If Houston is business, then New Orleans is pleasure. It's not quite as extreme as it suggests, but there's some truth in my title. Another rellie is in NOLA and we will have Christmas here this year. We drove down through flat country on a busy highway with its numerous off-ramps and considerable water, bayous and the like. Lunch was at a burger chain and coffee again disappointing in some service station, driving into NOLA on inevitable overpasses but into the delightful Garden district, developed sometime in the mid-1800s from plantations and our Airbnb is on popular Magazine street with eateries and antique and artisan shops and our pad is of the authenticity of the period despite a service station across the road. Not sure the pics do Magazine St justice. There's no music around despite the NOLA reputation but you could imagine just hanging here and we did for a day-or-so. Eating too much, hanging in a bar, meeting the neighbour (lovely) and a costume designer who was just working on a series in New Zealand but otherwise lives in LA and came from NOLA and still owns a house just around the corner. Another neighbour. And various visitors and locals, here for a party or a protest. People are friendly down South. Interesting to photograph political posters one night and note they are gone next morning. Fun to find trivial, cheap antiques to buy that Megan just confirms will go in my room, as further inspirations when inventing my Pots ingenuities. And discovering the difference between Creole and cajun and just what's too ricey and what's not. Hint: one local upmarket restaurant offers Haute Creole. And some of the Afro-American hairstyles are to die for. And there's a touristy streetcar to take to the rest of NOLA when we get over these inviting local pleasantries.
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