N'awlins on my mind.
I made a donation to the relief effort this week. Christ United Methodist Church in Jackson (on Old Canton Road) is serving as a distribution center for items. They particularly need water, non-perishable foods, and baby items. They weren't accepting any more clothing or toys this week; they said that they had plenty of both for now, and that they needed the space for other essentials. The Jackson coliseum is still housing about 300 evacuees; I was told by a Red Cross employee there that most other evacuees have been moved to churches and other shelters. The coliseum is now serving as a staging ground to ship supplies to the Gulf coast.
I've been thinking about New Orleans this week. I took my little sister down there last Christmas, just for fun. We stayed in a tony room at the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street. (You would have never known you were in the middle of the French Quarter. Our room was so quiet at night, save for the drunken revelers stumbling back to the adjoining room.) We also ate a wonderful dinner at Arnaud's; we chose the pre-fixed menu, enjoying shrimp and stuffed mushrooms, crisp salads, sauteed fish, and strawberries Romanoff, all for a bargain price. We went to see the Christmas lights display in the city park, voting for the running dinosaur as our favorite display. (He wasn't very Christmasy, but he sure was cool.) We also visited the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel, which was decorated lavishly for the holiday season with lit trees, fake snow, a life-sized gingerbread house, and Santa's sleigh. We ate oysters at Felix's, strolled Magazine Street, and visited the Cabildo. We even had puffy, sugary beignets at Cafe du Monde. My little sister was only 20 on our last visit, so we couldn't get into alot of the bars in the quarter. I had promised her that we'd go back this year, so she could enjoy some of the live music and taste a few of the city's hallmark liquid concoctions.
When my husband and I visited New Orleans, we usually ended up at the Aquarium of the Americas. We were both fascinated by the place, and we especially loved the plexiglass tunnel that took visitors inside one of the huge tanks there. Although the building itself did not sustain major damage from Hurricane Katrina, I've learned that most of the fish in the aquarium didn't make it. I can't tell you how sad I am about that. I've resolved to make a donation to help the aquarium recover from their losses.
I am probably like many of the other people who loved to visit New Orleans. Once I determined that all of the people I knew in the city were safely evacuated, I began to think things like, "Did at least one of the Madeline's make it? What about HerbSaint? How did the zoo fare?" There are places in New Orleans that I savor each time I visit. They are like old friends to me, and I hope that they survived. Then there are the places that I hadn't been able to visit yet, things I had not yet done. I want to tour the D-Day Museum. As hokey as it sounds, I still want to take one of those guided walks through a New Orleans cemetery. And I want to listen to jazz at Preservation Hall. (The line is always so long when I visit. I've never once gotten in!)
I've heard much talk about rebuilding New Orleans, and the politicos on television have debated whether it's wise to rebuild a city that sits below sea level. I'm aware that most of the "tourist" area of New Orleans sits above sea level, and that residential areas around that are what seem to be sinking further into the Louisiana wetlands with each passing year. Some engineers have even suggested rebuilding residential areas in different areas, where they would be more secure, and establishing an efficient public transportation system to ferry people back and forth each day. Others want to reconstruct the city just as it was, with reinforced levees.
Either way, when New Orleans is open for business again, I will be waiting. I still owe my sister a return trip.
I've been thinking about New Orleans this week. I took my little sister down there last Christmas, just for fun. We stayed in a tony room at the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street. (You would have never known you were in the middle of the French Quarter. Our room was so quiet at night, save for the drunken revelers stumbling back to the adjoining room.) We also ate a wonderful dinner at Arnaud's; we chose the pre-fixed menu, enjoying shrimp and stuffed mushrooms, crisp salads, sauteed fish, and strawberries Romanoff, all for a bargain price. We went to see the Christmas lights display in the city park, voting for the running dinosaur as our favorite display. (He wasn't very Christmasy, but he sure was cool.) We also visited the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel, which was decorated lavishly for the holiday season with lit trees, fake snow, a life-sized gingerbread house, and Santa's sleigh. We ate oysters at Felix's, strolled Magazine Street, and visited the Cabildo. We even had puffy, sugary beignets at Cafe du Monde. My little sister was only 20 on our last visit, so we couldn't get into alot of the bars in the quarter. I had promised her that we'd go back this year, so she could enjoy some of the live music and taste a few of the city's hallmark liquid concoctions.
When my husband and I visited New Orleans, we usually ended up at the Aquarium of the Americas. We were both fascinated by the place, and we especially loved the plexiglass tunnel that took visitors inside one of the huge tanks there. Although the building itself did not sustain major damage from Hurricane Katrina, I've learned that most of the fish in the aquarium didn't make it. I can't tell you how sad I am about that. I've resolved to make a donation to help the aquarium recover from their losses.
I am probably like many of the other people who loved to visit New Orleans. Once I determined that all of the people I knew in the city were safely evacuated, I began to think things like, "Did at least one of the Madeline's make it? What about HerbSaint? How did the zoo fare?" There are places in New Orleans that I savor each time I visit. They are like old friends to me, and I hope that they survived. Then there are the places that I hadn't been able to visit yet, things I had not yet done. I want to tour the D-Day Museum. As hokey as it sounds, I still want to take one of those guided walks through a New Orleans cemetery. And I want to listen to jazz at Preservation Hall. (The line is always so long when I visit. I've never once gotten in!)
I've heard much talk about rebuilding New Orleans, and the politicos on television have debated whether it's wise to rebuild a city that sits below sea level. I'm aware that most of the "tourist" area of New Orleans sits above sea level, and that residential areas around that are what seem to be sinking further into the Louisiana wetlands with each passing year. Some engineers have even suggested rebuilding residential areas in different areas, where they would be more secure, and establishing an efficient public transportation system to ferry people back and forth each day. Others want to reconstruct the city just as it was, with reinforced levees.
Either way, when New Orleans is open for business again, I will be waiting. I still owe my sister a return trip.
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