All sorts of strangeness…being in a city after all the time in the woods, and seeing New Orleans’ cultivated shabbiness run amok. The collegey/yuppie neighborhood with the Whole Foods (where we reprovisioned) was lovely, and Bourbon Street is pretty much as I remember it (Jazz ain’t that “smooth and lite” crap on the radio!), but many of downtown’s big buildings are clearly storm-damaged and Canal Street is full of boarded-up businesses. The ‘hood, squalid before, is now unspeakably depressing where there are people and eerie where the only lights are streetlights and headlights.
I’m sure we’ll have lots of photos to post tomorrow…now gotta get ready for checkout.