I love New Orleans. It's beautiful yet ugly. Has great music and food, beautiful parks and some of the worst public schools in the nation but also prestigious colleges. It's still being rebuilt from Katrina, because everything goes slow in NOLA and if you don't have the money there you don't have the power (even more so than your usual city). It's a lovely little contradiction of a place, with 24 hour everythings. Going past my old apartment I found myself wishing I had never left it. But I did, so that's that.
The plan was to stay in New Orleans a week doing some work on houses that were being rebuilt.
My plans changed for various reasons but Ted stayed. Not sure how his house fixing has gone since I flew up to NC, but the day I did it was fun, though frustrating. I did detail work. Sanded things, painted things, scrubbed things, filled small cracks, laid down no-slip grippers, etc. Tedious work that somehow left me sore from being bent over in awkward positions.
I don't feel much like blogging, so I'm resorting to lists.
***Things I learned while in New Orleans this time around:
- Only 1% of the city's public school students are caucasion.
- Teacher/student ratio in some parishes is as high as 1teacher to 50-60 students.
- The flooding was not due to the levees breaking, but by shoddy development on various levels.
- Crime rate the same though the population is still over 100,000 less than when I lived there.
- The streetcars on St Charles still can't stop for cars well. Signs should be posted about that.
- If someone bets you a dollar that they can guess where you got your shoes, don't do it. They'll say "the shoe store" and you'll be either out a dollar or a liar.
- Cafe Du Monde is still the best cafe in all the world. I love chicory and beignets
- My palmist says I need to not worry so much or over analyze things.
- Jazz bars with no cover charges and good musicians make up the costs by charging ridiculous prices for their drinks, and there is a one drink minimum. Don't be fooled, it's not worth it.
- Cities that are falling apart in the south are even more beautiful than the immaculate ones.
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