I’m stranded for a couple of hours waiting for my rental car – apparently demand exceeds offer today. I’ve finally got some time to blog.

Last week flew by like a whirlwind.
The weather was fantastic for most of the time: t-shirt during the day, jumper at night. In november. Palm trees.
New Orleans never sleeps. Bars open all night. There’s lots of music going on. You can walk around with alcoholic drinks, something that completely amazes most americans visiting it, especially people from Utah. The consequence of this is that a lot of americans come to New Orleans to party, sometimes in excess. A local told me that many people did things in New Orleans they would never even consider back home, which amused and appalled her somewhat.

But for a conference it’s great. During the day attend sessions and the hallway track, and at night going out and exploring the cities’ possibilities. A bit exhausting, perhaps, I still feel like I could use more rest.

The people have that famed southern friendliness. I was a bit taken aback at first because people say hello to you in the street ! A local told me that a southern person will be hospitable and friendly by default, suspending judgment until given enough information, as opposed to the northern attitude which is to get to know people before being friendly (a bit like we do in belgium, really).

New Orleans people love their foods. I wasn’t too convinced by Po-Boys, a kind of sandwhich where you pile on seafood fried in lots of batter. Tourist places are to be avoided, as I found out. I had the opportunity to eat in two truly good restaurants: Atchafalaya, and Green Goddess, both with original cuisine made with local ingredients. Cafe au lait and Beignets at Cafe Du Monde of course, but don’t wear dark clothes because you’ll be covered in powdered sugar. I was taken to Curenola by some locals for some truly great cocktails, never would have found it myself, since it’s fairly out of the way.

The French Quartier is perilously close to being a alcoholic theme park. At any time of day you see people stumbling around, Bourbon Street is full of neon-lit bars blaring music, street musicians provide entertainment on the street. When you move away, Royal St is slightly more refined if still very crowded. Magazine St contains better shops, and nice coffee bars.

I love the street names. None of that First Street Second Avenue stuff here, streets have french and creole sounding names. Poydras St, Tchoupitchoulas St, Magazine St, …

I found out rather late in the week that for a good night out you go to Frenchmen St, just out of the French Quartier. More good live music, non-tacky clubs and bars, a distinctly hipper scene.

The walk along the Mississipi is called the Moonwalk (not entirely sure why). It’s a nice stretch with view over the river, and a more serene place to sit down and rest a while before going into the vibrant city again. Also pretty great to see steam boats (for tourists) paddle along and use their ear-splitting steam whistles.

More to the south you’ll find the Garden District, which is known for its italianate mansions. Most houses in New Orleans are made of wood. The business district is full of stone and concrete buildings, but the stone needs to be imported, I’m told there is no local stone. In the garden district you have very old trees, and truly impressive houses with cast iron curlicues on the balconies and wood carvings at every cornice. Something that is not unique to the garden district is that most houses are brightly colored. The locals seem to love their pastels, and it all looks quite cheerful.

I saw one of the famed graveyards: the St Louis cemetary, where Marie Laveau the voodoo queen is buried. The tombs are built as small bright white temples above ground: apparently the technical reason for this is that the ground is too marchy to dig a proper, stable hole. The voodoo queen’s tomb was covered in graffitied Xes (sign of voodoo) and covered in plastic bead necklaces, bottles, candy, and similar junk put there by voodoo practitioners. At the center of the cemetery there’s a huge monument for the tombs of an italian regiment, topped by an angel, which was the setting of a bad LSD trip scene in easy rider (my guide tells me). Many of the tombs were crumbling, more and more resembling piles of brick.

I had the opportunity to walk to the Ninth Ward, which is notorious for having being hit the hardest by Katrina. To get there I crossed Bywater, a nice neighbourhood of smaller but colourful and well-kept houses, which is well on its way to attain hipster status.

As I was walking, the neighbourhood became gradually more desolate, houses looking more and more decrepit. You saw houses which had a not quite straight roof, lots of boarded up houses. The neighbourhood was probably not rich to start with. Rumor has it that many of the locals have not received the help they needed to fix it, and some have been not-so-gently nudged away from New Orleans, powers that be thinking that the city might be better off without them. People there (exclusively african americans) were still friendly and had a ‘Good Evening’ to spare for me (even though it was 2pm, but hey).

In fact, Ninth Ward is not the only neighborhood in this position. A taxi driver pointed out lesser and better neighborhoods to me as we were driving, and apparently there’s really this alternation of decent and ghetto, with the lesser neighborhoods still in a bad state from Katrina. Those neighbourhoods are of course even worse off than before, since empty, boarded up houses attract squatters, and scare away any businesses. He said that the taxi companies are taking as many security measures as possible when sending people in there.

A lot of contrast between the really vibrant, colorful New Orleans, and the blighted parts of the city.

Sunday the weather changed somewhat from the fantastic blue skies we’d had all week: clouds rolled in, and the weather became somewhat muggy. Today it’s raining, in fact. I’m going to leave for Natchez, where I hope to see a couple of plantation houses and maybe some nature. I’m hoping to drive through Bayou country on the way.

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