Lagniappe!
WEEZIEANNA. In 1988 I went to
New Orleans, the Crescent City, to the
NEW ORLEANS JAZZFEST for the
first time. Jazzfest is, by far, the best, greatest, biggest musical
arena for listening to American music of all flavors: Cajun, Zydeco,
Jazz, Dixieland, Country, Rock, Blues, Gospel, if there's a music style,
somebody's playing it at Jazzfest.
Now I live on the northshore of Lake Pontchartrain so my annual pilgrimage to hear
the music & share the lagniappe will be a lot less miles.
But N'Orleans isn't just Jazzfest, the city has incredible character! To me, it has an aura of mystery that feeds my spirit. It makes me think of the old adage "if rooms could talk," well that's kind of how New Orleans feels to me, if this old city could talk....
N'Orleans smells like gardenias and
magnolias; has the sultry feel of mystery and masks;
and is one of the only cities in the country
where streetcars still take you up and down St. Charles Avenue
past some of the nicest parts of the city: Audubon Zoo,
Tulane and Loyola universities, and the Garden District, where sit some of
the most beautiful antebellum homes in the city
and some of the most unusual cemeteries as well. Here,
tombs of the departed are
interned above ground because
the water table is high.
Cemeteries are known as "Cities of the Dead."
When you go into N'Orleans by train, crossing over Lake Pontchartrain, you'll see acres and acres of mausoleums. And there's Voodoo in N'Orleans. Marie Laveau lived here.
In the Garden District lives Anne Rice, the wonderful, wonderful Anne Rice, and on the balcony of her home on First Street sits a *HUGE* statue of a German Shepherd, which may very well have belonged to Lestat, but then I'm just guessing.
Then there's City Park, where swans reside besides lots of trees. But then that's part of what's so great about this whole area. There's still trees everywhere. Big old oaks with moss and magnolia trees and even palm trees, not to mention the pines and firs, but there's probably more of them on the northside and more palms on the south.
And, of course, there's the
French Quarter,
the Vieux Carre: set your sights for mega views of all sorts of
wondrous scenes like
Jackson Square's Cafe du Monde,
the sad-hatted mules pulling the
carriages through the streets of the Quarter, the street musicians
and mimes who hand out beads for tips, the white-faced street urchins who troll
the streets, the artists who paint portraits and city scenes, the myriad shops,
restaurants, $3 multi-flavored
daiqairis, hurricanes and mint juleps, the city with more personality than many
cities twice its size,
and all of this overwhelmed by the gaggles
of tourons who overpopulate
the streets of the Vieux Carre like nutria in the
bayous.