New Orleans Impressions

Got back from last week’s trip to New Orleans early on Friday morning. This was my first time in New Orleans, so it was interesting to see an area that I had heretofore only read about and seen on TV. I had a mix of impressions from the city.

The first night I was there I took a walk from my hotel over to the French Quarter. I mean, that’s the place in New Orleans you’re supposed to visit, right? It was only about a mile walk. On the way I passed a rather large Harrah’s casino which I understand to be new development since Katrina two years ago. Didn’t go in, but wow, that thing was big.

The near edge of the French Quarter was Canal Street. It is big, glitzy, lots of neon and expensive shops. It reminded me a little bit of Michigan Avenue in Chicago. It’s a big wide street that includes tracks for the streetcars. Once you walk up it for several blocks, you get to Bourbon Street. This is the one you always hear about during Mardi Gras, right? So I figured it’s worth a visit.

In comparison to the broad, upscale Canal Street, Bourbon Street is narrow and scuzzy. There is very little variety to the shops on the street; the basic repeating pattern is souvenir shop, beer joint, strip club, restaurant. There may be a few extra beer joints mixed in for good measure – it’s legal to have an open container on the street there, so there is a proliferation of lemonade-stand-type beer vendors. Eesh.

I did find some good food on Bourbon Street – the jambalaya from Remoulade was excellent (though the pecan pie left much to be desired). I almost bought one of their t-shirts (I was thinking the Craw Dad one) but finally decided that I already have too many t-shirts, I don’t need another one. Then I wandered up and down the street again looking for some good live music places. I found a couple, I’ll write specifically about the music in a separate blog post. So yeah, I visited Bourbon Street. Suffice it to say I wasn’t impressed. Seeing what it was like on an early Tuesday evening in the middle of summer, I can only imagine how much of a drunken orgy it is during Mardi Gras.

The last day of the trip I had a few hours before my flight so I drove east on I-10 towards Slidell and then up around Lake Ponchartrain and across the amazing Causeway (longest bridge in the world!) back to New Orleans. I was astonished at how much damage is still left from Hurricane Katrina. Even though it’s been two full years since Katrina hit, the devastation is still painfully evident. Not so much in New Orleans proper, but once you get out on I-10 towards Slidell… wow. You would think that repair activities would’ve focused on the areas around the interstate, but there is still so much damage… buildings boarded up, nice houses and apartments with tarps still over the roof; then you go past a field that obviously used to be mostly forest, and now it’s just a field of 8-foot-tall trunks with the tops twisted off. So sad. Two full years later, and still this much mess?

Before I finish this post, a word about the Causeway: amazing. Over 20 miles long. The visibility wasn’t great that afternoon (a storm was rolling in), so there was definitely some time in the middle of the bridge when you couldn’t see anything but water no matter which direction you looked. So cool.

So that was New Orleans. Next month: Seattle. Hoping to meet some old and new friends while I’m up there.