The Big Easy

In fact during my first few days I wasn't very impressed with New Orleans. I was walking around in the French Quarter looking at the old houses and reading about their, grand or brutal, past. My host took me to bars at the infamous Burbon street - a street i had crossed earlier at day, dismissing it as a tourist trap and a place for partying school kids and other immature figures. The bars were actually just as bad as I had suspected...

The oldest part of New Orleans, the French Quarter, is actually hardley affected by Katrina. The only dammage was storm damage, but it was never flooded. the reason for this is that it is also the highest part of town, and the water never reached that high (they were smart the first settlers). The more people that setteled in town, the lower they had to go, and most of town is actually built under sea level. There are some parts of town there are still destroyed and you can still see the markings that the rescue squad did to show that they had searched a house: the date, the initials of the squad leader and the amount of dead people they found in the house (so that the next patrol knew where thay needed to collect bodies from). These markings show on almost every building in the area - even those where people still live. Sometimes they keep it as a memory, sometimes it's gone through the paint.

Banksey remaining

The first night that I came we went to a really cool place far away from the tourist areas. My host picked me up in the messiest car I have ever seen so far! So many americans seem to live in their car - someone living in LA will probably spend at least 1½ hour going to work, and as long to get home, every day! As everyone driverstheir own car, most people rarely have pasengers, and so they have a tendency to have loads of food-related stuff in their cars. This though was the messiest thing I've seen so far. Even though he cleared the passenger seat from stuff (old socks, a towel, som work related stuff...) I sat on flyers for concerts taking place tomorrow, yesterday, and five months ago, on take out packageing and on tubes of fake blood.

But to return to the subject: Monday nights at this place meant free dinner (red beans and rice). More importantly however, it meant that musical locals came and played bluegrass together. They were great, and it felt as though I was in the real US country side with hay and cowboy boots - though noone was wearing boots or smelled like hay (as far as I know).

Woodo-drottningens grav

All my American friends talk about how wonderfull thanksgiving is. They all seem to mean that it's their favorite holliday, and then they always mention that they eat obscene amounts of food. I figured that it must be like christmas, but without the gift-hysteria, and withbetter food: I was rather excited about the whole thing.From not having any thanksgiving plans at all just a few days before, I suddenly ended up with two dinners. As I knew I had two dinners I took it easy at number one and was mainly social. Before number two, the girl hosting it called me and said that the plans were changed. "We are all", she said, "invited to a restaurant that does thanksgiving for their friends and family". Her own thanksgivingsdinner would be the next day. Sudenly I'm up for three dinners and the one at the reaturant was just... indescribable. Ireally wanted to try everything and am planning my plate as to have stomach space left for the desserts (pecan pie, apple pie deluxe, sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie) but as I turn to go to the table where we are sitting I see that there's another table behind me with at least as much food on! I was very, very... very full that night. For a short while i was even afraid I'd receive the same fate as King Adolf Fredrik (who got a stroke and died from overeating).

One night someone asked me if "bzzzzz bzzz (noise) Baton Rouge bzzzz tomorrow?" I of course said "ok" without more information. The next day I am being showed around the university and park of New Orleans by a very enthusiestisk guide before we headed of to Baton Rouge to watch a football game with some South africans. When they heard that I was heading to Australia their reaction was "why would you want to go to Australia?" Anyhow, the night was good and we won the football game in a nerv tickling overtime. How Baton Rouge is? I don't know. I only saw it's football stadium, a stinky lake, and a bar with loads of happy fans.

Another brass band at the street

The observation of the week:
"The big easy" does actually not refer to the laid back life style in New Orleans - though you might think so, but to the musicians. New Orleans was allways a big music city and it was "a big easy" for musicians to get jobs here.