New Orleans

i'm in new orleans, or new awluns as its almost universally pronunced, and its raining. i mean really raining - theres a storm blowing and the water is falling in sheets so everything is pretty much sodden. its beautiful. yesterday and today were only the 2nd and 3rd days its rained since ive been in the states and ive been missing it. the climate here is, of course, that of an indian summer. actually new orleans is awesome and i could stay a lot longer here except im spending far too much money on food and records and going out. i'll start with the food. its sooo good. i had a binge yesterday so that i could tell you all about it. i guess the most famous creole dish (creole meaning a new orlean native of any descent) is gumbo which is a thick seafood stew. its tasty. even better is jumbalaya, which is gumbo which extra rica and meat. basically all cajun/creole food is based around chuck it all in and shovel it all up. i had the best chicken i have ever tasted, so juicy on the inside, so light and crispy on the out. you can also get these things called beignets which are like square hot doughnuts and they dump about an inch of icing sugar on them so that after eating it looks like you;ve just rubbed your face in a pile of cocaine. crayfish are the other big new orleans thing and although they are in essence a poor mans crab, they are qite fun to eat as you have to suck the flesh out of the claws. theres quite a good louisana amber beer called abita too. teah so i could quite easily just stay there two weeks eating food.

on to the music. i caught a reggae band, a funk band and a jazz-funk band so there was a little bit of jazz in there. thing is, new orleans is such a melting pot of musicians, and its pretty small tha all the different sounds interact. the best example of this is zydeco, which is the indigoneous sound and mixture of cajun folk, rnb, jazz and blues. theres also a whole genre of carnival music. youtube professeur longhair who i guess was the most famous proponant of it and is an awesome pianist. everyone dances to live music here, which of course i approve of. the jazz-funk band did a cover of rappers delight which sounds like it might be cheesy but was actually impressive and they carried it on for the full 11 minutes or whatever. also its a remarkably intergrated and welcoming scene with people of all ages and races. i dont this whole new orleans is dangerous shtick. the place has excellent vibes and is certainly a lot safer than LA (although practically anywhere is). i think perhaps attitutes have improved since katrina. its a good time to visit new orleans i think, as a lot renewal is going on. all of the historic districts - not just the french quarter but a very large quotient of the city is on preservation lists - were left undamged by the hurricane. theres a bit of a conspiracy theory about this actually because they were all saved due to the fact the levees broke and wiped out all the poorer outlying neighbourhoods instead and some reckon this was deliberate.

to the south in new orleans theres blocks and blocks of victorian mansions increasing in size. the french quarter itself, confusingly spainish colonial in style, although not as romatically tumble down as it once was, is also very beautiful. hordes of tourists become somewhat grating after a while but thankfully theres planty of other places to hang out. i'd really like to come back to the city during jazz fest or, even better, at mardi gras. mardi gras makes notting hill look, weel, lame. the coastumes are amazing and again its racially mixed (yay). the floats traditionally through cups, painted coconuts and beads to the crowds. my hostel was decorated with thousands of these beads. apparently 300 people are employed year round in china making them. also in new orleans you get to ride the streetcar (as in a streetcar named desire). its a tram so god knows why they call it that. its a bit like calling a bus a roadtrain or something. and the things are always late because everyone here is very laid back about everything. the whole of the south is a bit like that. its a heat thing, but new orleans especially they call the big easy.