From There to Here

New Orleans is pretty freaking awesome, I must say. Yesterday was a long day, with leaving the house at 5 a.m., getting to New Orleans around 11:00 a.m., being in sessions until 5:30 p.m. and doing the dinner and drinks thing until well after midnight. But I’ve got 10 impressions on New Orleans because, hell, it’s just a nice round number.

1. It’s hot here. Really hot. As hot as it is back home, the humidity here makes all the difference. 80 in Massachusetts is not 80 in New Orleans. 80 in New Orleans is like 100 in Massachusetts. Everything is stick, humid, hot. As soon as you step outside from an air conditioned hotel, bar, etc., it’s really hot. I think this is why my room is a suite and while the door thing says the cost should be $475 a night, I’m sleeping there for $79 a night. I’m sure the voting organization running this convention got a special deal because of a big room block, but still, it’s really hot. I can’t see too many tourists coming into town at this point, especially since the Saints/Hornets aren’t playing and not much else is going on. And, oh yeah, it’s a Wednesday night.

2. Why does every airport south of (and not including) Atlanta have palm trees at their airport? I didn’t see one damn palm tree in all of New Orleans, yet, when you get off the plane, there are the palm trees at Louis Armstrong Airport. Same deal in Fort Myers, although the city has more palm trees (especially near City of Palms Park and McGregor Blvd) than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. McGregor is ridiculous, as royal palms just line the whole street. But Palms? In New Orleans? Eh. Just hand out beers.

3. Eggplant sandwiches are apparently a thing in New Orleans. And look closely. Because if you look quickly, the eggplant can look like some kind of meat and you can be disappointed thoroughly. I don’t think I need to explain that I learned the hard way.

4. In all the times we’ve been doing these conferences, whether they’re ours or another organizations, my room has never been ready early. Most of my colleagues usually have no problem, but I’m never able to check in until the official check-in time or later. Not at the Maison Dupuy, which I couldn’t speak more highly of. Not only was I able to check-in early (check-in time is at 4 p.m., but I was in my room before noon), but I was given a suite. I’m not sure why I got the upgrade, and I didn’t have a balcony overlooking the pool like some other people, but shit — I had a suite. Probably the nicest hotel room I’ve ever had on one of these trips, although the one in Western Massachusetts was excellent as well.

DC, hey, it was a room, but nothing special. So much so, I wasn’t even motivated to take pictures of it. And the huge mirror on the wall seemed a little sketch to me.

The room:

5. It’s fun to come together with people from all over the country at these conferences and hearing all the different ideas, methods, frustrations, successes, and hell, even accents. It’s just something I’ve been noticing from two weeks ago in DC through this one, it’s really interesting to hear that things you’ve been trying are working other places too, and maybe you’re around the corner from doing something really great. I also think it’s still crazy that you can wake up, fly to New Orleans, and six hours after you leave your home, you’re not only in another state, but all the way at the south end of the United States. Amazing.

6. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get to this, but there is NO OPEN CONTAINER LAW IN NEW ORLEANS. Basically, anything goes. There are places that serve beer outside with little more than a keg set up on the side of the road. The title refers to this because other than making sure tourists don’t get mugged, I don’t know what the NOPD really has to enforce on the streets (NOthing, probably). Someone mentioned they do get kind of mad if you go to the bathroom in public, and I imagine that guy found out the hard way. But buying beer on the streets is totally legal, as is drinking it, and this serves as a reminder:

7. This was something I couldn’t get over. You walk into a bar, order a drink, and the bartender asks you if you want your beer “FOR HERE OR TO GO.” Umm, I’ll take it to go, please, and then you’re walking around outside while drinking a beer. It’s just awesome. At one point on Wednesday, four of us (two from Minnesota, one from Colorado and me from Massachusetts) grabbed beers and drank them outside while standing next to the Mississippi River. A pretty awesome experience.

We did get some from “HUGE ASS BEERS TO GO.” What a name for a place.

8. Bourbon Street is fun, but it’s ridiculous. I don’t know how I could spend much more time there and not go absolutely crazy though. It’s fun for a few days, but I think a party every night would get to be way too much for me. I love to go out, but sometimes, you want that quiet time. I wonder how much of that I’d actually be able to find if I was in the French Quarter all the time. One of the best things, though, is there’s always something different. One night, we walked all the way down Bourbon until it ended at Canal, and there was a big street party going on with a jazz group playing on the sidewalk. I threw them some money just because I was so in awe of how well they were playing, how they seemed to be drawing a big crowd and just having a great time. Wish there was more of that kind of atmosphere in Boston sometimes.

9. Street performers will not give you directions, take a picture with you or do anything else unless they’re paid, which is different from Boston, where the same annoying people are playing the same bad music in the T station every day. Maybe they should take a cue from the New Orleans people. Here, a leprechaun stands outside a bar. Is it Lucky? Perhaps. But he’s not doing slam dunks off a trampoline through a basketball hoop.

10. New Orleans and the French Quarter is just a fun as hell time. There’s a lot of open-air bars, which I’m a big fan of, and we really had a great time. That having been said, I don’t know if I could live there. Maybe for half the year, but June/July/August are hot as hell, and I was constantly sweating while walking from bar to bar. It’s just damn hot there a lot. Although, save the weather, I had an absolute blast on Wednesday. We ended up the night at Razzoo, on Bourbon, and it was a pretty good time hanging out there. Here’s a picture (not mine) of the outside area where we chilled.

Tomorrow won’t be fun in the same sense. We’re doing a tour of the Katrina devastation, and while it will no doubt be interesting and probably stunning, it will also be a much sadder time. Hopefully, seeing the conditions that low-income people lived through and are still dealing with will help center us for the work we need to do when we get home.