Katrina's Ghost

13 November 2007 Today,

after breakfast of hot home-made brewed coffee and krispy kreme (leftover from last night… and yes, we know what you’re thinking but we’re on holiday, so shush! Haha!), we were ready for our long drive to the State of Louisianna. Manong Tom & cousin Grace left a note on the bench to let us know they’d gone to pick the rental car up (to save Tundra the mileage, sensible). We played with Boolinzky while we waited. They came back with a brand new Grand Cherokee Jeep (it hasn’t even got a proper license plate).

kanootz likes TRUCKS!

NASA - the actual ship that landed on the moon

They arrived, we hopped on board and before we knew it, we were passing ‘Beautiful Alabama’ already. We drove through Mobile City towards Mississippi, enjoying the view of the lengthy Mississippi river. From the car, it all looks like little patches of marshy grassland. In actual fact, the river is covered in reeds and seen on aerial view (from a plane or by google map), the river's massive snake-like path becomes more recognizable... Manong Tom is choir director of their home church; so naturally, we sang throughout the driving day. Inspired by the Mississippi river, he taught us to harmonize to a song with words that go "Michael rowed the boat ashore" or something... memory's not too good on this one.

Skyline New Orleans

After about 3 hours, we finally got our first sight of New Orleans’ skyline.

Mardi-gras baby!

Soon, we were in the city centre. Manong Tom parked by the main road so we could go for a walk around the city. New Orleans feels terribly empty despite several businesses obviously trying to get things going.

Bourbon lane post-Katrina

It had a distinct smell… not just an old city smell but one that tells you no matter how oblivious you are of Katrina’s coming and going some time ago, that something terrible had happened to this city. Nevertheless, the point of traveling is taking in every bit of the experience – from the fine and posh to the nitty gritties.

cable car - working one

Therefore, we walked on. Manong Tom led us to the French Quarter. The buildings are still very much reminiscent of the city’s French colonization. We walked along Bourbon St which was famous for its Jazz players, mardi-gras parties, cabarets as well as all sorts of cheap (in all the word’s connotations) entertainment. All in all, New Orleans was for us an eye opener. Where have all the people gone? Nobody knows, apparently. Such is the power of nature to dictate the course that human beings and all of civilization run through.

Katrina's ghost

It’s been a long day but not a dull one. We learned a lot today: about the lives of other human beings; the speculated future of a devastated city; about the characters of our host couple – whom we are coming to respect even more each day; and about ourselves in the midst of all this traveling.

untouched by Katrina

Tomorrow is going to be sort of a rest day. Cousin Grace has an engineering conference to go to (of which she is the presiding officer… well done! Proud of you!). Manong Tom has some appointments to go to so he will be dropping us off for a walk around the local mall.

the point is... Popeye's chicken!

New Orleans, United States