New Orleans

The morning I left for New Orleans I was very hungover or maybe still drunk. I had shared a bottle of wine with a friend and when my roommate came home we all had another big glass. I went to bed at 2am and had to wake up at 3am so there were bad decisions coming in from all sides. Luckily I had packed already because when my roommate knocked on my door it was 3:30am and the cab had arrived. I had time to throw on some clothes and rush out the door. The flight down to New Orleans was...woozy. It was sunny and 70 when we arrived and I found myself in the midst of a wonderful weekend. I want to tell you all about it but I'm afraid it will turn into a bunch of "and then's..." and that could get boring. I'll try to keep it interesting. My problem is that I like to focus on the details and I really want to make you feel like you were there, or at least have an idea of what my weekend was like but that's hard to achieve when there is so much to tell.

Let me tell you what kind of vacationer I am. A lazy one. I'm happy enough just to be in a different place so making plans and actually venturing around aren't too important to me but that kind of defeats the purpose of traveling. Thankfully my roommate is the exact opposite so she made the plans and I either followed or made small adjustments and off we went. My main goal was to eat and get some beads on Bourbon Street and I accomplished both. I ate crawfish pies, poboys, jambalaya and gumbo and managed to get 4 strings of beads. The first was simply placed around my head by a drunk man and the following three were thrown from a balcony Mardi Gras style minus me having to show my boobs. I just asked for them. The biggest culture shock came from seeing people drinking all over the city. Just walking down the sidewalk with a beer in hand. Walking into a bar and asking for a to-go cup. It's a different world down there.

And then I saw the Mississippi River. It was massive, brown and littered with barges.
And then I went to the wedding and there was a gospel choir and it was beautiful.
And then I went to the reception and it was candlelit and they played 'Sweet Caroline' and I missed Boston, but only for a second.
And then I danced in a random restaurant with my roommate at 3 in the morning and no one seemed to mind.
And then I went to the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone where so many famous writers have visited and I felt close to them.
And then I was on the plane back to Boston looking out at the sky with it's setting sun, thinking I have never seen anything so beautiful as a sky filled with colors. A sky full of rainbows and nothing else.

I always have a hard time leaving a vacation. I spent the most money in our last hour in New Orleans because I was hoarding. Trying to take as much of New Orleans back with me. It was all just so beautiful and the family I met who used to be strangers made me feel like family. They were some of the nicest and loveliest people I have ever met.

As my roommate and I left Logan airport and boarded the T I told her how I was always envious of those people with their luggage because it meant that they had just come back from somewhere fun. Somewhere different. She laughed at me and told me that I say such funny things. That we think so differently. But as I sat there with my luggage and memories of NOLA all I felt was sad and tired. I knew it couldn't last forever but it kind of hurts to carry around these memories and know that they are in the past now. I'm being melodramatic. I'm lucky to have been able to have gone and I can certainly return some day. I can't wait.

Now that I am back in Boston I can feel the water start to inch up around me again. That's the thing with water- it rises. Water can give and it can take away. I saw some evidence of it's power while I was in New Orleans by the water marks still seen on some of the buildings. The framed photographs slightly distorted from water damage. Walking down the street and knowing that it was once engulfed. But the water eventually lowers.

We all face disasters. Our own personal hurricanes. And we will never forgot them- even when rainbows fill the sky.