The first time I flew United was in the early 1990’s, around about the time United planes used to lose parts of their fuselage mid-flight, like luggage hold doors and wing flaps. We used to joke that you could get to Australia from the Us without auto pilot – just follow the debris trail across the Pacific. But now, as then, all went smoothly and acceptably if you count hurricanes as acts of God. So we are here.
I’ve decided after about three hours, that New Orleans is my spiritual home. That three hours comprised 1 hour to get our (unlost, thankfully) luggage at the airport and drive into town to our hotel on Bourbon Street. Then get into the hotel and get out of the clothes we’ve been in for the last couple of days (1 hour) and get into the street and check the place out. So late afternoon/early evening there are numerous bands playing a wide variety of music in numerous bars and clubs they tend to go from mid afternoon to about 6.00pm then someone else takes over. The early shift comprise a lot of children of the sixties and seventies (Iike me) and grey ponytails are ubiquitous. Hence the spiritual home reference. I could retire and do that for the rest of my days no worries. Of course, that’s in another life in a parallel universe because other commitments tend to mitigate against this. But one can dream.
Wandering down Bourbon Street was an experience. We had been told that crime is rife here (we were told the same about Capetown) and there were plenty of layabouts making pretty pathetic attempts to get their scams going but they mostly left us alone. Even I could see that there were eminently more muggable people wandering the streets than us. I had left my glasses in the room as I only had two pockets (wallet and phone) and it was sunny so the sunglasses won. So even staring at a street menu like Mr Magoo trying to distinguish letters from numbers, didn’t attract unsavoury attention.
The souvenir shops here are insane. Our driver, coming in from the airport, told us there are pretty much no rules in this place. If you have to act a certain way elsewhere, reverse it here. So the souvenir shop had plastic models of a girl blowing a crocodile and the crocodile doing unmentionable things to her from behind. Someone I know is getting one of these. And I have only seen similar messages to the ones here on t-shirts in Korea but the artwork here is infinitely more ornate.
This place is a critical cultural observer’s (that’s what I call myself) paradise. So plenty more to come.