue" down there, lot's of appreciation, and it was certainly an angle I never expected, but very thrilling. Of course the Quarter is a machine in many ways, but appreciable.

[Highlander]

There's something about the way that some things are approached that is refreshing to me down there. I kind of feel like it's the "mother" of many  of the kinds of things I appreciate. It definitely felt like the Texans were the "calvary to the rescue" down there, lot's of appreciation, and it was certainly an angle I never expected, but very thrilling. Of course the Quarter is a machine in many ways, but appreciable.

Their is actually a bit of resentment towards the "rescue" in Houston.  Many people correlate, possibly anecdotally, the influx of refugees from NO with several interior Houston neighborhoods taking a turn for the worse.  Texas and Louisiana essentially share the US petroleum industry so there are a lot of ties that go beyond just proximity.  People moving back and forth and whatnot, many people I meet on the job are natives of Louisiana (and LSU is among the top colleges for oil industry recruits). My neighbors are  LSU grads and celebrate Mardi Gras on our suburban street with parades of neighborhood children...bared breast won't get you beads in this parade.  

[warwickland]

Their is actually a bit of resentment towards the "rescue" in Houston.  Many people correlate, possibly anecdotally, the influx of refugees from NO with several interior Houston neighborhoods taking a turn for the worse.  Texas and Louisiana essentially share the US petroleum industry so there are a lot of ties that go beyond just proximity.  People moving back and forth and whatnot, many people I meet on the job are natives of Louisiana (and LSU is among the top colleges for oil industry recruits). My neighbors are  LSU grads and celebrate Mardi Gras on our suburban street with parades of neighborhood children...bared breast won't get you beads in this parade.  

I know what you are talking about, but no, I mean that there are individuals from Houston and Dallas visiting as well as populating New Orleans in a way that I didn't expect. Appreciation in the sense that the Texans appreciate the "soul" of New Orleans, living in non Quarter areas of the sliver by the river. This was not expected.

[Highlander]

Another bad time for NO. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20" of rain expected over the next couple of days with tropical storm Lee approaching ever so slowly from the south (it's close enough now to create continuous heavy rains). Fair chance of getting hurricane status but it's the rain NO has to worry about.