Today's list is taken from
New Orleans by Tom Downs (although the comments are my own)
"Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods, and our joy of living. All at once."— Chris Rose,
1 Dead in Attic: After Katrina
I love New Orleans. There isn't any one reason that I can point to and say, "I love New Orleans because of THIS!" (Although, yes, one of the reasons I adore the place is because I realised I was staying just down the road from a Banksy - the one attached to this post). It's not that kind of affection that I have. It's more that I see it for what it used to be, what it is, and what it's working to become. I have no illusions about her as a city. She is a mix of everything: dirty, rich in history, edgy, new, old, crazy, eclectic, cultural times a thousand, incredibly hopeful and ohsomuch more. She has all the quaint and faded beauty of a Southern belle, the kind who remains forever mysterious, full of secrets and eternal feminine guile. She keeps you coming back for more. It is the kind of place that can have you dancing in the street with hundreds of others one minute, and crying the next when you realise how hard they're trying to rebuild still. As a tourist, your own first world problems have no place here. I can't wait to get back there in *checks calendar* 11 days and counting and see how much has changed/is still the same/will never be the same again. I'm there during Mardi Gras (yes, again) and plan to visit a few more places I wasn't able to get to last time, eat a few more dishes I had no room for then, and meet a whole bunch of people I have never spoken to before. Mardi Gras might happen only once a year, but, really, I think that New Orleans itself is a living, breathing, lifelong Mardi Gras, as evidenced by the wild fusion of food, music, people and cultures. I predict good times! Well, good times but safe times. How safe, you say? You can see for yourself in today's post: 5 Mardi Gras laws I will have no problem obeying :)
I love New Orleans. There isn't any one reason that I can point to and say, "I love New Orleans because of THIS!" (Although, yes, one of the reasons I adore the place is because I realised I was staying just down the road from a Banksy - the one attached to this post). It's not that kind of affection that I have. It's more that I see it for what it used to be, what it is, and what it's working to become. I have no illusions about her as a city. She is a mix of everything: dirty, rich in history, edgy, new, old, crazy, eclectic, cultural times a thousand, incredibly hopeful and ohsomuch more. She has all the quaint and faded beauty of a Southern belle, the kind who remains forever mysterious, full of secrets and eternal feminine guile. She keeps you coming back for more. It is the kind of place that can have you dancing in the street with hundreds of others one minute, and crying the next when you realise how hard they're trying to rebuild still. As a tourist, your own first world problems have no place here. I can't wait to get back there in *checks calendar* 11 days and counting and see how much has changed/is still the same/will never be the same again. I'm there during Mardi Gras (yes, again) and plan to visit a few more places I wasn't able to get to last time, eat a few more dishes I had no room for then, and meet a whole bunch of people I have never spoken to before. Mardi Gras might happen only once a year, but, really, I think that New Orleans itself is a living, breathing, lifelong Mardi Gras, as evidenced by the wild fusion of food, music, people and cultures. I predict good times! Well, good times but safe times. How safe, you say? You can see for yourself in today's post: 5 Mardi Gras laws I will have no problem obeying :)
